Acrucis
Chaldene
Thraen/Quenton
Benitoite/Alex
]Ida
Chaldene
Thraen/Quenton
Benitoite/Alex
]Ida
The suffocating smoke from the fire engulfed the area making it harder to see let alone breathe. One by one the individual beams of light disappeared from her gyroscope and the overwhelming mass of signatures began to dwindle. Either people were dying by the masses or they were fleeing; unfortunately all she could do was hope it was the latter of the two.
Her eyes burned and skin felt as if it was about to blister from being so close to the roaring flames which silenced many of the cries for help. Unable to rely on her senses Acrucis focused on her personal item till a familiar symbol flashed over the center orb and the associated beam of light glowed just a tinge brighter than the rest. “Thraen…”
A sense of urgency filled her being as she took off in the direction the light was pointing while skirting around the blazing campsite.
While it seemed the General King was busy, with what he didn’t know, Chaldene had seen his fellow senshi take off from the sight of the fire. Making up his mind, rather quickly, he took off after her. “Hold up, don’t go off on your own.” Not now, not with what had obviously just happened. Who knew what negaverse agents might still be around or might turn up to look for survivors or who knows what. Though he didn’t trust being alone here, he did trust the General King could handle himself.
Noting the item she held as he came up to her side, quick strides bringing him to her side, he glanced down at it and saw nothing. Confused, he turned green eyes onto his fellow senshi. “Who?” He didn’t know everyone she knew and while he knew how the item worked he couldn’t see the symbols or beams of light that she seemed to be following. He assumed whoever it was that they were a friend whom she wanted to check on, he only hoped they were well. He didn’t think she could handle coming upon a dying friend or someone who was already dead, did her item show the symbols of those who’d died? He didn’t know, never having asked for all the information on it, but now he wondered. Where they headed toward a dead body?
Oxygen and glucose. Acute bleeding. Lack of blood interfering with aerobic function leads to anaerobic toxicity. Shock. Minutes of the fires of the ruin beyond drew along into individual eternities. The flare was some time since gone up, but he couldn’t tell how long. Thraen couldn’t tell how long it had been that he’d settled at last, no longer able to stand, in the knees of the oak. Puzzling through the doldrums of specificity in his condition was a more productive exercise than dwelling on the flashes of memory and blood that interrupted anyway. Lyonesse’s complete lack of fight as Bischofite had palmed his face compared against Penthesilea’s doomed struggles that worked her own entrails into extrails. More auras were leaving as the white flares of order dwindled to what could only be battered and broken members of the Guard hoping for some release sooner than the creeping fires could grant.
Thraen was indifferent. The commanding mouths of Metallia could have ordered sweeps of the field with Generals to capture or kill the incapacitated if they wanted to, but the Negaverse was just finishing their business and wiping their hands. The suffering of the conquered must have suited their playbill better. Probability was against anyone coming in the next 24 hours to mercy kill the last sufferers or draw the wounded from the field to medical attention. And who would wish it, truly, that has made a stand here. It is the dead who have found release and peace, not those who made it through the mirrors. And We three can lie here in a heap of bone, if passing fauna respect what nothing else has. Oh Faust, what will I do these hours even without you.
Vae Victus
The blood well that was the right side of his face was congealing worse, making it impossible to open the eye without shifting Alois. Thraen gave the sense up for lost- he didn’t need to see more of the fires, Faust’s open eyes at his shoulder, the light steam of condensation from Alois’ shoulders as a cooling corpse. Not seeing meant some reprieve of just their joint weight against his own. And the solid presence of tree like a sentinel, while no comfort like a pillow, was all the comfort he’d needed for five years. It was safe enough. It was all better than the shivering that jostled the bisection. With focus, enough focus, came a measure of stillness. There are moving order signatures.
It was a consideration that was foreign in dim. Who can or would stand, run, or risk drawing attention now. Unless they make for the mountain retreats. Maybe they aren’t so wounded. It would be nice for word to make it so far. I don’t even know where the evacuation will have regrouped to.
Thraen turned his face to rest lips against damped-black hair. Alois wouldn’t complain of the blood matting it now. He shouldn’t anyway, as the one who caused it.
Acrucis didn’t pause nor look back knowing Chaldene was right behind her. She paid no heed to his inquiries as she pressed on, Benitoite would find her as he had so many times in the past, of this she was sure. Ahead the orange-red flames cast a glow upon two figures slumped against the base of a tree yet only one beam pointed in their direction. Whomever laid beside the Senshi of Gardens was dead much like the bodies that littered the ground.
Chaldene kept up with her and figured she was in some sort of a panic as she hadn’t answered his question on who they were headed toward; whose symbol she saw in her orb. He would just have to wait till they got closer find out. Already he could see the outline of a body and soon enough one outline gave way to the shape of two bodies. “Two people…” He whispered, half questioning the senshi of prayers, wondering if she’d known that; Did her item tell her that? Did she know who both of them were?
Falling silent at her side he put his longer legs to good use as he moved past her and sought to close the distance faster. He wanted to let her know what to expect and see if either was alive. Where either of these people someone he knew? Worry ate at him as he quickened his strides.
The Auras resolved not only in approach but near. Near so that steps breaking underbrush, the first falling leaves of autumn and bracken of the forest floor assaulted the peace of his minutes. Breath on the suffocating air. Thraen shifted his face to press mangled side against the hair again, the black feathers clinging and whorling in split skin even after he lifted his face away with the ability to open the eye again. Very well. I will see.
The glow of colours of uniform in the dim was unmistakable. They were not brownred with blood. It took some breaths to make them out- a man he didn’t know and a woman grown of a girl he knew long before. Thraen swallowed thick, working will to draw enough air to make words with into the broken cavity of his chest, “Acrucis.”
“Its dangerous to stay. Evacuation called to ...the decamping. You should go.”
The gyroscope the senshi held onto fell from her loose grip only to disappear before hitting the ground. It didn’t matter how much time she had spent at the Oasis or various camps tending to the wounded, the sight of so much blood saturating the ground from their fallen comrades and enemies alike would always have the same effect. Without much warning her stomach churned in an unpleasant way forcing her to her knees.
Shaking her head Acrucis squeezed her eyes shut and swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “When will you learn I’m not going to leave you to die?” She didn’t the first time nor second time they had met while she was still a basic senshi and she sure as hell wouldn’t now. There was nothing she could do about the creature in his arms nor the cat slung over his shoulder; but for him, hope was not yet lost.
“We need Benitoite,” Sapphire blue eyes opened as she turned her attention back onto Chaldene. “Guide him here please. We need to get them out of here, now!” There was more than just urgency in her voice as she looked up at her friend imploringly.
He might have felt the same stomach churning that Acrucis did but he didn’t react as she did, he’d seen too much and had become numb to some of it. Perhaps if this all ended, if peace came about, he could become a doctor like his mother? She could handle blood and gore by now, something he never thought he’d be able to handle. “I don’t...I don’t know the person.” Should he though? They had to be important, at least the senshi who was down there on the ground a mess of blood and gore.
Surprised at the Senshi of Prayers words he almost laughed, it sounded so normal; a throwback to easier times, but he shook his head to dispel the idea. “Benitoite…?” He questioned but he didn’t hesitate in folding his fingers together in something of a gun shape, like a child would make with their fingers, and blowing across the ‘muzzle’ he sent his own magic into the air. A wisp formed and winked in and out as it took off to find the General King who was nearby.
“Will he be able to get us all from here?” he didn’t know much on teleporting aside from the fact a Negaverse officer could teleport, could defy the laws of the universe much like he did, and could take other people with them. He didn’t know how many though. “Are we taking the bodies too?” He asked wondering if they were and if so why.
“He’s taken three people at once before and at the time he was only a general.” Which meant he could at bare minimum get Chaldene, Thraen and herself to safety; the other two she wasn’t sure about.
He had been heading in the direction he sensed the two senshi, hoping it was his companions and not some wayward senshi, as he hadn’t been paying much mind to which direction the two had taken off in. Anger still filled him, though cooled now, he was surprised when he saw something winking in the air and headed his way. A glowing orb, blue in color; it took a few moments to remember the male senshi’s sphere and realize what it was. Shaking his head he hurried his pace in an effort to reach the little wisp and follow it to it’s owner and Acrucis.
What had they wandered off for anyway? he wondered as he followed the wisp and closed in on what felt like..three signatures? Who was the third? Shaking his head he ran his fingers, of his good hand, through his hair. He only hoped that whoever owned the signature wasn’t one who would attack him on sight, he didn’t need that tonight.
What greeted him though assured him that he was safe. The smell of blood hung in the air and filled his nose, a smell he’d become all too accustomed to over the years, and taking in the scene he felt something clench within him. Seeing the body of a cat, not one he knew, Alois..and then a senshi still alive. he wanted to stop, to mourn the loss, but he didn’t pause as he glanced to his two companions. “What do you need me to do?” he questioned already getting down to business. This was not a safe place and he knew it. “If you want me to move him we need him healed first. I don’t want to risk teleporting someone so injured.” He had a feeling his teleporting would be requested by Acrucis, and it didn’t make him feel used one bit, but he did know it wouldn’t be safe to move him just yet and didn’t wish to take a risk.
The name was enough a warning that the pain-dilated pupils contracted to pinpoints of warning on Acrucis’ face- the flame eyes woken with what last adrenaline his body could muster. That is a mineral name.
“I’ll not be handed over on a platter, even by once a friend.”
Thraen’s left hand, mauled long ago, clawed onto the bark beside himself, trying to pull him free and up to standing even as the howling sick of a General-King seemed to come near to drown out the last of the air. The vines along his shoulders flashed with some want of magic- transcendent markings in hallow of his planet not enough at so late an hour and so little blood. Was she the leak. The rumor the camp was found and here is Acrucis calling a General King to bear on this waste of Thraen? I ended Bischofite. I ….don’t think I have the strength for another.
There was a slick-popping and the pull of his cincher was blessedly keeping his ribs together where trying to rise did them no help. His claw-split lips parted in a toothed-grimace to bloody spit the words at the lotted three of them in challenge, “General King? You bring to me...get thee gone if this is your help.”
His words stung like a whip lash across bare skin. If he was going to be stupid enough to get up and move around then she’d have no choice but to heal him here and now. Not trusting him to stay put long enough to benefit from her eternal attack, Acrucis brought her hands up in a prayer like motion and whispered the name of her super attack “Prayer of Healing”*
Now haloed in a golden light, the senshi of Prayer stared pointedly at Thraen. “Name one time in the past six years where I have betrayed you or your trust. Enlighten me to a time in which I have put you in danger and I will do as you say and leave” Was there such a time? Had she ever unknowingly hurt him? She certainly hoped not especially since she had been upfront and honest with him long ago when she told him she knew a general.
Handed over? Did this senshi really think so little of Acrucis? he wanted to ask this, to demand an answer, but now was not the time nor the place. This senshi was too badly injured to be questioned by him. Rather they needed to be healed and to keep quiet, and still, but it seemed they were not interested in either thing - how annoying. Rolling his eyes he shifted his weight from one side to the other, a hip jutting out, as the General king took in the others form. Somewhere along the way here he’d sent his weapon back to subspace, a good thing for sure, and he was glad that he had.
“Why must senshi be so annoying?” He questioned aloud finally. Tapping a booted foot he tilted his head as he waited for the healing spell to take effect and do it’s job. “Once he’s healed we can teleport...or walk if need be. I doubt he’ll trust me in teleporting him anywhere.” A heavy exhale of air, blowing several locks of ashen hair from his face, he tilted his head. “As for you.” Slate eyes on the blond haired senshi of gardens. “You should allow me to help you. I’ve already been helping your side for some years. I’ve been a leak in the negaverse, feeding your side information to save civilians. I’ve finally had no choice but to come out of the shadows I’ve lingered in and grown to love.” Thanks to Kazenite, as he was sure she’s oh so generously told everyone in the Negaverse that he was a traitor and to be killed or captured on sight. Maybe though she’d just told them he was a traitor and that he was hers to handle, it wouldn’t surprise him if he was being honest with himself. She would want to finish him with her own two hands.
“So do allow me to assist in whatever means I’m needed.”
They dared. Incredulity on the very steps of brimstone and slaughter that they had not attended. The Guard decimated, and here were petulant voices making demands on his reason as though blood and loss had not given more than payment for wrath. He wanted to throw Faust’s corpse at her face. The General-King with his smug declarations as though whatever arrangements they’d made between their ******** up little coven should be plain and trusted in twenty seconds after the whole of the Resistance was scattered and razed-
Was this even real? Could this level of entitlement and stupidity be humanly possible? What isn’t possible anymore. Or you’ve gone delirious at last, and next Alois will start speaking again in some whistled version through that silent, opened throat. I let my combat knife drop in the mire of that tar. I’m out of magic. The other is in my boot, but I can’t reach it like this. ‘Annoying’, this is no diplomacy. If this is real, what do they want. If this isn’t real, is my hand steady enough to finish it myself? I’ve lost everything except wits, and if those are broken too it is more than past the need for ending.
The stained petals and leaves lifted away like so much light and glitter to the threadbare turtleneck, jeans and combat field gear of a civilian- Quenton Marinus. The difference in speed and strength hardly mattered with his condition. The knife from his boot did- and he drew it, letting Alois gently away from himself. “You issue suggestions scornful while standing on the graveyard of hopes and to a soldier who has no more proof than your word. Trust has been given to Chaos before, and they took the very bird from her throat and mouth. “
Hvergelmir’s strangled words and spilled meals, her scar-smile plain enough warning to any fool wanting to trust to chaos-infected that Metallia could summon, cow or break on a whim. “Alois, your Youma King, has taken enough from me today. I don’t think I’m inclined to ‘allow’ you anything ‘Benitoite’.”
Maybe he was being too cold, too arrogant, but could he help it? Yes, but did he want to...maybe. He wasn’t in a mood to deal with someone not wanting helping, refusing it and speaking as this senshi had. He just wanted to have them healed and bring them to safety, away from here in case someone else from his former side turned up. He could fight, he had more than enough strength within his petite form, but did he want to? No, not unless it was Kazenite. He wanted her first and foremost and all others he could leave to other people, other people who were not here to handle them. Thus they needed to get to a safe place, just in case.
He didn’t say anything more, waited to see what would transpire next, and he wasn’t surprised that something happened but he was surprised by what happened. Where a senshi had been was now someone, a civilian, whom he knew very well though it had been a long time since he’d last laid eyes upon him. “Quenton.” The others name slipped past his lips weakly, and clearly against his will and without thought.
“Yes, I ask for your trust and perhaps I should not have, after all I have proven nothing to you. However, I am true to my word and true to the claims I made of being a spy within the Negaverse. I am not a fan of the whole Big Brother, 1984, thing they have going. I’m not a fan of chaos either. I joined the Negaverse for a cause, a good one, and they have changed things and betrayed me - not me betraying them.” He spoke in all seriousness before stepping closer to Quenton. “Perhaps if I take on a face you know you would trust me? Know that I can be trusted?” He questioned, more himself than the other.
A glance, he couldn’t manage more, was spared to Alois’ form and slate eyes closed for a moment. As easily as the other had dropped the form of a transcended senshi so to did benitoite drop the form of a General King. As slate eyes opened it was no longer a General King which stood there but Alexandre Evans. His hair tied back, stands falling into his face, and dressed in ripped up pants and a simple, for him anyway, shirt of cotton.
“Alois has taken much from you, if he did this to you, and I’m sure he did more before he came to be as he is now. However I seek nothing from you but you to be well.” Biting his lip he waited, hesitant and nervous, for what the other would say and do now that he had just let the cat out of the bag, sort to speak, and was opening up in a way he had done for only a few on the side of order. Not even Valhalla knew who the General King was as a civilian. What would Quenton’s judgment be?
Acrucis remained silent during this whole exchange. Only once the knife had been drawn did she stand up on unsteady legs using Chaldene as support. He had so far remained a quiet spectator, and only for a brief moment when she heard Benitoite whisper Quentons name did she allow herself to look away from the broken and bloody blonde haired man to look up at the green eyed eternal with a questioning gaze as if asking him now what?
Seemed like de-ja-vu except on a more deadly level. In part this mirrored an incident that had happened a few weeks ago when she was returning to HQ with Ashur. Out in the woods, in the middle of nowhere it seemed, they found a senshi that had been attacked. Unconscious and bleeding they had helped the boy only to have her friend nearly mauled when he woke up. She didn’t stop the boy from leaving after his outburst and to this day she still didn’t know what became of him.
The only difference really between then and now, aside from the severity of the situation, was it seemed Benitoite… Alex… and Quenton shared some sort of history; maybe, just maybe ashen blond haired man could get through to him before he bled out, or God forbid decide to actually attack.
His name said quiet and quick drew his attention sharper, and Quenton pulled harder with his free hand to at least manage some approximation of crouched with his back to the tree. Alois laid at feet, still and his head fallen back at a wrong angle in accusing display of the Eternal of Garden’s own handiwork. Faust wasn’t complaining of being smooshed a little between neck, shoulders and treetrunk. The General King stepped closer, and right hand tried to answer the approach as it was made. He couldn’t lift the knife as ward.
‘a face you know you’ is an ominous promise- And true enough to that estimation and account. He had not known what to expect, really. A former student from his masters degree? A former client when he’d been able to complete artistic tasks with hands still whole. He had not expected Alex. Ask the Universe how much more it can take from you, and it will answer in clarity and completeness you did not conceive until the blade is to the quick. Even earliest innocence- when heart hardly knew expectation of trust. When I acted young as I felt, as I was. When I was unscarred and new. And now even that belongs to the Negaverse. Has the long years. How long has it been Alex, since kindness of lunches in sculpture filled studios and Undergraduate studies…. I wonder if you marked it when I vanished from the University. What a pleasant dream that all was, now, wrapped in silver cloud filtered light. An awkward reunion, over Alois’ corpse and you still so pristine. You must bear your scars on the inside.
None who bear the title General King do so without nightmares clawing their shoulders like skeletons drawing to the ground.
“Alexandre.” He couldn’t manage the shortening. It didn’t feel right, years hence, to assume that familiarity. “Everyone in this war knows the difference between ‘being well’ and being healed of body. “
He looked from the too-petite form, too lovely for the gore wreathed round in the trees and fire beyond, to the senshi he didn’t know, to Acrucis. The knife dropped from loosed fingers. “If it be your will to prop up this thing, Thraen, as bulwark again, so be it.“
Watching Quenton, careful not wanting to provoke the other, he flicked his gaze to Acrucis for a moment and then to Chaldene. Neither knew of his connection to Quenton and perhaps that was good? Either way it seemed that his powering down into someone he knew, and so well, was not something Quenton had been expecting. A smile tugged at his lips, turning them upward, as he wondered what to say, what to do, next. This was a precarious position to be in and not one he’d ever thought he’d find himself in. He’d never once, past or present, thought of Quenton as someone who would be involved in this war. He’d thought that when Quenton had left the university it might be to seek somewhere safe to go, by then it wasn’t hard to tell that something bad was happening in the city. He should have talked to Stroud, found out if Quenton was still in the city, he’d been curious back then.
Stepping forward as the other spoke his name, such a simple word, he nodded once. A gentle and slow bobbing of his head. “Yeah...and it’s Alex, it’s easier.” He added the last part after a moments hesitation, wondering if the other would call him Alex if he requested it.
“Yeah...and being well is something none of us are, at least in the mental and emotional sense. You are unwell in the physical as well.” Reaching out but not touching, as if afraid and unsure, slate eyes sought the others gaze and sought something - anything. “We are not without our suffering for the actions, both just and unjust, that we have all committed, I am not even above that for all the power I hold within my form.” For all the chaos he had taken in, willingly, he could not outrun or avoid the nightmares which could rip him from sleep with such ease, and oh so much violence.
“I would like to see you alive and well - at my side as equal when this war ends. I have not been loyal to the new cause of the Negaverse in a long time. I can no longer walk in the darkness and help your side. I would like to be at the side of those I know, those of your side, when this war is brought to an end - be it for better or worse. If that is acceptable to you Quenton…” He let the words trail off as for a moment he sent a look, questioning in nature, to both the powered up senshi. They too were trusted and at their side he would stand and fight. A General King in power but that was not where his feelings were. He could not stay in the shadows nor could he stand on the side of the Negaverse, even if they would permit it.
“We need to remove ourselves from this area and seek somewhere safe. We can all talk then, in safety.” Not just himself and Quenton, though he did wish to speak with him in private. So much time had passed since they’d last seen each other and he had worried for his friend and fellow artist. He knew Quenton had been with Alois and now to see Alois’ body here with Quenton. He wanted to see how he was doing emotionally. Maybe it wasn’t his place but whose was it? Who else could speak with him about Alois, about all of this? Not to mention it would prove a much needed distraction for himself, and he did need one before he decided to go into the city and call out Kazenite and see where things landed at the end of the encounter.
The two obviously knew each other, that thought went through Chaldene’s mind over and over again. Something was here between these two and it wasn’t something new. The transcended senshi and the General King knew each other for a long time but not in those forms of power. They had known each other as civilians and he had a feeling something had been there between the two, though he would never ask either of them such, so he didn’t speak and settled in to watch them. He might have stood there for hours or minutes he didn’t know, nor did he care, as he watched the two and every so often glanced to Acrucis to see what she thought of this surprising turn of events.
Finally he pulled himself from the daze he’d fallen into a whispered words that felt no truer than stating the sky was blue. “No one will be well, even when this is over.” His arms had, while speaking those simple and few words, come up to embrace himself loosely. Even if another battle happened, even if many more happened, and finally the senshi and knights won there would be nightmares for the rest of their lives. They could never fully escape this war, and should they be permitted to? Yes, it was war and death had to happen but it was the memories of the lives they had taken and would take which they should remember. If they didn’t remember it would fade, those who were dead would fade from memory and existence, and then become nothing...that which had never been. Shaking his head to clear it of such thought, this was not the time or the place, he managed a faint ghost of a smile.
“I’d rather not see another person dead today….too many have already died in this battle.” Biting his lip he toyed with one of his lip piercings as had always been a habit. Theran had to live but was it fair? Was it fair to ask someone, or expect someone, to continue on in a war? To break themselves even further? Again, thoughts for another time.
There was nothing left for her to add, everything that needed to be said had been said and the fact Quenton had more or less ignored her previous inquiry gave her little reason to up and walk away. The drawn out war had clearly taken it’s toll on everyone; it had etched itself in their faces and left scars on their souls. Not even a General King was impervious to the aftereffects of such brutality - something she bore witness to in the time spent caring for him after the torture he endured by the hands of Kazenite.
Acrucis turned her gaze to the fire that continued to burn the campsite behind them into ash. Dried fall leaves burned with a bright orange glow as they floated through the air upon the evening breeze like angry tears. Perhaps Chaldene was right, even if this war were to some day come to an end, none of them would truly be free.
The sound of her bangles pinged against one another as she lifted her arm to place a caring hand on her friends back in a comforting gesture. With the knife now discarded there was an odd sense of relief even though it felt as if the tension remained. “Alex. I know it’s been a while since you’ve teleported so many, but do you think you’d be able to get all of us out of here in one go?” It was up to him whether or not he felt capable to extended the offer to the deceased that laid beside Quenton; ‘Alois’, as he’d been named a moment ago, and the cat.
He slid down the bark some, finding an awkward kneel more comfortable than the so-called readiness managed before. A sleeve pressed hard to face cleared blood away again, cleared sight to allow magic-tightened skin around the eye to give purchase to tears to wash it more. The eyelid, at least, was repaired. The bone at brow and cheek felt less chipped, exposed. Whatever magic Acrucis now commanded, at least that was a stronger variety than he remembered from long ago. It didn’t take pressing to feel that it wasn’t enough to see to the rest of the wounds- the burns spanning back, legs and stomach, the back of his arms. The lacerations through chest. They did feel though, which was better. They hadn’t before. Creeping numb was its own promises.
“Do you plan to purify, to be standing by us, or wear the yoke to the end? Either way, it begins to make less difference expect how far into you Metallia’s power can reach at a moment. As Benitoite you will persist in being a liability. She holds your starseed in sway. Another Sovereign could draw on that at her behest and choosing. “ He could go no further in the considerations of tactics. It felt too raw and empty. The words just trailed until he sucked his teeth at himself. Turn off. For just five minutes in your damned life, Quenton. You can’t keep doing it, and it isn’t what they’re here for. “I do not leave without Alois and Faust. It isn’t reasonable, but it is the price from my end to stand again. “
“Beyond that, ...I am at your joint powers and whims. True enough, this is no great place for rest or converse. Though signatures would have pointed to you finishing off straggling business that were near senshi to a casual observing.” One minute. Couldn’t last one minute. Hannah….Alex...please. Why can’t I die.
He took comfort in the senshi of prayers hand to his back, comfort in her presence, as he stood at her side witnessing whatever this was which was going on. They did need to move out though and he nodded to the periwinkle haired girls question, as if silently asking the same thing. Could the General King teleport them all? He had really no idea dn wondered if it were possible, would it be impossible or a strain on him only? He hoped it was just a strain on him and not something impossible, as he didn’t find it safe remaining here as they were. It wasn’t good to dwell here when some agent may come upon them, thinking to help a fellow agent out and instead find this odd assortment of people gathered.
“I hope he can.” He whispered to Acrucis, not wanting to interrupt whatever was going on between the other two males.
Kneeling down in front of Quenton he turned his head to look at the other two senshi, both still powered up. “I can do it, it’s been awhile since I’ve had to teleport more than one other person, but I can do it.” His words rang confident and sure of themselves, of his ability, as he turned his focus from one senshi to the other. Nodding his head as he did so, to back up his statement. “I can take the bodies also, they deserve a proper burial, something so many others never got.” He whispered, his voice dropping low, as he turned back to Quenton. “We’ll take them - both of them. I wouldn’t dare to leave either of them, aside from the fact that you wish it to be. The fact you wish me to bring them as well only gives me more reason to bring them with us.” He’d have to find a way to hold onto Quenton and the bodies whilst having Acrucis and Chaldene hold onto him, was there enough of him to go around?
That matter dealt with he shifted on the ground, reaching out to Quenton, and tilted his head even as his hand dropped to his side. “Would it be wrong of me to say that no, I don’t plan to purify? I joined the Negaverse for just reasons, sound ones, it is they who have betray me, not me who has betray them. I seek to fight for the same cause I joined them for just under a different banner but with the powers they gave me. It would be odd to change sides now anyway, to take on a new weapon and new magics. I wouldn’t be able to teleport, which can be helpful, and what part of myself would be no more? What knowledge would I lose?” The questions weren’t to Quenton and didn’t require nor even seek an answer. He let the words hang there raw with emotion. He could give up all that he had done, how far he had come.
“I guess one way to put it...perhaps a very apt way in fact is this: “I am so steeped in blood that to turn back would be as tedious as to go forward.” Even if I changed sides and forgot all the blood I’ve shed, everything I’ve done, I am still soaked in it. I cannot forget it fully as other people would not permit it. So why not just go on as I am, with the powers I have and fight for what I believe in? What does a title matter at this point when the cause, the reason behind the actions, is more important? And let Matalia and her puppets do as they please and seek me out. I hope to cross paths with Kazenite anyway...I wish to sink my hand deep into her chest and remove whatever my hand encounters - be it heart or starseed. I’ll remove whatever it is without care.” it would still bring her life to an end and that was the important thing - her death.
“Matalia could strike me down as easily as she could any senshi or knight. I do not fear her nor death, I’ve lost that fear a long time ago, and suppose that if she brings death to me than she does. I will die fighting either way.” Shrugging his shoulders he finally moved forward, opening his arms to the other. “Come, I’ll need a good hold of you if we’re to depart from here.”
Glancing over his shoulder to the other two he took a moment to look both of them over. “Both of you should take a hold of us. One please take the cat. Someone else take the body and hold them between yourself and me.” As he knelt there, waiting for them to take hold of him or come into his hold, he powered up. Layers and yards of fabric sweeping away the ripped up jeans and the shirt he’d been wearing. Markings of ivy swirling up past his neck, where the tattoo had stopped, curled elegantly about the right side of his face. The aura, heavy and dark, filled the air once more as he waited to teleport the others someplace safe.
Alex would goad for some shadow of that person he knew- someone who had braved any other being on the planet with debate tireless and inquisitive, surefooted and with a pool of pages stored away in a mind’s labyrinth. He gave explanation of himself, but he gave it as points of a proof leading to a reason. It was a proposition of swords of a different sort- Five years of no one listening has dulled the appetite I once held for argument and rhetoric. And what purpose would it serve or you seek here while I bleed a grey shirt brown and water the roots of this tree with ‘alien’ life- these glorious purposes your Negaverse propped up before you as banners to rally by. ‘They betrayed you’, indeed. And this burning vengeance in your heart for ‘Kazenite’. How does it boil down, for answer you plainly want.
How do I answer where I try hard to sew my mouth shut.
“I speak not to fear. Fools say they do not fear it, or those who do not think through all its possibilities. Or they are not saying enough- that they’ve come to welcome it. And do not wish to reveal that close kept secret. But Vengeance is no justice. Your arguments are sound enough for yourself, but not for protecting others when you become a liability. You speak to standing by shoulders, but your reasons are for standing and dying alone. “
“Your weapon is not your own. Cry against the truth if you like, kill the other agents that serve this will that gives you your power. That gives them theirs. But that is the paradox you noose yourself with- you will win nothing wielding her blade against her. It will not cut her. Therefore it will not avail more than a familiar pike to impale you and everyone you love on when the time comes.” The open arms of a General King were one of the strangest things to date he’d endured sight of. One of the dumbest to consider truth in. Faust’s poor body was the easiest- being still on Quenton’s own shoulders. He didn’t look like to give him over to either of the other Senshi. Alois he had no choice on without the strength to lift him to some more convenient holding. Even the forward to Alexandre’s grasp was graceless- a hand to the ground and a half-fall forward into him. The powers of Chaos had not seen fit to make the man taller or broader in the years since. It felt, beyond the pain of the shifting in his torso, probably as ridiculous as it looked.
