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The woman stared around her as she was trapped in a barrier.

"What the hell?!" she yelled. She eyed Rath through the near transparent shield. Who was this man? She didn't recall him... Then again, hadn't she seen him somewhere? She glanced around her. How was she to destroy this shield?

"Who the hell are you?" She commanded. She realized after a moment that she had bigger problems. If she was trapped, she could be beaten. She couldn't let that happen. She lifted her staff and prepared to cast rewarp. This was a losing battle. Too many people were dying around her. She decided to retreat..
Margarette was terribly disappointed in herself. She couldn't even kill one stupid little Sage.

She told herself there would be time for destroying these people when she had a better advantage.

...And just like that, Jyoti was finished, destroyed by the powers of Nature. The... heron? with gray wings laid her at Misura's side, looking remorseful for what he'd just done. Rhys... couldn't feel such guilt. He'd fought enemy after enemy, slain soldier after soldier after bandit after mercenary after soldier after villain after villain after soldier. After all this time, it was... difficult to feel remorse. Just... thankful that their enemies were now dead and gone. He had to wonder for a moment just how much humanity he really had...

But no, there would be time to doubt his humanity later. Loch had left Jyoti's tome, Antaram, behind as the Valkyrie fell. And here was the tome itself, now lying at his feet.

On the one hand, Jyoti had never actually given up the tome... she had retained possession of it into death, and stealing from the dead didn't feel right to Rhys.

...On the other hand... Weapons? Armor? The dead had no use for such things.

It was with this in mind that Rhys gently picked up Antaram. Jyoti might be gone, but her legacy would endure through him. But, who was left? Castello appeared to have passed on... Misura and Jyoti were finished... Evelyn was nowhere to be seen... Teifi had died well beforehand... Ledreak and Kyros were engaged in fights of their own (You'd better win, Amelia! I didn't save my own life just so you could lose yours!)... and Shento was having Melethia's protection, for whatever odd reason.

That left one person... the Sage Domanova. He still remained unchallenged. Granted, it was a bit stupid, challenging Anima with Light... but hey, Rhys had done stupid things before. What was one more stupid thing?

He opened Antaram, and saw the ancient words written inside. The words had been slightly different each time, but he got the feeling the words themselves were just to add more oomph to the spell. Every time she'd used it, she used the same words:

"...Thousand petals, blowing... swirling, eternally... ANTARAM!!"

The beautiful white petals flew forward, striking down morphs in its path. ...Well, more like slapped them silly. The petals themselves weren't all that strong, and the morphs didn't die, but they were definitely moving slower than before after escaping the storm.

Magic all too familiar to Domanova... the petals began circling around him...

Rath didn't speak at first, even after nino spoke to him. He kept his sight upon his enemy. after seeing she rewarped herself to safety, Rath sheathed his blade, and turned around. "You two, come out."

At that moment, two figures emerged from the forest. One was a young boy, though not too young now, who had gone through some changes himself. His green coat now reached down to his knees as well, and his collar rose high around his dark auburn haired head. The sword on his back was a large broad sword, that he had kept from easter. The other was a dark girl, dressed almost entirely in crimson armor. Her boots and shorts, however, we black, as was her torn and ragged skirt-like piece that surrounded the back of her legs. In her hands, was a native-like lance, one of the sharpest and pointiest seen. She turned her head to the man, and her ruby eyes stared sharply at the nomad, as her dreadlocks tangled behind her head. The boy walked to Nino's left, and the woman to Nino's right.

"Deborah, go assist the front lined forces in defeating the enemy. Abel, head to the back lines and locate a healer. Bring that person here, then go help as well."


The boy looked wide-eyed at Rath, longing for something to do. When he received his order, he raised his arm and cheered. "Woo! All right, more action! Don't worry there, miss captain, I'll be back in a flash!" He ran off, to go search.



The woman, however, did nothing. "Fiddy coin. Dat's deh price." After seeing the nomad nod, she then smirked. "Ya give een too easaly, nomad. I woulda gone down tah tirdy." She then ran off, to decimate some morphs.


Rath then looked down at Nino. ".... ...." Not able to look her in the eye, he turned his head out to the battlefield. "...Sorry... That I made you worry." He said, calmly, with that same stoic voice of his. Even after all this time, he hadn't changed hardly at all, when it came down to who he was.

Nino had looked around at the two as they came around her. She nodded, confused, to Abel as he addressed her.

She walked closer to Rath after a moment. "Rath...? It's you." She concluded after hearing what he had said to her. Her eyes filled with tears. She knew he wouldn't talk to her about where he had been.. What he had been doing.

The tears streamed down her face. She couldn't describe how happy she was... "Rath..." She began again.

She shook her head. Rath wouldn't use a lot of words, why should she? She walked over to him and gave him a quick, meaningful hug. "We'll talk later." She managed to choke out.

"Whoa!!"

The Elfire was so intense, that even Aidan felt a gust of hot air come his way! He sprinted towards the group, turning a few ideas over in his brain. Domanova was strong, but he HAD to have some weaknesses, right?

"Maybe I'll be able to work something out," he mumbled to himself as he ran.

As Isadora slashed the morphs, she noticed something flickering. She looked up to see the Sage Hero casting the spell and fired to the group where the Sniper Hero was. Feared of them being burned, Isadora raced toward the group.

It was good that her horse was a speed type. Just as the Elfire was about to hit the group, Isadora leaped in the way and placed her shield in front. The spell collided with her shield, making the force pushing her back. Isadora used her strength to push against it as the fire later evaporated. The paladin turned to her comrades and asked, "Is everyone okay?"

"It was worth a try," Rhys called out in response. And indeed, he wasn't sure if he'd actually do that much damage... between himself and Domanova, this was a very defensive battle. But maybe he could distract the Sage until someone else arrived. They outnumbered the Heroes at this point! And indeed, Blossom and Aidan arrived at the scene.

"Call it a warning shot," he added. But what could he say then? Surrender? When half the heroes were already dead? No. It looked as though Domanova wanted just one thing: To die with honor.

He kicked at a morph behind him, backing up to allow the Divine to hit. "Thanks, Victoria!" he called.

"Blossom--good, you're here..."

Aidan sighed deeply, shaking his head.

"He's holding up really well, actually. I've never seen a sage that powerful before! Can we get some others here to team up against him? Victoria, give us a hand..."