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Calder was on the ground, barely able to move. It was just like before, and he was getting the feeling that in the feeling of safety he should have felt at school, it was all but robbed with the worry that he felt back during the haunted house. They were being robbed that, but it was a wake up call to show that this was no longer the danger they would get when signing up for field trips. Even if they refused, it was now in their school. He could practically see the machines and cages outside the courtyard of their dorms, and not just those he knew, but the entire student body being trapped.

And then, to set an example or because Riley was just the nearest one that wasn't a horseman, the hunter stabbed the ghoul. He wondered first if he knew that Riley was influential to this school as their president. He knew their names after all. Another part wondered, with an even more sickening dread, if another service like Red's would be planned. He didn't want to see anyone turned to stone and ash again.

He tried to get up, but like before, he could barely hold up his own weight, and only shook on his hands and knees before he was forced back down again by the barrier. A knob and yet still so helpless.

Any remaining hope that Thackery had for this situation ending diminished when the master-hunter made his move, presenting an option that would unquestionably mean the destruction of all but the horsemen and their enemy. There was no way they would opt to save the handful of students that had chosen - against their warnings - to follow and fight. They had broken the rules, and this was their punishment.

Shaking and nauseous from the pain, he let himself fall gently onto the ground, gaze still fixed on the scene playing out before them. He couldn't have even imagined something so horrific, the sickening hissing from Riley's wound, her form wavering. Riley, who had done her best to lead them in the right direction, meeting an end that he wouldn't wish upon even a Gorgon. The only hope that he had left was that his own defeat would be swift and painless.

He closed his eyes and waited to cease.

Invictus's eyes burned with the wrath of a thousand suns, his mind like a supernova as it pressed into Riley's mind even as she tried to play hero and sacrifice the other students. It wasn't angry, persay. It was wrathful, hateful. It burned with scorn, disgust, hate. The mindflayer believed she held power in that moment, but the truth was, she was powerless. Completely, and utterly powerless.

YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE IN THIS MATTER, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE POWER TO ALLOW YOUR WORDS OR OPINIONS TO HOLD WEIGHT. THIS IS THE RESULT OF YOUR OVERCONFIDENCE AND YOUR WEAKNESS.

For the students to die here was a ploy that while Riley would have felt empowered them, it did something very different; The last any of these students would have been seen was going into the forest with a figure dressed in Red. Their death would have empowered the Hunters, destroyed Amityville, and been the last straw needed to sully the name of the werewolf who had died for them. Would they have been complacent in death to know they had destroyed everything? Would they?

Of course not.

Which was when Conquest's bow snapped back to it's original form as the bracelet around his wrist, benign, powerless. It would not be used any further in that place, or perhaps even further on beyond that place.

"And this is why others have to suffer for them." Invictus spit underneath his breath. It was quite possible that if the Horsemen and their 'truce' didn't completely destroy them, the student body would have a group of four who would completely destroy them in a rage at the smallest failure, and would hold the greatest hatred over all of them. Possibly.

Time would only tell what the resolution would be, but Invictus had reneged, with only a small amount of time to think about it. Would he be unhappy that those who held little 'value' to him personally were being used as bartering chips? Definitely. In any other scenario, he might have even just allowed them to be destroyed, but no... in this case he needed to keep those. They were his current little..collection, and perhaps this would teach these numbers why they were not prepared.

Or perhaps they could continue to follow the one who believed she held the ability to rule them all and she could lead them right into oblivion. Just because she had the will, did not mean she was necessarily ready for what was to come. No, none of them were. At this case, even if it cost one of the four, it would give these young ones enough time to grow and become a greater force against the hunters...though he had a feeling it wouldn't be that extreme.

"Perhaps it is time for them to learn what happens to others when they are weak." Invictus said, looking to the other three horsewomen before he moved further from both the students, the barrier, and even the fallen Riley. He had purposely distanced himself further from them, so that they would not have room to fight with his decision;

One of the Four had reneged to the truce, despite seeming to have an understanding of what it would consist of.

A proposal? Like hell. At least that was the initial mindset before the mindflayer was pierced with a blade, only withdrawing a glance from Aisa. As she had reflected before, they weren't here to babysit-- if the ghoul dissipated, so be it. At least, that was the smaller view of this situation. Aisa's scythe, almost neared for another attack, followed Caelius's eyes towards the area behind them. A picture was slowly forming-- Caelius's all-too-easy battle, his arrogant mindset .. His running and them being here while many students didn't follow. It was almost curious, the amount of gnats that had appeared was surprisingly meager compared to the crowd she had to stampede through to get here.

Ren's roar ran through the forest like the roar of an injured wolf, heartbreaking and desolate. Not that it had moved Aisa to a feel even a shred of sympathy that would allow the leader of the hunters to simply go free but it indicated that the situation was far from the one they desired. Unfortunately, from the hunter's antics beforehand, all of the heirs could guess that it was nothing less than disastrous.

Aisa walked past Riley's body without even a silent word, each step sinking heavily into the ground soft from battle. She looked down at the body of the mindflayer with an annoyed glance that told far more than she let on, iris eyes lowering with a shake of her head-- The mindflayer did not make choices for the horsemen. Her rigid and proud posture indicated that, the purple ghouls's last actions were insignificant, like the dirt underneath her heels. Aisa didn't even pause to pull out the dagger.

The horsemen were not pawns for Riley to influence, if she had any at all whatsoever-- Although Caelius's influence was something to note, regrettably.

To Aisa, Riley was just another casualty between the heirs and Caelius.

However, the entire student population back there .. Perhaps that was a bit too much to be considered amongst the category of casualties. Death, or anything close to it, was always a murky gem. Death of one mere ghoul wouldn't have been fatal .. but death of multiple students, the very students they were supposed to instill the lessons of fighting and destruction into. It wasn't the responsibility of the student's lives that weighed on Aisa-- no, that would never be a reason, such students flirted with death of their own free will. But they would lose students with the drive to defeat the annoying minion hunters-- They needed such students to evolve and grow, as hunters would undoubtedly would.

Caelius knew what it cost for the heir of Death to keep her inquisitive silence, each syllable rattling with the thinnest thread of restraint and malice, like a rattlesnake's rattler before the kill.

She addressed the students behind her in the barrier. "Look at what your blind rage led you to bring-- You snots and knobs always need a ridiculous amount of baby-sitting. Red.. and now us? Perhaps he is right. You might as well have killed Red." There was no sympathy in her tone-- Caelius had forced their hand into a way he knew would leave no other paths for the horsemen. Or at least, some of them. Her words were harsh and painful, it would turn students against them .. But the students had turned the heir of Conquest, War and Death against them with their weakness.

Aisa's hand touched Eris's shoulder, her palms curling around the other's bare shoulder, brushing her lips against Eris's ear with a defeated sigh. These three heirs would go, even if the details of the truce had yet to be announced.

"It matters nothing."

Their lives didn't. But their resolve did-- and without their lives, that emotion had no worth.

"Cym?"

kuromeez

demon_pachabel

x_nata_x

grey dragon

One would think, being death incarnate, Aisa's breath would have had a sour, pungent twang to it, foul and repulsive, but that wasn't the case at all. It was cool and crisp, the death there but in the form of dried leaves, in freshly-turned earth. As the tallest of their kin brushed her lips against her ear, Eris took a slow, deep breath, drinking it in as she automatically leaned into the other. She knew, even without the ghoul saying it, that she had come to support her, physically and otherwise, and she accepted gratefully. Lifting one of her hands, the heir of War rested it on Aisa's arm, leaning against her, her eyes not lifting to either Death or the master-hunter who still stood watching them.

It was agony. Being pulled in a thousand different directions at once, tiny little fractures and tears all inside and seconds away from shattering completely. The world became hard to focus, became...unreal, still through the pain she tried to cling to it, tried to see what was going on, to hear their fate.

She blearily made Riley going down, struck by a knife that left some very familiar effects. The ghoul had Mandy's sympathy, she remembered the pain of a slice and the scream from another who had been stabbed in the shoulder, to have that acid right through the center.... she shuddered.

And then she heard the words, a truce? What a mockery of a thing to ask, as if the hunter would ever keep his word. (If they could be sure he would though.... Mandy knew she would pay the price but could never demand it of all the others, to have everyones fate in your hands... She didn't pity the heirs)

And then like a physical blow Invictus spoke up, Perhaps it is time for them to learn what happens to others when they are weak. Mandy curled in on herself, the physical pain of the barrier and the emotional pain of that almost to much.

This.... This wasn't what she'd meant to bring when she had followed. She hadn't meant to become the damsel, she'd meant to be the distraction, because even tiny things like them took time to deal with and every second was another second to strike.

She stared at the Master Hunter and wondered for a moment if any of them would live past this moment, to tell of what had happened. At she knew Alwine was safe in her dorm, in the heart of Amity. With so few days till HaHoWriMo ended nothing was plying the ghoul from her writing.

She kind of wished she could leave a message, anything, just in case. Shifting her foot slightly, looking for all the she was just trying to adjust to alleviate the pain Mandy drew a crude H in the dirt with her boot, who knew if it would survive or if anyone would see and understand but it was better than nothing.

She turned her attention back to the heirs and the Master Hunter, unable to do anything else but await their fate.

Jericho screamed.

It was the single clearest thing she heard in that moment, it took what felt like an eternity to shift her head to catch a glimpse of Riley from her position. She was laying on the ground, a dagger stuck in her back. She remembered that dagger, or one like it at least, even without his Scythe Caelius had used a dagger like it to drive students back when Red was attacking.

Wasn't it Riley who said to stay back?

And now she was dead, or would soon be in some form or another. She could hear the talk, of a truce, of punishment. What could she do about it? Nothing. She was stuck on the ground barely able to move her head shifting it to look back at Jericho again letting the weight of it drop with a thump as she tried to get a look at Jericho. What would happen now? Would they be killed? Turned to weapons? The horsemen taken away? What truce could possibly come from a man who went as far as to try and frame a dead hero and murder the student body?

She did the only thing she could do, she tightened her grip on Jericho's hand focusing her eyes on his, she couldn't find it in her to say much but her eyes said it enough.

If they died, she would prefer she didn't have to die alone right now.

Cymbeline turned on her heels, the dangerously swinging scales hitting the ground with a muted clank. Had she been staring at the wide circle of trees around them? "What?" She asked, for all appearances unaware she held the lives of each and every student in her hands. Certainly Caelius would demand all or none, and if she fought on their army would be turned against them.

The final heir glanced at the other three. She could taste the emotion radiating from them, a heated ray of hate and scorn, frustration, disappointment... Not directed at her, but every last being around them. It was like she alone stood impervious the fire in her brethren's eyes, blackened and burning deliciously like her sister had not moments before, and yet as hale as she had always been. Such an inferno...

She then glanced back at her "pets", as the master hunter had put it. For Cymbeline, that about summed up the extent of her current feelings. They were not yet individuals with real personalities and feelings and hopes and dreams, but they were HER pets. Especially the little ones. Those she could dangle objects over and watch as they jumped and flailed to get their toys back... It was so much fun.

For a minute she weighed the odds in silence. She almost looked out of place without a mad giggle slipping from her lips, but the blonde ghoul had once been a thinker, long before the Insanity slipped in. And when she could untwist the tangled thoughts in her mind, she could realize that her herd had survived just fine on their own, without those meddlesome little rat students scurrying around their feet. So what if they were made to do something on their own again? Long minutes stretched out in silence as she thought about what was really being asked.

And then finally, she shrugged and looped her scales back around her belt. "We must be yours~" was her final reply to Caelius, her maniacal grin resurfacing.