Arc 4: What families entail
It was upon them. The end of a long road. All their paths intertwined, burning up with Mount Yelira. The world was so loud it was silent. Embarrassed. Unable to accept their seemingly obvious fate. Wagons, carriages, horses, on foot ran thousands. The homes alone in the woods, the farm land, the homes and towns all near Mount Yelira had to accept it. As waves of lava poured against them, through their homes, they screamed of course. it cried. It froze. Held their families. Drank, tried to overdose on Elixirs or just go out without pain. But it felt instant. The density and density of the mana within the lava, the cracking earth opening up the pouring, erupting magma rushing and filling the tunnels around Athens. Eating itself into a flame.
A young woman: {WHY WHY WHY!?}.
An old man: "GREAT DRAGON SAVE US SAVE US!"
A single father: "HEEELP! PLEASE HELP ME, MY DAUGHTER HELP US!"
A widow: "FUCK WHAT THE FUCK!!?!?!". "DRAGON OF ATHENS, PLEASE, WHERE ARE YOU!"
A homeless teen: "WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?"
A three year old: "Mommy what's happening!?"
Families young and old, so many children. Lit aflame. As they stood, as they ran. All of the people who charged across the Great Bridge, toward the Great Bridge, across the soars screamed. As they watched everything they knew burn away to ash. These were the people hurt by war, by this constantly mentioned hatred. But their Dragon was moving, not the beast, but the man. Lincoln Valantine. And he was moving as fast, as hard as he could. Tearing up the floor, the sky as he leaped. Slamming his fist toward the waves of magma, and blasting it away with intense air pressure. He saved a few small towns from an instant death, tried to carry some as he moved to other sides, pivoted miles across the air to others. He was fighting to beat the inevitable end. Or maybe just slow it, so everybody could run, so at least one more person could live because of what he failed to stop. What everybody failed to stop, even the Sect themselves, as this was their pinnacle of escalation.
A choice of one extremists backed up by many others, in charge of far too many others. And while Mount Yelira continued to burst into the sky with bright orange, black, and deep red lava. While it poured down the sides in massive stretches. As the earth around the Mountain, the earth around Athens began to heat and sink into itself. Caesar The Immortal, not so Immortal. He ran and ran inside of the collapsing capital. To the nearest gate, while his anarchists traveled in a small pack around him. He held his body, a chest that kept burning open and healing closed with arms that kept cracking and healing and eyes that kept going blind and a brain that felt like it was bleeding -
Fear. He was absolutely drenched in fear. Not because of what he did, not because of the lava sure to melt him away like it did to Hope, but because he was finally going to die. Only if Gray reached him though, and he was doing all he could to stop that.
Caesar {I WON'T YOU END THIS! I FINALLY MADE MY MARK! EVERYBODY WILL KNOW MY NAME! NOBODY WILL EVER MESS WITH ME AGAIN, THROW ME AWAY, HURT ME! YOU CAN'T HURT ME! NOBODY CAN! THAT'S SUPPOSED TO BE THE ONLY THING I HAVE DAMMIT YOU WON'T TAKE IT YOU WON'T YOU WON'T YOU NEVER WILL!!!}
The many Warriors and Red Arrows around them were running alongside the Sect, only fighting in small scuffles that Caesar and the other survivors left behind in search for a chance of living at all. Far behind them the broken and looming Tower of Athens shook. The entire island shook and roared under Mount Yelira's cries. It's anguish. And hard breezes of wind kept coming from Lincoln's movements. He was moving toward another large wave of lava as big as the one that almost hit the Capital, heading toward the NorthEast. Where he knew Edward was fighting.
Edward {Is it really all over?}
Edward stood surrounded by the flaming remains of Moro's large ship, flowing on the water on a massive wooden platform shaking under Moro's mighty charge. On all fours, with a massive build, tusks ready to pierce Edwards chest. But Edward, he was smiling. Because he had forced Moro to go this far. Because, even if Moro should and may be stronger than before, all of the damage he had done was hitting him hard. Making him much slower, weaker, dumber than he should be. He had pushed him to the brink of collapse, the Gravestone Pirates to collapse, and even if Moro was gonna kill him Mount Yelira erupting erased it. It erased Edwards' failure, it erased Moro and everything he did. It would mean, in the end, Edward made sure they couldn't retreat. Survive. He had already won. And this was desert.
Moro: "YOOOUUUUUU!!"
Edward: "_____"
Edward didn't speak, he just prepared. He took a hard breath, and just stopped. His mother, his island, his friends, Moro, and just moved. With himself, as angry as all could believe, but he was at peace for at least a moment. Without the burden thanks to Mount Yelira. Moro closed the distance quickly with a leap, trying not to think about the large wave of lava tearing into the forest right outside the camp. And he swung his large arm, his large claws down hard enough to send wind pressure against the floor and shatter it. And yet Edward rolled under the obvious swing, stepped back from a predicted and instant spinning back slash, and twisted his blade around with his might, as fast and firmly as he could, to cut off three of Moro's large fingers.
Moro {HOW!?}
Moro pushed forward, slamming his other arm down to charge right into Edward and bite his bleeding head off. But Edward just swung again, trying so hard to unleash his rage. The strength he knows he has. Under his many wounds, the pain bringing him down, he forced himself to fight as hard as possible. Wasting strength, his life, his blood, but he didn't care. He would give every move, every breathe, every step all he could no matter what it meant. He would fight, he would win, and he would die knowing he stopped them. He would die happy, at least for one mistake in his long line of them. And his Dragon stone blade passed up and out of the left side of Moro's face. It stopped him from biting but it didn't stop his overhead swing from hitting the flat end of Edwards blade hard enough to split the floor and send it back through the ocean. The force splintered the flames, splintering Edward to the point of freezing. Forced to watch as the wave burned through the towering trees, to burn all of the Spartans, Red Arrows, and Pirates trying to escape.
Edward {They…no I can't think about it. I just have to accept it. Move.}
He would be the Knight, the Warrior he knew he had to. In the face of Moro, using his stamina to regenerate his deep wounds and his sliced fingers with harsh steam. The massive beast ready to cross the short distance with a single burst, simply waiting for fingers to wrap around itself anew from his internal mana, Edward couldn't waver for a second.
Edward {If I'm gonna die…I WON'T FORGET YOU! I HAVE FOR YOU! THAT'S THE ONLY REASON I'M HERE! FOR MORO, ATHENS!}
He couldn't go silent, he couldn't laugh. He couldn't drop everything weighing him down, because that was why he existed. Who he was, why he acted the way he did. He loved his mother, Bjorn, Gray and the others. Musashi, Kioshi, Al. So many lost. So many people have pushed him to be as strong as he is now. He wouldn't spit in their face. Like Gray said -
Edward: "I'll fight for the living! BY HORRONING THE DEAD! BY HORNING EVERYBODY!"
Moro: "WHAT!?"
Moro jumped, but Edward jumped harder. And he slashed before Moro's claws could stab into the vents on his Dragon stone. Aimed right across Moro's chest with everything he had, while his family pushed him forward, while a massive wave of lava was going to destroy all of the people around him. And thought of love, as his rage peaked, and he left a large gash across Moro's chest with enough force to throw him back. And at the same time, a missile of wind pressure arrived. Lincoln, sending enough wind pressure into the wave to erase it from sight. Aiming the wind to throw it all upward and out, over the ocean like rain, past Moro and even Soku. It looked like a small wave of meteors, illuminating Edwards next strike.
Moro: "GET AWAY FROM ME GET AWAY!"
Moro went slam his arms against the floor and sent a wave of pressure into Edward, but Edward slashed throws.
Moro: "YOU DAMN HELSINGS DESTROYED EVERYTHING! THE NATURAL ORDER OF THE WORLD!"
Moro caught Edwards blade with his left palm and threw it aside, before attempting to bite Edwards head off once again. Forcing Edward to hold back a force he simply couldn't. So he didn't. He saw his death, the blood drooling from Moro's large set of rotten teeth, and he threw out everything he could. He had left out bursts of pressure before, against Lincoln and while fighting the Gravestone Pirates, even a few times against Moro. But here, under the massive beast, ready to die, he took a firm stance. And struck Moro's chest.
Edward: "YOU'RE NOTHING TO ME!"
Moro froze, looking into Edward's only eye. And he panicked, because he saw Edward held no fear at all. He was ready to die, to win, to fight for his family. So his Warriors Spirit exploded, his rage, his will, and all of the immense pain he was in. His arm tightened, his muscles tightened, his blood felt like it was boiling hot. Before his right arm's skin began to stretch open, to glow with a faint orange tone under his skin. His internal mana, forcibly litaflame by Edward; it was the Dragons Fist. Unmastered, controlled, refined, and not a true awakening of internal mana. But this was Dragon Arts. The first real steps. And he struck Moro so hard his sternum cracked, his ribs pierced his lungs, and a large and harsh wave of wind rushed with his rolling body. Pushing away the flames surrounding them, mostly due to Lincoln's own large blast of wind pressure that just shot over the battlefield.
Moro: "NO NO NO! NOT FROM YOU NOT FROM YOU! I WON'T LET IT BE!"
He tried to stand, and then he realised he couldn't breathe. In absolute terror he pushed all he had into healing, twisting his body back into place with bursts of steam. However he began to lose weight, muscle, desperately roaring to not revert. However he was shrinking back into his base form as the ocean finally began to eat some of the flames surrounding them. Leaving the starry night sky lit by a rumbling, erupting Yelira over his fading life. But Edward stood, with a broken and limb right arm. Laughing into the falling heavens.
Edward: "I did it…I DID IT! HAH I DID IT DAMMIT! THE DRAGONS FIST! YOU LOST YOU ACTUALLY LOST! I BEAT YOU! HAH I FUCKING BEAT YOU!"
Moro tried to burst forward, but Edward felt as light as a feather. Without any pain. And he moved to his sword, threw it up into the air, and hit the end of it as hard as possible with his other arm. Shooting his blade like a cannon ball threw the air right into Moro's left arm. Leaving him screaming in pain, in fear, as Edward leapt forward. Roaring, as he punched Moro hard enough to force him to the ground. Where he used his only working arm to hit him again, again, again. Over and over. Before he finally used his head. Opening a small gash on his forehead by trying to break Moro's skull. Before Edward finally let out a final gasp, and fell backward along with Moro. Edward smiled, listening to Moro choking on his blood, before Moro flung up like an undead beast. And stabbed right into Edwards stomach.
Moro: "DON'T YOU EVER LAUGH AT ME!"
But Edward grabbed hold of his trembling arm, holding it back just enough to not get fully emailed. Before using the last of his strength to smash Moro back with his broken arm. Throwing Moro down, and allowing Edward to step on his broken chest. Unable to move, unable to breathe, and only able to watch as Moro took his blade out of Moro's shoulder.
Moro: "Could I get…a smoke…?"
Edward: "I don't have time to waste. Sorry, nothing personal."
Moro went to curse him one final time, but Edward made sure he got the last sword. And left his blade inside of Moro's face. Shutting him up forever. Before he hit him again. And again. To leave his head a bloody paste on the wood. So he could finally sleep easy. Because he had won. He had killed Moro Gravestone. And he fell backward, before he began dragging himself with his blade forward. He took Moro's coat, and left his headless broken body to float on the remnants of his ship. Finally over with these pirates. Safe to walk onto the shore, and watch as the Red Arrows took out the last of the Gravestone Pirates. Before he fell on the beach, and looked on afar, at the ship Soku and Ju'stone were fighting on. Desperately hoping for her victory, and bleeding out over the corpse covered beach.
Edward {I did it mom, Bjorn, like I promised. I told you I could do it, Musashi. I really did it. I finally killed him like I promised.}
His face was swollen, his wounds felt like they were breathing alongside his wheezes, and by laying on the sand he could feel the harsh movements of Lincoln himself. Dashing around Mount Yelira, far into the sky, before aiming toward the ground with his fist aimed high. Crashing down to collapse the ground into itself like a meteor impact, bouncing and crushing around the mountain so the lava could fall into its deeper tunnels as a loop. Filling like pools, and then he moved to kicking off the air while dragging his hand forward. Creating large trenches in zigzags, as best he could, as more lava burst from the earth by the minute.
Edward {You all can still do it…I know you can…}
Behind him the remaining Pirates still trying to fight were pushed back by the last of the Red Arrows magic and Demi-humans, getting them closer to help Edward. But he had to wait, to sit in pain, in fear that he wouldn't make it. All while he looked toward the bursts of green wind with fear in his blood red, swollen eye.
Soku {If I don't end this now I'll be out of mana! I'll die! He's just too tough! Why did I think I could do this!?}
Soku was on the backfoot. If she was hit head on two or even once she would fall. If she used too much power without control, she could make the many small cuts around her body open to the point of death. Even her Mark was beginning to weigh heavy on her shoulder, her blade was beginning to crack, her glider had already been broken. And Ju'stone was only absorbing more water spirit mana, destroying the ship with his attacks swirling with intense water pressure. Swirling like tendrils with his fists, his body, all of his movements to boost him, before exploding out like stone.
Ju'stone: "I DON'T HERE MORO OR YOUR FRIEND FIGHTIN ANYMORE! MORO MUSTA FINALLY RIPPED HIS DAMN HEAD OFF! I PROMISE I'LL DO IT FASTER THAN HIM, SO JUST SIT STILL SO I DON'T MESS UP WILL YAH!?"
Swipe swipe swipe, throwing out bursts of water with each swipe, while Soku constantly speeds around him. Her fear, her pain made small mistakes appear within her control. However, she was desperately trying to find ways to surpass him at the same time. From simply rushing or running with wind to jumping and crawling, swimming, low bursts of wind beneath her feet. She swiftly drove around him with waves of wind, stopped to hold it tightly around her blade, and sent it into his back. Only for his water to form a dense shield to absorb most of the slash, while his dense mana resistant skin did the rest. Leaving only a small red bruise, along with the fear of bigger bruises or small cuts across his body.
Soku {I can't cut through him! Even my charged attacks can't do the trick! And I can't just hit his eye like I did to that Oger dude, he's too hard to hit dead on, and he's built like a boulder!}
She took a stern stance, engulfed herself with wind like a challenge, and Ju'stone accepted. Charging with water before laughing, spriting, flashing his hundreds of teeth toward the tight dome of wind only growing smaller. To her blade, all while her Mark took in Spirit mana.
Ju'stone: "I HOPE YOU TASTE SWEET!"
Then she vanished. Blasting upward before stopping mid-air, extending her blade about to crumble with the intense of bright green wind rushing around it. Together, harder, harder. All of her wounds cracked a little wider, smaller cuts erupted around her, even her blade finally separated with the wind rushing between its cracks, but she swung forward with all her might.
Soku {I can't just take him down! I have to cut him open! I have to make my own weak point!}
In a flash of pain she hesitated for just a second, where Ju'stone jumped with another torrent of water. Flying into the sky, ready to rip her in half, before she swung. The massive slash was wider than Ju'stone, enough to fully encompass him and his water. It sent him flying into the broken ship, while the discharge of wind crushed the ship even more. Leaving a hefty gash across Ju'stone's chest, while his other smaller cuts were forced deeper into him. Soku fell toward him, shaking, trembling with fear and blood, holding the hilt of a shattered blade. Under the weight of another burst from Mount Yelira, she was lost to thought.
She first got that sword from Ophelia years ago. The jacket she was wearing was tearing up more than ever, given to her by her mother. Ophelia's mother, not her birth mother. It was all fading, as she would to the flame. But she was glowing like her own sun, her own light, doing what she thought Ophelia would tell her to do. To fight, for everybody, for Walgonia, instead of just fighting for yourself. To make the world the kind of place Ophelia wanted to live in, without ever going to the levels of the Sect. And now that the world knows what lengths the Sect will go to, how powerful it really is in both magic or control over the world, it won't ever be the same.
Soku: "PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE THE REASON NONHUMANS LIKE ME CAN'T LIVE A NORMAL LIFE! BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO DIE! I DON'T HAVE TO KILL YOU!"
Ju'stone: "YOU THINK I'LL DIE TO A KID!? A VALCANO HELL YEAH BUT YOU!? SWREW YOU, YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
Ju'stone tried to stand, but Soku attacked faster. Harder. Kicking out wind while flipping back across the deck, and then jumping forward. Swirling her hands together, like Gray's Titan Impact, and let out a changed blast of wind that came out like a short beam. Controlled, dense, focused pressure that smashed right into the fresh wound dripping over the deck. It burned, it dug deep, and when Soku cartwheeled another wave of wind with her legs, he could only hold up his hands before getting launched through the railing of the ship. Splashing into the steaming hot water coming from the open tunnels under Mount Yelira, all filling, to begin cracking open deeper tunnels more and more around the West of Athens.
It gave Soku a second to collapse to her knees and let out a raw cry of pain. Of the weight upon her. In the distance she saw the edges of Mount Yelira's top falling into itself as it continued to bubble and rush down toward the rest of Athens. Over the rest of Athens. Mixing into the sky for only ash and flames to rain down. Lincoln did his best to smash, throw, kick, and fight his way through all of it. It left so many who would have died in the small towns near Yelira, the people who would have died trying to leave the Capital, and a lot of people who had yet to start leaving. Rosemary was still blocking punches from Calgary that sent her through a wall, before moving just as Calgary rushed to kick him in his stomach up a floor and threw another one. Calgary was still bursting with random spikes of mana, injuries, as Gray was nowhere to be seen behind him. Still he pancied like he was right behind him, running as his ankles broke and curled under themselves. As he screamed, screamed, screamed in horrid pain.
It would take a while on foot to leave the Capital, let alone the island, but still hundreds poured out in mass. Even around the Tower, where so many Elites and Warriors fought, it was slowly fading. The ground was covered in bodies, mostly killed by the juggernaut that is Toll. But over them ran even more Warriors, with the Red Arrows they fought against, because of the pure terror at hand. Those following Athens closely because of their beliefs, couldn't help but think the Great Dragon had punished them. Others only there for money, fame, power, were forced to give it up as their dreams burned. The only people who kept fighting were lost and only had a life here. Working under the king, no matter how bad he was. Others fought because they loved it, because they had to, because losing to the Demi-humans was unacceptable, that failing their king was unacceptable.
Toll {I can't…I can't! BUT I GOTTA HOLD ON! PLEASE JUST HOLD ON!}
They kept coming. With flames, earth, water, or blades, even fists. Toll was covered in wounds, her back covered by a few knives stabbed into her thick skin, the ground rained with blood wherever she stood. Her eyes weren't awake, alive anymore. She just fought and fought. She tried to be a Red Arrow to better end, even if it seemed fate already decided her ending. So she kicked through another wave of fire, grabbed hold of a large Elite and slammed him face first into the ground, spun in quick circles to gather enough pressure and cleave past those running in front of her to take more ground. She had started in front of the Tower, but now she was circling it, destroying the large square field. Statues of kings, graves, flower gardens, small touches placed by the Valentine family over the last few centuries, carved up and spit out. A mercy to fall under battle, instead of turning to ash because of Mount Yelira.
The volume of pressure, the rampaging drill of power zipping around a few thousand Warriors and Elites alone, almost the entire army at this point. It was underscored by the constant God-like acts of their Dragon of Athens, not the Great Dragon of mythology, but the man of today. Yerlia may be constantly draining mass amounts of lava, the mountain itself may be splitting open with the continuous cracks and ravens melting down, but it went like the pop of a bubble. One, maybe ten punches all thrown at the same instant speed, to blast it all away. His craters and trenches filled as quickly as he made them, more large spouts of lava threatening towns filled with fleeing people were smashed away as others claimed more lives. The Molten Bay was alive, burning, lit aflame and growing toward the south of Athens, where so many were fleeing to. The Coliseum city was melting into itself, growing toward Panzer, then around the Capital. Before all of Athens was nothing more than a Volcanic Spirit rejoin, an Ever Biome like the massive Ever-laggon, Ever-Forest, Ever-Bog, or Ever-Desert around Saga. Filled with monsters, draped over history to be lost as history grows, and maybe to be taken back and made a home like it started hundreds of years ago.
Around the Capital small spurts of Kacy's flames still took streets, Gracey's thorns and spirals shot into the crumbling shops, Hartly desperately tried to use the last of his mana the best he could to trap her, but Olivia was fighting as hard as she could. For the country she helped destroy, while Lorraine's arrows still followed behind her. Under the movements of Athens' last Top Elites, the Warriors and Red Arrows that could have helped run past, away from the four year war. Away from this chaos. But for Olivia, holding a face of such rage like all the others, this chaos was what they fought for. What they had to accept.
Olivia: "WE STILL HAVE TIME! WE CAN STILL LEAVE! EVEN IF YOU BELIEVE THAT BASTARED BEARGUARD, YOU NEED TO RUN! WE TO RUN DAMMIT DO YOU SEE THAT!?!? MOUNT YELIRA IS EXPLODING IT'S GONNA KILL US IT'S GONNA KILL EVERYBODY!"
But that rage, between all of them, was so much less powerful than the fear that took this country. That was making Olivia sound just as crazed as the rest. And yet they had to fight. Hartly put up shields Olviias wind broke through, no matter how Gracey used her Mark and mana trait Olivia always dodged, and Kacy was one arrow away from crumbling with her almost unusable Mark.
Gracey {My sister! Where is she!?}
The youngest of them all, the first to freeze under Olivia's words. As she was forced to look back at the Tower, where the last of her family fought. And she stopped right as she was going to blast a large spiral throne construct, which Hartly was going to use to trap Olivia with a spell. Without that opening she was left open trying to push the bits of his mana to the spirits.
Hartly: "NO DAMMIT NO GRACEY YOU BIT-
Without any mana, Olivia punched the crazed noble with enough force to knock him out cold. Causing her eyes to flash to Kacy, but it didn't matter. She was just standing still, before finally collapsing to the ground to reach in her pocket.
Kacy: "...I didn't do this because I hate them y'know. I thought, after the Demi-human war took so many of us…it might have been safer without them…"
Olivia: "We put them away, as slaves, as tools. That war started, and it ended when we treated them like people. All of this, all you've done, how can't you see it? How are you all unable to see how we've been monsters? I didn't wanna fight either, I did it to stop any war, but all that led to was this. I'm with them now because I didn't want to die a part of them."
Kacy: "Guess It's too much for me to make that choice."
She took out her wooden bowl packed with spirit herbs, and used the last of her Mark to pull in fire spirits to light it one final time. Smiling, and hitting the ground face first. Killed before they started talking by that final arrow in her back from Loraine.
Gracey: "...Where should we go? Run?"
Olivia: "We should. But you don't want to do it?"
Gracey had tears in her eyes, hardly able to stand under the weight of the collapsing world. The rumbles of Mount Yelira, her heat, and the louder blasts of Lincoln Valentine. But she looked to the same place Olivia did, to the place she was just staring at. The Tower. Maybe to help Toll, maybe so Gracey could help Irsa, all they knew was that they had to move forward. So they ran to the quaking shy scrapper, ready to crumble under its own weight.
Calgary: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? WHY ARE YOU STILL FIGHTING! I DON'T WANNA KILL YOU! I JUST WANT TO LIVE WITH YAH! WHY DO YOU HATE THE GOLDENKNIGHTS SO MUCH!? WHY DON'T YOU WANT THEM TO LIVE!?"
Inside the ruins of the Towers center, where Arthur and Toll carved through various floors in their battle moved two gold lights. Bright, flaming like the sun, letting out bursts of their golden energy to move the wind around them. Rosemary was on the backfoot, bruised, cut, moving between the third stage to position before jumping away with the fourth, then back into the third. While Calgary, surging with random spikes of pain, held the fourth stage at its maximum to burst behind her. She pivoted, pinballing up around and down the various floors as he continuously smashed into walls, through floors, in and out of rooms to stop her. Pushing forward with rushing wind around his golden light, screaming for Rosemary to just stop, to just be his. And Rosemary never responded. She just grit her teeth, thought of all the horrid things Calgary and the Goldenknights put her through, and slid across a hall.
Rosemary {He'll break himself before he drops to a lower stage! I can outlast him, and once he's got nothing, I'LL CRUSH HIM!}
Calgary: "QUIT RUNNING AND FIGHT LIKE A GOLDENWIND!"
Calgary stopped mid-air suddenly, clapping his hands to send a large wave of wind violently bursting through the hall. Causing the cracks to crumble, the walls to slide in, and the floor to bend as the golden wind approached Rosemary. Until she took in a hard breath, waited for just the right moment, and indeed fought like a Goldenwind. Her time with the Goldenknights, her childhood, was filled with brutal training. Watching towns crumble and burn, villages and families, guilds and clans whipped off the map. But under her mother and fathers screams, inside their hate, was training. Training from the Leaders themselves, the techniques of the Goldenwinds she's tried to shut out all her life. But to win, against a Goldenwind stronger than her, she had to use it. Her brain, her skill, her resolve. Something Calgary didn't have at all.
Rosemary {NOW VANISH!}
With a burst into the fourth stage around her body, she slammed both her hands downward. Taking hold of Calgary's burst, along with creating her own, to push his attack into the tower around her. Before she flicked the ground along with jumping to soar forward faster than he could charge another massive blow. A speeding golden bullet with her right armored hand pulled back, swirling her hand to gather and condense her wild and almost uncontrollable golden mana. Before pulling it back into her fist, and slamming it right into Calgary's Dragon stone armored stomach.
A flash of her father smacking her away for failing at seven, now into a direct trip to Calgary for completing it.
Rosemary {AGAIN! GOLDEN BLOW!}
It pushed his stages back, while throwing him back and out over the massive gap in the floors. Like a tornado had formed and sat in the center without ever moving.
Calgary: "JUST BECAUSE YOU LISTENED TO A TRAINER FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE DOESN'T MEAN YOU'RE STRONGER! YOU CAN'T WIN! I'LL TAKE YOU NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS TO ME, TO ATHENS! IF WE HAVE TO SURVIVE HERE IN HELL I'LL DO IT FOR YOU I PROMISE! WHY WON'T YOU JUST LET ME LOVE YOU!?"
Mid-air he was tackled by her, hit in his disgusting and scared face a few times before he grabbed hold of her hands.
Rosemary {I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!}
She didn't say it outloud, but in her eyes laid a flame brighter than Yelira, before he overwhelmed it with his Golden Light. His muscles, bones, veins boiled with heat as the fifth stage rose out of his OD. Pushing against his cracked, crumbing dragon stone. Out of a body that could hardly handle it right now. And he spun mid-air hard enough to create a small dome of pressure, and punched so hard she flung like a cannon ball downward. Calgary kicked forward, through the first, second and third floor she was punched through before finally stopping under a massive surge of pain. Leaving him to smash into the stone floor, right in front of a roaring Rosemary. Where she pulled back her leg and slammed it into his bleeding, swollen face, to send him flying down the all white stone hall. A room filled with art, instantly torn by their destructive force.
Rosemary: "WHEN WILL IT BE ENOUGH!? WHEN WILL THE GOLDENKNIGHTS JUST LET ME LIVE IN PEACE!?"
Calgary pulled himself off the stone, wiping the blood away before spitting out a few teeth. Ready to stand and fight, but he couldn't help himself and just screamed forward with all he had. Mount Yelira poured lava outside the windows they stood in front of. Racing through the earth, what was left around it, to create bright red rushing streams ready to smash against the West walls of the Capital. Facing what may be Tolls' last stand far beneath them, protecting them from an army of Warriors and Elites to help their king.. Around a speeding Julius trying his best to escape, and sneak attack Irsa with every fleeting second. And under their heart, hot, bloody breaths. Rosemary's filled with a sense of bloodlust, while Calgary's was completely focused on survival. On fear, and what strength he had left. Which wasn't small at all.
Calgary: "WHEN YOU ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE!"
Calgary took hold of his chipping body, let the pieces of broken Dragon stone around his arms and stomach only holding him down slam into the stone floor, and smiled through his horrid face.
Calgary: "A GOLDENKNIGHT! A WARRIOR! APART OF MY, OUR FAMILY! ONE WE'VE BEEN ORDERED BY FATE TO RESTART, AND TAKE BACK WHAT'S RIGHTFULLY OURS, OUR SEAT IN SAGA! RICH! WITHOUT WORRY! AND THOUSANDS BENEATH US, ALL TREATING US AS THE RIGHTFUL COMMANDERS! NOT PEOPLE LIKE YOUR PARENTS! WE'LL BE MORE THAN JUDGE, IRIS! WE'LL REPLACE THOSE DEAD HEALINGS TOO, REPLACE IT ALLLLL WITH OUR GOLDEN LIGHT!!"
Rosemary {Here it comes.}
The fifth stage rose out of his injured body, like a wild raging flame held without any control. Just desperation, just adrenaline, to crush her enough so she'd still breathe. But Rosemary just closed her eyes, waiting for Calgary to throw out a wild haymaker into the air. Blasting an extreme burst that crushed the hall as it traveled. Blinded by an intense flash of pain, when Calgary looked to see her beaten, he only saw the rubble of his destruction.
Calgary: "NO! YOU WON'T TRICK ME!"
He instantly spun with a kick. Cracking a few bones along the way to blow open the wall to his right, until he felt the heat from the window behind him. Rosemary, kicking forward drenched in the fourth stage through the wall like Toll, to smash into his back. His dense fifth stage felt like an iron wall, one that warped like sludge as she pushed against him, before the power sent him flying through the hole in the wall. He landed in a large cafeteria, and without even thinking he slammed his arm down to crush Rosemary with yet another massive burst of pressure. And again she was gone, instantly kicking out from the floor below to uppercut Calgary through the floor, sending him rolling through the air in a daze.
Rosemary: "FALL DAMMIT! EVEN IF YOU BEAT ME HERE, I'LL ESCAPE YOU! I'LL END IT MYSELF IF I HAVE TO! SO EITHER WE WALK OUT, OR YOU DIE DO YOU UNDERSTAND!? YOU CAN'T BEAT ME IF YOU WON! YOU CAN'T NEVER HURT ME AGAIN, NOBODY AGAIN!"
She didn't care how much her body hurt, because she knew it was far less than Calgary. She had spent this battle chipping away at her fingers, tried her best to stay between the third and fourth stage, had been desperately dodging and running to waste so much of Calgary's already dampened strength. It had been a few days since the raid on the Tower, and Calgary suffered far worse wounds than she did. She was starting with an advantage, fighting so hard for her own, but now it came back to a match of pure skill against power. But she had to match his falling might, to crush his fifth stage, and whatever was left of him once he finally let go. So, she pushed her fourth stage around her legs to leap toward Calgary before he could kick forward himself. Catching his hands to stop any destruction, and let out cries of anguish. Of hatred, flying through the ceiling with Calgary as a battering ram, before spitting into his swollen eye through his stage. Feeling it quickly weakening, the pain diving into his skin, right before she spun and kicked him across the face.
Then landed firmly into place. Her being, beaten into her by the GoldenKnights, helped guided by Musashi, forced to her limit by Gordon, forced even further by herself. It allowed her to stand against the fifth stage, in a strange mix of fourth and third stage bursts similar to Gray's low, medium, and full power flow. Although, she pushed her right arm to its maximum. Her own Mana Overdrive. She forced out her stage as hard as she could, past whatever would happen to her, before dragging it through the air. Instead of punching him and facing the harsh recoil, she instead tried to guide the pressure like Soku, blasting Calgary further back down yet another hall they broke into. The armor along Rosemary's arm tore open with her wounds and dark bruises, not crushed completely, but out of the fight as long as Rosemary doesn't want permanent damage.
Calgary: "FINE! IF YOU WANNA KILL EACH OTHER THEN LET IT BE! I DON'T NEED GOLDENWIND BLOOD TO RESTART OUR LEGACY! BUT I WILL START BY SPILLING SOME!"
Calgary moved with surges of pain, hardly able to walk straight. His eyes faded into the blood, scars, and bruising. And still he emitted the fifth stage in an uncontrolled rage. Flying through the hall, ready to finally kill Rosemary with all he had. But this time Rosemary didn't run, dodge, or deflect. She didn't use a Goldenknight technique, something she learned from her friends. She didn't have time to, she didn't have time to think. All she could do was jump with everything she had toward him.
Rosemary {PUSH HIM AWAY! WIN WIN WIN COME ON JUST FIGHT! DO SOMETHING! DO WHAT YOU PROMISED!}
Mid-air, getting ever closer by the micro second, she slowly flipped. Legs forward and pulled back, flicking off the sky in the fourth stage with both hands, and blasted into him. He failed to punch, he failed to react, as she kicked him in the face. Skidding across the wooden floor with his body as a skateboard before pushing him forward, across the broken hall, still pushing the fifth stage as hard as he could. But he couldn't stand, he could hardly breathe, so he pushed it all forward. His maxout put, and punched. His veins lit golden, the flames burned through his skin, and as his attack smashed into the air, his arm faded into golden ash. Instantly cauterized, but it left him with a mind melting pain that snapped his Golden stages clean. Leaving him smoking with steam, coughing blood, and staring at Rosemary.
Calgary {Please…}
His attack spiraled through the hall, getting closer and closer. Again she couldn't dodge, but all she had was her left arm. If she used her legs again they might break, if she pushed her entire body for too long it could break; she was on the brink of collapse, with one clear answer. To challenge him with everything. Her left arm burst out of the spare Red Arrow armor, bust some of the skin around it, tightened the muscles so much it felt like it was gonna burst.
Rosemary {PLEEASSEE!}
Mount Yerlia loomed. Gray's fate, Soku, Edward, Julius. A country bursting. So many failed, so many waiting on her. And Iris, a name she hoped to replace her Mothers, dead for what. Her words were the only reason Rosemary was here, they all were what pushed her. And yet here she was, facing enough force to send her flying back into the enormous crater inside the tower. To send to her her death. So she just pushed, forced her stages out, forced her OD to burn, her arm to shake under the weight she was unleashing. However she wasn't going to destroy herself like Calgary. Instead, she had just pushed to the next level. And unleashed the fifth stage in a burst powerful enough to clash and disperse Calgary's strike. Erupting the walls beside them out over the capital, watched by the Warriors below, and felt by everybody in the shaking tower. Rosemary hit the floor, slowly walking forward with her broken arms to face Calgary. Not screaming, just crying due to the pain with a completely serious face.
Putting the fear of absolute death into Calgary, one he hadn't felt since the day the GoldenKnights were wiped out. So he tried to pull himself away with the only arm he had, desperately wasting whatever he had left to fail. For Rosemary to grab him with her hardly stable right arm, and throw him against the thick door right in front of them at the end of the hall. She didn't move to instantly kill him, to scream about her hatred for him. She just looked at the collapsing country, and back into Calgary's broken eyes. Focused on the mission completely.
Rosemary: "Now, I want you to tell me everything you know about the Upper Pillars. When we escape Athens, and I know we will, we'll use it to free Walgonia."
Calgary: "Only if you don't kill me…"
Rosemary: "You don't get to make demands. You either die after you tell me, or it's gonna hurt a lot more before I kill you. Letting you leave would be another mistake in the many I've made."
And again, fear filled him, before he went to speak.
Calgary was broken. Moro was silenced forever. Edward laid half-dead on a beach, assisted by a few Red Arrows to wrap up his wounds. Soku was recovering her breath unknown to Ju'stone below the ship, charging more Spirit Water into his body than ever. Toll was screaming to the heavens in pain, with her fading will under the mass of remaining Warriors and Elites that seemed never ending. Olivia, Gracey, and Loraine took on the many Warriors trying to fight the fleeing Red Arrows on their way toward the Tower, toward Toll. The flames of hell, in the end, tried its best to corrupt it all around their trials of fate. The bright green earth continuously spilled with blood now rushed with bright lava, broke open as the spreading cracks burned away from the filling magma. The earth began to rise, to sink, to glow bright red from beneath. Spreading, smashing, building into waves that Lincoln just couldn't keep up with. He tried to block the storm of lava approaching from the West of Athens toward the South with massive gusts all around. So the thousands behind him could run, run, run just a bit further.
"WE DEAD WE'RE DEAD!!!"
Red Arrows, Warriors, people who hadn't escaped, the West Walls of Athens, were crushed. They cracked, they were shadowed by the wave of lava crashing above it, before turning to ash amidst its orders. Like the surrounding buildings, the streets, the people, all turned into fuel. It didn't instantly take the capital, but lava was continuously rushing from Mount Yelira to slowly, then quickly cover the rest of this massive island. The collapsed tunnels beneath the Capital, the Red Arrows base or just the sewers, finally burst through magma. To begin eating, skinning, and pulling the city from its heart into its core of fire. It was burning, the sky was falling with soot, it was lit red by the mana, but they weren't finished yet.
If they wanted to live, they had to act as fast and as hard as possible. Before this country completely collapsed. Which was likely to happen soon. Centuries of building, and it allowed Yelira to destroy it all in less than two hours. The earth around Yerlia, growing with the wild streams turned a stone black. While any water ways were replaced with streams of molten earth.
"Was it worth it?"
The voice was rageful, but filled with sadness. He hated the man he spoke to, but he desperately wanted it to end without bloodshed. He just had to hate himself more, and fall to the weight. So he let the anarchists run, everybody ran, and swung down to save a fleeing woman from a wave of rushing lava. Gray, curving over a collapsing street with his cloak to launch toward the gate. He slid across the street to let her run away with one of many crowds, before staring backward. At the weak, pitiful, crying, bleeding man who caused all of this destruction. Who pulled the trigger on a gun about to burst on its own.
Gray: "WAS IT WORTH IT!?"
Caesar: "...You tell me…"
Gray rushed forward with wild spirit mana, feeding it to the even wilder Cloak to increase its ferocity. Growing, snapping out to twist around the leaping Anarchists with ease before pushing them into the collapsed homes around them. However, Caesar only had two knives left to throw, which Gray just ran through. The power of his mana flows enough to send them flying out of his way, and finally close the distance. But Gray didn't punch him, he just watched as Caesar finally gave up. Finally stopped running. And sat, crying into his knees, as his body continuously burst out with mana in burning random surges.
Gray: "You said we're here for the same thing. Back home, I thought I was useless. Too scared to do anything, too lazy to try, so quick to give up on it all. I ran away because I thought I was just useless, but I was just scared of living! What about you!? What could have happened to make YOU DO THIS!?"
Gray took off his mask to stare Caesar down, but he just kept his head low. Thinking of the hell that is this world. That is living.
Caesar: "I was poor, with a bad mom and a worse dad in an even worse side of town. I'm here… -
He was just as skinny, as tall as he was when he was transported. His hair used to be far longer, left to fall in front of his face instead of being cut and pushed back into more of a long mullet look. Without the scars over his face. He wore a blue hoodie like his blue coat, black jeans like his black pants, simply old and torn sneakers to his bare feet now. A boy who walked through the world, who tried his best to always keep his head down into the ground. His mom may have prayed for a better life, his dad tried to drink himself into one, push and smack Caesar into a better one.
Caesar: "I'm here because I also gave up. I didn't have anything, so I took some pills and just tried to go to sleep. I was seventeen but I'd thought about it for a bit, one day I just finally felt like it. But then I woke up here. And the hell started up again."
Gray: "Because you joined the Sect?"
Caesar: "Because I didn't."
Time was running out. The waves of lava were soon to rush against the Capital again, this time from further around it instead of solely toward the West wall. Leaving more of the East and West side of the Capital to break down into the tunnels and ravines, to melt down with the lava rushing through the blocks. So as Caesar spoke, Gray stepped forward, and clenched his fist as tight as he could no matter how hard it was.
Caesar: "They reached their hand out, in my dreams I had a Lower Pillar begging me to give her control and join the Sect. I spent the first few hours feeling like I was dying, since I was, but my healing kicked out the pills. Then I tried to restart, but with the war, with how I looked, the only job I could get was under the table stuff. Till the war took that too."
Gray got face to face, his hand ready to end it.
Caesar: "The Sect, Yoru reached out her hand over and over, until I finally took it. I didn't give the Lower Pillar in my OD control, hell I think she went crazy after a year or two of being stuck in there, and I was finally a part of something. This was supposed to be my rebirth."
Gray: "If you're not going to stop, then this is your rebirth."
Caesar: "...Please…just do it already…"
Gray sighed, but he felt like he absolutely had to. His soul, the Cloak, the world and Caesar's words forced him too. As he was the only one who could stop Caesar from escaping. And after spending so long trying not to kill, feeling so horrible for Jeremiah, he struck Caesar's OD with a final burst of Spirit mana. Causing his completely cracked OD to fully connect, before erupting wide open. Drenching Caesar with corrupted mana so strong it threw Gray back, forced to watch as Caesar erupted with blood wrenching screams.
Gray: "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY BUT WHY!? WHY DID YOU HAVE TO DO THIS!?"
Caesar's mind was gone. His body was burning away. His mana was fading into the sky. Before the Cloak pulled Gray out of the way, just before a wave of lava came crashing threw a few homes right into Caesar. Finally silencing him, and forcing Gray to hold onto a spire above the flooding streets. Where ash rained, where people cried to the skies with fear, as the Tower finally began to settle. His tears fell, the Cloak blew in the harsh steaming hot wind, and the world was lit by the blindingly bright Mount Yerlia coated in a mountain of smoke emerging from within.
Over, within, beneath it all, he looked to where he knew Rosemary was. Staring through the bruising, the pain, the daze in his mind. The tears flowing down to the bubbling rushing magma cracking open below him. And with a thought of Caesar, a thought of his journey, he swung round and around before perching against the skinny spire and leaping off. Flying through the air while placing his mask on before gliding over the crumbling houses. To the Tower, to his family.
Gray {IT'S NOT OVER! NOT UNTIL WE'RE ALL DEAD!}