Welcome to Gaia! ::

Even with the youma gone, the room still felt uncomfortably alive.

Reims let out a shaky exhale, lowering his sword when the six-legged youma finally burst into dust. The lion vanished soon after, returning to the heart shaped gem on Reims’s chest. He was breathing heavily from the exertion, followed by sharp, uncomfortable coughs into his bloodied arm. His throat and lungs burned. His arm burned. His chest burned. Everything burned.

He scrubbed his forearm over his face, smearing away the mixture of blood, soot, and whatever corrosive sludge got caked on during the fight. His arm screamed in protest, but he didn’t stop.

“Everyone--” his voice cracked, and he had to cough before he could try again. “--everyone good?”

He took a step towards Yvoire first. He saw where he’d been hit before, and the fresh burn along his jaw and neck. “You’re hurt,” Reims said, quieter now as he closed the distance enough that he could reach out and check the damage for himself. The damage on his legs made Reims wince in sympathy. His own gloved fingers trembled, blisters under the leather that had been scorched by the acid that splashed them. “We’ll clean it soon… but, you did good. Thanks for having my back,” he said, his fingers lingering on Yvoire’s face, thumb gentle against his jaw. His eyes caught the staining of Yvoire’s torn jacket next, and carefully lowered his hand to inspect that injury as well. It seemed superficial at least. Not great, but it could have been worse.

He glanced around them, looking for the others. “Lisse-- Stirling-- nice work,” he said, voice hoarse. “That shield-- seriously, it saved us. And great lassoing. I don’t think that thing knew what hit it.” He offered them a small, tired smile. “Thank you.”

Then he looked across the haze in the room to where he assumed the others were. He saw movement near the desk: Lyon tearing the desk apart like someone possessed, Rose sorting through the contents.

He pulled his scarf from subspace and wrapped it loosely around Yvoire’s head, making sure to cover his mouth and nose and not give him any question as to what it was being used for. Not that it would help much now, but it would be better than nothing.

He glanced at the plants in the middle of the room, their split fruit dripping red sap. “I guess we should add a sample to our bag. Maybe a cat can get a better idea of what’s going on here. If the Negaverse has one of these places set up, I can only imagine there being more elsewhere.”

Ephesus shifted out of the way when Lyon started hacking away at the underside of the desk and drawers, splintering it with his trowel. The noise was sharp, like the cracking bones of the youma, and he flinched before he could stop himself.

He rubbed at his eyes again, though they only stung worse with the effort. His face was streaked, the wetness on his cheeks catching dust and grit in the air. He turned away, trying to use the back of his hand to hide the sound of another sniffle.

When he saw Dering crouched beside the open drawer, he forgot all about the mess around them. “Dering,” he said, voice wobbling, and knelt down with him before thinking about it. He was exhausted, and could imagine the others being exhausted as well. He was practically leaning into Dering’s side when he wrapped his arms around him.

“Thank you,” he mumbled against his shoulder. “For the shield. For… everything.” There was a lot he could say to Dering, to everyone. He took a trembling breath to try and calm himself down and keep from crying harder.

His tiger padded over and crouched down with its head on his leg. He carefully released Dering with one arm so he could stroke the tiger’s head with shaky fingers. “You too,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

After a moment, he called the tiger back into the bauble of water, lingering only a moment longer as he hugged Dering, before letting him go-- albeit reluctantly. But he didn’t want to get in his way.

He caught a glimpse of what Dering held in his palm, and his stomach twisted. He was glad Dering found them. They could get the starseeds somewhere safe. Back to the cauldron…

He didn’t move away for a moment, and instead rubbed Dering’s back in quiet support, before glancing down at the drawer Lyon pried apart and set in front of him. There was nothing really jumping out at him, especially since the mathematical equations were far above his comprehension except for the USB, which he curiously picked up and turned over in his hand.

“I’m alright,” Yvoire said, voice catching in his throat.

He lifted a hand to smother the next several coughs that worked their way out, then remembered the youma spit staining the back of it and thought better of it; the burn lingered, seeping through his glove into the back of his hand. Yvoire lifted his whole arm next, but it was equally stained with filth and fresh blood. He settled for turning his head away and coughed until his lungs ached.

Reims checked on him anyway. Yvoire turned back to fingers on his face, too gentle to hurt. Cheeks faintly pink in the dark, Yvoire put a shaking hand on Reims under the pretense of checking him for less obvious wounds. He gripped the side of Reims’ vest and felt Reims’ torso deflate and expand with each labored breath.

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

Yvoire knew it was inadequate, but he couldn’t find the words for more. Everything he’d tried so hard to suppress during the battle threatened to shiver its way to the surface. The worry. The fear. The disgust. The anger, too, burning beneath it all. Chaos thrived in darkness and ruin. Whatever was going on here, the Negaverse was responsible and innocent people would suffer for it.

The youma was gone—the larger one, and all the rest, nothing but dust floating through already contaminated air—yet the sense of danger eased only by a fraction.

Yvoire accepted the scarf with a deepening flush and helped Reims adjust it around his face.

“Wait,” he said, voice only slightly muffled behind deep purple fabric. “Before you go digging around for more goop.”

A large striped bow kept Yvoire’s hair bound into a low tail. It had loosened during all the commotion, strands of pale hair slipping over his shoulders, catching on the various sticky substances staining his jacket. Yvoire untied the bow and helped Reims fit it into place over his mouth and nose, tying it off like a bandana. The rest of his hair fell free, as filthy now as the rest of him.

With the youma effectively dealt with, Rose was able to relax somewhat. She searched through the haze for the others, saw figures moving and heard voices in low conversation and told herself there was no immediate need to worry. No one was screaming. Maybe some of them were hurt, maybe they were all filthy, but if the outcome had been bad they would’ve known it.

She took the drawer Lyon gave her with quiet appreciation and a smile edged with amusement. Under different circumstances, his enthusiasm for destruction might have been at least mildly concerning. In the midst of what must have been some kind of developing Negaverse plot, Rose thought it was deserved.

She set the drawer onto a clear spot on the desk and dug through it carefully, setting the hand pruners and knives she found onto the desk top to keep them out of the way. The empty sample baggies soon joined them. She donned the gloves before handling the packets of powder; Rose couldn’t be sure if they were safe to take. Maybe one of the talking cats would be able to identify it. Maybe it was some sort of poison they’d be better off leaving behind. She tossed the rope and flashlight with the knives and pruners, digging through the remaining miscellany until her fingers wrapped around a set of keys.

“I wonder what these go to,” Rose said. “They can’t be for the desk or they wouldn’t’ve been locked inside. Maybe the file cabinet, or… maybe there’s another room here.”

Or somewhere else…

Rose glanced up, eyes tracking Lyon. She paid particular attention to the way he massaged his shoulder but ultimately chalked it up to Lyon overexerting himself while prying the drawers open.

“You alright?” she asked him anyway.

Dering and Ephesus were nearby, crouching over their own drawers. They both looked a little worse for wear, but whole. They were alive, and they’d kept Rose and Lyon alive, too.

Cynthus gave a wild cheer when the last of the youma were gone.

“Take that, you disgusting piles of s**t!”

Without an immediate threat to life and limb, everything Cynthus had tuned out in order to get through the battle came back into focus. Her shoes were covered in muck and seemed to stick to the floor with every shift of her feet. Her dress was torn from one of the youma’s teeth—easy enough for magic to fix between transformations, but for now Cynthus frowned at the tear as if deeply offended. The air quality was terrible. Cynthus coughed again, and again, and again. Then the absolutely rancid smell tickled the back of her throat and made her gag.

She put her hand to her mouth in case she had to vomit. Hearing Halle hack up some phlegm triggered a wave of sympathy induced nausea. Fortunately a few stubborn swallows forced it all back down.

“This smell is going to haunt me for the rest of my life,” she said.

Cynthus glanced between Halle and Amarynthos to make sure they were both alright. Halle was already doing smart things with the plants and Mary would no doubt be on his way over to Effie in a matter of seconds (to be fair, Effie would probably be in need of comfort after all that), so Cynthus darted through the haze of gross air until she found some of the others.

“Oh my God, I thought for sure you guys were goners!” she enthused as she came upon Stirling. “That thing was such a jerk! He must’ve been strong to crack your shield like that. You’re not hurt, are you? Does anyone need magic? Lisse, you did great with your lasso. That was so cool how you took his leg off! That was his leg, right? It was kind of hard to see. Evie, I hope you ******** up his face real good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a youma that strong before. Reims…”

Here she paused. Her nose scrunched, her mouth set in a moue of distaste.

“... you were alright, I guess.”

The air rippled.

The fog hung heavier, denser, as if recoiling from something. An unnatural pressure mounted all around them, like the room itself was bracing for something.

And then, he arrived.

Not like a man, but like a weapon. He arrived with the presence of an explosion, without the grace of simply teleporting into place, and instead with the ferocity of a cannon already aimed and firing.

In that split second between arrival and action, they could see him. He was taller than Reims by a head or more, with shoulder-length white hair that fell loose and framed his face. His eyes were fierce and sharp, like the blade he carried at his side. He wore a mask on his lower face, metal and covering nose to chin. His outfit must have matched some ancient military regiment; it was mostly black, with magenta accents that would have brought out the color of his eyes if they were not already darkened with hatred. He was well built and imposing, even before he attacked.

He arrived mid-motion, sword wielded and arm drawn back. Amarynthos half-turned, eyes wide, but he wasn’t fast enough. The General’s sword shot through the air like a projectile, skewering him in the middle and striking him with such force that he flew back into the wall. The sword pinned him there, like a pin through butterfly wings. Amarynthos hadn’t had time to make a sound before the man was moving.

Stirling, already on the ground, was an easy target. Her shield had managed not just to block the youma, but to trap it, too. He stepped on her rapier and grabbed her arm, yanking her up with such force that her wrist cracked. His grip was merciless, and he flung her across the room like she weighed nothing.

Halle was next, close enough that he didn’t have to teleport but he did anyway, using the momentum from an impromptu spin to sweep both knees out from under him with a brutal kick. He moved so quickly he was able to slam his elbow into Halle’s sternum, propelling him towards the ground with crushing force.

The third shielder was next. It didn’t matter how hypervigilant Dering had been leading up to now. Dering had only tucked the starseeds away in subspace a few seconds before his arrival but the General moved with such speed and precision that Dering only had time to snap his fingers to the lute. He strummed once, but it wasn’t enough to summon his shield before the General was upon him. He grabbed Dering by the back of the neck and slammed him face first into the ground. His lute made a discordant twang, but the sound of crunching wood was louder. He kicked Dering in the side as he twisted back to the group, hand outstretched to receive his sword.

It functioned almost as if it were independent of him; while he had been busy with Halle and Dering, the sword had begun to wiggle from the wall–from Amarynthos. He hadn’t screamed, but he made a choked noise when the blade sawed its way out of him. It was still covered in blood when it arced wide, slamming into Lisse with brute force that worsened when the blade dug into his skin.

He snatched it out of the air and teleported again.

The man made no sound. No war cry, no growl, no grunts. The General moved in total silence, followed only by the sound of his cape whipping behind him, and his blade carving through everything in its path.

By now, only a few seconds had passed. He worked in such quick precision that it was almost impossible to defend against him–but that was why the first strike was so important.

You only had one chance to catch them by surprise, and he was already losing the advantage.

Yvoire would have been next, if Reims had not had enough time to raise his sword to parry.

The General brought his sword down anyway. What would have cleaved through Yvoire, separating arm from torso, instead clashed with Reims’ sword. The General had the advantage of height and bulk, and he pressed down so forcibly that his own blade nicked the side of Reims’ neck.

The Knight was putting up too much of a fight. The effort was wasting too much time. The General shifted his weight and instead raised one leg, kicking Reims with such force that his crunching ribs were audible despite the commotion.

Reims went flying backwards and Yvoire was left open. Yvoire wasn’t helpless–but that parasol couldn’t stop a sword like his. The General didn’t give him the chance. With Reims gone, he spun once more to rebuild momentum, and carved his blade through Yvoire’s stomach. And, because Reims was so determined to be with this one, the General heaved Yvoire up by the neck and hurled him towards Reims’ collapsed form before he could try to push himself up.

He didn’t look back, not at any of them. He didn’t need to. He knew how hard his hits had landed.

Cynthus was too close to skip, and though only a Squire, she was too volatile to ignore. Before Yvoire had landed, his hand shot out to grab a fistful of hair. He lifted her effortlessly but knew better than to think that made her helpless. She ran her mouth too much, so he hurled her into the wall by Ephesus and teleported to stand before them before she could slide to the floor.

With his left hand, he shoved her face into the vines, letting black ooze smear her face before dropping her ruthlessly.

Which left Ephesus, a pitiable Knight with a fierce summon but a tear streaked face. He looked like a strong gust might break him. An easy target for last. The General grabbed him by the chest and slammed his back into the wall once, twice. Enough to make his head loll before he threw him to the ground, too.

He moved like someone who had never lost, who didn’t understand failure–someone who saw only obstacles, not threats.

With Cynthus and Ephesus a heap on the ground, it left only the pages. By now, those of the group who could still move showed signs of stirring, but this was round one. Unlike them, the General hadn’t just come out of battling nearly two dozen youma. He still had plenty of energy to spare.

Lyon did too, it seemed. The page leapt onto the desk, nearly over it, as if he could have avoided the General. He wasn’t subtle about it–but subtlety wasn’t the point. He and Rose were still by the desk, and he thought maybe–maybe–he could distract the General for long enough that she could drop to the ground and play dead, or something.

The General was faster, of course. He grabbed Lyon by the ankle before he could propel himself onward. Rose was neither forgotten nor spared, despite his efforts. The General squeezed his ankle tightly and swung him roughly, bashing him into Rose and sending both of them slamming into the corner behind the desk.

His breathing hadn’t changed. His movements didn’t slow. This wasn’t a fight.

This was a massacre.

For Yvoire, the carnage registered as sound.

A wet thwack followed quickly by a loud thump. A snap followed by a thud. The swish of a cape. The shuffle of feet, of legs meeting. Another thump, closer than the first. The beginnings of a song cut brutally short, almost lost beneath the next set of shuffling, of cracking, of splintering wood. A strangled sound, then the woosh of something heavy through the air, striking something softer than itself. The clang of two swords meeting…

Then the commotion found Yvoire, and the world slipped into slow motion.

The General—little more than a mask, a mass of dark fabric, and a fall of white hair.

Reims—brave and defiant; strong, but not strong enough. His arms shook. A stream of blood poured down his neck, staining the collar of his shirt red like his eyes. A boot made contact with his chest and sent him flying back with a loud, horrifying crack.

Yvoire gripped his parasol. He had magic left. All he had to do was channel it and take aim, burn the General’s face the way he’d burned the youma…

A jolt as the blade struck. What would have been a surge of molten gold trickled to nothing. Searing pain split across his stomach. A hand grabbed him by the neck. Yvoire’s feet left the ground. His parasol fell before he did, lost somewhere in the muck as Yvoire soared through the air.

He crashed into something solid and warm.

Stay.

Stay…

Reims’ scarf, so carefully arranged, fell from Yvoire’s face. He turned his head to look for Reims and smelled him in the fabric pillowed beneath his cheek, warm, and sweet, and woody.

“Reims…”

He thought of a locked door, and blood smeared against stone. He thought of a dead sanctuary, of sunlight glittering through glass, two sets of hands digging through soil to slowly, painstakingly bring it back to life. He thought of a grand cathedral across a lonely river, of colors dappled along the floor, streaked across wooden pews. He thought of a dark grove and a stained stone slab. He thought of voices lost to time, a heavy cape and a grieving man holding a glimmering crown.

He thought of a boy standing alone on a bridge clutching a bouquet of wildflowers.

“Reims…”

The world spun. Yvoire tried to push himself up with shaking hands, but the burning pain flared hotter. His vision swam, darkness creeping in along the edges. He looked to the side and saw dark hair. He looked toward the ceiling above and saw nothing but shadow.

He looked down at himself.

Red jacket. Purple vest. Broken beads.

More red. So much red.

Blood pouring.

Insides spilling out.

Don’t…

A voice. So comforting. So familiar. So close, but drifting further and further away.

Something gurgled in Yvoire’s throat.

Then he was still.


“Stirling!”

Cynthus had not seen Amarynthos get struck. She had no time to determine what the noises accompanying his becoming one with the wall even meant before the General snatched Stirling up by the arm and threw her.

Panic rose within Cynthus, threatening to bubble free.

Her anger was stronger.

She swung her crook and met empty air, the General there and gone again in seconds or less. His aura was everywhere and nowhere, too quick to track. Cynthus turned on the spot, searching for him through the hazy air. Halle went down. She heard the twang and crunch of Dering’s lute breaking. Then something struck Lisse. A sword! Cynthus turned again, ready for the General to appear. He went for Reims. Cynthus slipped through a sticky puddle on the floor, trying to cross the few yards that separated them.

Reims went down. Yvoire followed.

Cynthus jolted to a stop as fingers sank into her hair.

“Don’t hurt me!” she screamed. “I’m just a girl!”

The General didn’t care. Why would he? He lifted her off her feet as easily as he’d lifted Stirling. Strands of hair departed Cynthus’ scalp with pinpricks of pain. Then she hurtled through the air, too fast to make out any faces or bodies. She collided with the wall near a blur of blond and lavender. Ephesus. Something snapped. Something else cracked. Too sudden for the pain to overwhelm her. The hand was on her head again, pushing her bleeding face into the vines. Putrid sludge filled her nostrils, her mouth.

Cynthus choked and gagged. She struggled once, twice, then dropped to the ground. Through her own coughing and heaving she heard Ephesus slam against the wall beside her. He fell in a crumpled heap, weeping, quietly calling for Mary.

Where was Mary?

Beneath her, Cynthus felt the solid wood of her crook.

She heaved until her airways cleared. Her face throbbed, bruised and broken, slick with blood, sticky with sludge. Cynthus was not accustomed to pain. She was not built for fear. She was not equipped to fight a war people older and stronger than her had been fighting for decades.

But her anger was stronger than all of it.

Cynthus grabbed her crook and hauled herself up. She stumbled, staring around blearily, searching for the General.

A lion roared. Cynthus tracked the sound. She saw the looming shape of a man.

“You ******** a*****e!”

She swung her crook, aiming high toward the face half hidden by a mask.


Rose, being last, had enough time to comprehend.

She tucked the keys into subspace, thought about their journey down and all the areas of the building they hadn’t been able to explore. She heard movement, and the kind of sounds that came with a sudden impact. Then Cynthus shouted for Stirling. Something about the tone of her voice set Rose on edge. Confusion. Alarm. Rage.

The aura registered, flickering in and out of her awareness. The General appeared near Dering and smashed him into the ground before any of them could move to stop it, before they could even process what must be happening.

Rose knew once the General moved on to his next victim. Exhausted from their fight against the youma, depleted of most of their magic, they were being picked off one by one. The General knew exactly where they were. He was strategic. Stirling and Dering were the first Rose had noticed—the shielders. Rose looked for Halle but couldn’t see him through the murky air. She found Lisse instead, watched a sword strike him before the General had it in hand again to take a swing at Yvoire.

Reims fought. Rose’s heart sank. She started to move, shoes slipping along the sticky floor, but Reims disappeared further into the darkness before she could take more than two steps. Yvoire followed. Cynthus, still shouting, flew straight into the wall nearby.

Rose moved again, a single step to the side. To do what, she didn’t know, but she had to do something. Had to try. Had never, ever felt as powerless as she did in that moment. Rose had fought youma. She’d been out into the depths of space, had faced Chaos there and overcome it with her friends at her side, but her foray into magic had been without terror like this. Monsters were frightening; people were worse. Until now, Rose had not known what it was actually like to stand against a person as powerful as this General and know he wanted to hurt her.

He could hurt her.

He would.

She tried to get to Ephesus, but the General grabbed him and cruelly slammed him against the wall. She tried to check on Dering but wasn’t close enough. She stood, wide eyed and frozen, as the General turned for her and Lyon.

The collision forced the air from her lungs. First Lyon, then the wall. Her spindle fell, useless against the General’s sword. Rose had no magic, no weapon, no real skill to speak of. Her friends were dead or dying, or would be soon. She huddled in the corner where she fell and clutched at Lyon, paralyzed by fear.

A sudden violence. The fading sense of a fall. Cries in the distance. It was all, unfortunately, very familiar. The growth on the ground at least softened the fall, kept Halle’s head from meeting the floor. It meant he stayed conscious this time, but did that matter? The slow, thudding beat of increasing hopelessness said it didn’t. It hadn’t before. Even with a princess to rescue them it hadn’t…

He heard Lisse, and even in the fog of despair, the sound had him sitting up. The pain of it nearly made him retch, but it was nothing to the sight before him. It was a bloodbath, a very one-sided bloodbath. It was Faustite all over again.

But this time, there was a lion. And a sword silently gliding toward the vulnerable pages. There was Cynthus, back up again and unwilling to stay down, or quiet, or even the slightest bit meek in the face of an overwhelming strength.

There was Stirling, asking him if he was alive and Halle realized he was, in fact, alive. This was not, in fact, a general king. And he was not, even a little, alone this time.

“Yeah,” he mused as a flash of light resolved into Tulip, the boar charging one more time with the last of her magic pool. Sweat beading on his forehead, he smiled at Stirling, “we are.”

To the side of the general, an obnoxiously large shield that was more like a wall appeared inches away from his sword hand, a bright and cheery unicorn looking down on him. They couldn’t match the man’s speed, even without teleportation it would have been a struggle. But maybe they could slow him down. Just enough. Just for a moment.