Day 3: Phoenix

My throat stopped screaming before I did.

The rest of yesterday was a haze. One moment, I was watching Nico’s corpse fly over my head, brutalized and mangled in the quick glance I gave it. The next, I was swinging my weapon forward, no thought towards the notion of leaving anyone alive. The snake had been crushed, I felt the breaking of bones reverberate through my hammer. I’d lunge forward, not bothering to confirm the kill, and charged towards the thing. The creature which had taken him from me. Though I don’t even think my thoughts reached that far. A mental switch had been turned, and I was a teenager again, watching Olivia’s body hit my chest. But this time, I wasn’t weighed down. On the contrary, I was emboldened. Nothing but the scream which filled my lungs and heart fueled me, and it was enough to send me moving forward still. I would crush this creature like I had Akhenaten, and then crush the fools and heretics which chose to follow it.

I barely made it a step, before darkness consumed the entire area. I made it one more before my leg felt like it was sawed off slowly and painfully, even if it was, by all accounts, a less then a second cut. My scream gagged on itself, it’s tone shifting to that of pain, along with the despair and rage. As the gloom vanished, I felt myself fall, as the carnage unfolded around me. The blood pouring from the part of my leg, a bit above the knee, which had been severed cleanly by a blade in the dark.

I don’t remember feeling anything, as I hit the rock. I could hear footsteps, presumably Gloria’s footsteps, as she moved up to me in the chaos of it all.

The flash of light of transposition was a moment later. So many yells, screams, shouts, my own dead in my throat. I remember seeing Gloria with a hand on Nico’s body, as the light took me over one more time, and I wasn’t awake when we reappeared.

I didn’t dream of anything but flashing images. The same ones. That of Nico’s body, my leg falling free, and so many other churning images of people dying, myself being injured. None of it felt real, for those long hours I spent in slumber.

When I did awaken, I was screaming again. My throat burned, likely bled ever slightly, as I didn’t even bother to take in where I was.

I heard the sound of someone coming up a set of stairs. Gloria stepped through the door, a flash of worry on her face, as the scream died in my throat again. But the sound still rung through my mind, and my entire being. I hadn’t stopped screaming, just stopped voicing it.

Gloria’s face was unreadable for a moment, as if she didn’t know what to say, as I panted, trying to take in breath rapidly at the litany of feelings and sensations that passed through my body.

I could feel the wound, or wounds. Scratches on my face and arms. But it all paled in comparison to my leg. Phantom pain from something that wasn’t there panged repeatedly, and the area around it itched and crawled. I didn’t pull back the blankets over me to look. I think I might have thrown up if I did.

But that pain was nothing compared to the confusion and sorrow that I felt when I realized who wasn’t here.

“Where-“

“Ruby went out. She needed to talk.” Gloria spoke, her English still not the best, accent spilling through. I noticed her center three fingers on her right hand, her dominant hand, were gone. Wrapped in gauze, and faintly stained red.

“…Talk? Talk to-“

“She said it was someone who might help.” Was Gloria’s simple statement. She took a seat at the other end of the room. Reasonably close to just putting her head in her hands.

“Can I get you anything?”

I took a long few moments to myself. Listening. Downstairs, to hear Nico move up. To come get me. To walk in the door. To smile at me. To pick me up to fly again.

I heard no noise. Not in the entire house. Not besides the rapid and frantic beating of my own heart.

“Nico. He’s. Downstairs right?” I said, looking over to Gloria. My face must have looked pathetic, because she just looked down. “…Resting, right?” I said, face upturning slightly into the fakest smile I’d ever had in my life. The tears were starting to well.

“…He’s in…wherever your Aunt puts things she should not be able to store.” Ruby says…” Gloria stopped. Taking a deep breath. “You’ll make arrangements once you’re done here. I’m sorry.”

That broke me. I couldn’t scream, and I could barely cry. I probably could have shattered the entire room with a couple body movements. But I didn’t. Instead I simply sat there, felt the tears sting as they rolled over the cuts on my cheek, the salt droplets seeping in through the bandage. I didn’t have anything left.

The ring suddenly felt very heavy on my finger. Like I wouldn’t be able to lift my hand that it was on.

The silver band felt like a nexus point of dread and despair, in a raging storm of it. I should be angry. Standing, going to kill that creature, kill that Champion. End this conflict as I should have back there.

But I didn’t seem to be able to even raise my own hand. I sank into the bed I laid in, staring at the ceiling.

It was like that for a few minutes. Gloria didn’t leave, and eventually, awkwardly moved her chair closer, scraping against the hardwood. I barely noticed.

She looked conflicted, I could tell. She didn’t like me, I knew. We were allies of convenience. She was probably just here because my Aunt wanted me watched.

Eventually, though, she spoke.

“Ruby. She told me about what you did before. Years ago. I’m sorry you…have to lose more family. I know what that is like.”

She spaced out her words slightly. Was this her attempt at trying to be tender? Her tone hadn’t changed all that much…but it was something. It wasn’t enough to get me to move. Nor did it make the weight on my hand any less overbearing. But the silence being filled helped. Just a little bit.

“I know how you must feel. You want to burn the world down, yes? Or you always did, and your fire is reignited each time.”

I looked over at her more fully. My face was dry of tears. My expression simply empty. I felt no fire. Outside of the fury which I had felt against the abomination which had slain the others, outside of the fury I had felt seeing Nico’s body fly by? It had been short lived. After that I had just sunk. And now, there was no one to pull me back up.

I just shook my head no.

“…Me neither. But that is how Kinil always felt. We watched our home burn, once upon a time. We watched our neighbors hang, our friends, our family, tossed into graves. I ran. Bianca, Otto, Kinil…they ran, but they always came back. They always found a new place to lay themselves. They always burned bright. And they wanted everyone else to burn too.”

She took a long pause.

“I was different. I ran into the woods, and found a cave. I didn’t come out for four days. It took a snake for me to start running again. I got very, very lucky. There are dangerous things for a young girl to find out there.. But I felt safe, then, walking alone. And the path I took led me to my brother. I was scared. I wanted to find a new home. But all he wanted was to burn. I should have seen what they were becoming then. They did some truly terrible things. And sometimes, I thought they had the right to. I stayed with them. With Julian, and his group. I learned how to take life, just as easily as life had been taken from me.”

She held her now fingerless hand out in front of her. It was now that I noticed and started to hear the rain pattering against the windows. It was coming down pretty hard. Fitting.

“When I saw what Otto had become. And I saw what he would do with it. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t like them. I ran. Yesterday, I thought I could make things right. Talk Kinil out of it…but…I failed. Some of that was not me. But some of it was. Perhaps we are not as close as I thought.”

A faint sound rung out through the house. A knocking at the door.

Gloria stood.

“I suppose what I mean to say. I think you and I are alike. Neither of us have fire. The ashes are just thrown onto us. It just matters if we intend to keep trying to light something.”

She said, in her same awkward English, before moving to the door. Stopping one more time.

“I am sorry. For talking this long. You don’t want to hear from a canche”

She gave a soft, but small smile, and started down the stairs.

I felt a soft and faint ping in my mind. The sort I got when one of our number was around. I stared at the ceiling. I still felt destroyed. But I needed to see Ruby. I pulled myself from the bed. Holding out a hand, I summoned my hammer, using it as an awkward crutch. I did my best not to look at the stump, to not risk vomiting. Even so, my movement was slow, and Gloria had reached the bottom of the steps, I called after her. My voice hoarse.

“That’s probably my aunt, I ca-”

Gloria nodded, and opened the door. She audibly gasped, right as she was kicked in the stomach, and sent flying towards the stairs. She vanished before making impact. I was on guard, even if my battle stance while effectively on one foot could use some work.

As my eyes followed Gloria, however, I looked down, and saw something odd. The arm that wasn’t holding my hammer was clutching my side. I was unfortunate enough to catch a look at the stump, but something was off.

The wound was about two inches below the knee. I wracked my memory. I had been struck above the knee, hadn’t I?

Of course, that realization was what flooded my delirious mind, instead of the notion of being under attack. Though it was soon drowned out, as the intruder took steps into the stairwell.

Nico’s sword flickered into golden flame. His wings collapsing back into his back as he moved in from the rain outside. With his foot, he shut the door behind him, turning the rain from an active pour to a faint patter once more. The raindrops that had been on his sword sizzled away into steam, as he looked up at me, his hair wet and out of shape like it always got when it rained.

I stared. I didn’t speak a word. Even as he started walking up the stairs, equally silent.

Gloria reappeared as he reached the same stair as me. I leaned forward, to collapse into his arms, a paramount stress released from my heart. It had all just been a bad dream after all.

Gloria’s gunshot saved my life.

Nico moved to stab me in the gut, but the resounding bang of the shot forced him to move out of the way, and gave me time to right myself, eyes widening.

“What are y-” I said as he pivoted on his heel, and lunged for me, I brought my hammer forth to parry, which succeeded, but also knocked myself off balance completely. I fell down the stairs, not able to support myself on one leg. Muscle memory having betrayed me, I tumbled. Gloria managed to move over me. She was firing with her left hand, less accurate, but cover was cover. Nico was undeterred, moving down the stairs, throwing himself down with full might, colliding with Glory, and sending her against the wall. Once back in the main space, he turned back over to me. I was on the ground, pushing myself away with my hands. The hammer had fallen from my grasp, lodged between the bars of the stairs.

“Nico-please-what-!” I shouted, desperately. What was going on? Why was this happening? What had happened to him.

“You’re in the way, Maisy.” He said flatly, before moving to stab at me. My armor blocked, twice in a row as he immediately tried again, and I responded by kicking him with my good leg square in the chest. One hand clutched to my side, as he’d definitely bruised something, and the other using to prop myself up, as he was forced to get back to his feet.

It didn’t stop him long enough. He dove forward, unfurling his wings, and putting his full force against me in a slam.

We went through the wall, through the kitchen and sitting room, and then down. Shattering into the basement with a crash, wood splinters all over us as we landed through the frame of the bed we’d spent the previous night in. I sputtered at him, trying to get dust out of my eyes and mouth.

“In the way of what! I’m on your side! I always am!” Desperation remained, as I kneed him the stomach, forcing him to release his grip. He, in response, summoned his sword back, reignited it, and moved to strike her. She dove to the left, narrowly avoiding it, feeling a throbbing pain in her leg. On instinct, she put a hand to the wound. And she felt her ankle?

She realized what was going on now. She could heal. Olivia, coming to save her one final time. She had never tried it on injuries this big, but apparently it was working. She just needed maybe another minute.

Something she didn’t really have. Nico moved over again, slicing forward with his sword. I reached out, blocking it with what remained of my armor, the flames singing the sleeves I was wearing. He reached out with his hand, and put his palm to my chest.

I was consumed by a sea of white. I had been banished. No…no…no…this was bad.

I could make out the distant shapes I knew to be angels. I tried to think of a plan. I looked down. I had half a foot. Almost there, just a little bit more time-

I reappeared, Nico was halfway through a swing.

When for the third time, Gloria Miranda saved my life. The roar of a much bigger gun rung out through the basement, as buckshot fired point blank at the armor Nico wore. Breaching it from the back and cutting into him.

I saw the wounds. They didn’t bleed. Instead a smoky substance, like a fire being put out, emerged, as the wounded parts of him flanked away slightly.

“…So you aren’t him after all…”

I said…a slow smile forming on my face. Followed by the most painful laugh I’d ever given in my life. So many firsts.

Nico retaliated instantly. Forming an obsidian knife in his hand, and throwing it, with dead on aim. Into Gloria’s gut. I slumped up against the wall. It looked like I had given up. And in some small way, I had.

“My name is Nico Rosa Adan. And I’m going to make sure that you stand in the way of justice no longer, Maisy. We don’t have a right to be here, treat this place as our playground. This isn’t order. This is just chaos with a different name.”

“…We swore an oath, to protect people. To protect the world. Kinil and his god are going to hurt a lot of them. Nico would know that.”

“No. I don’t. I’m sorry.”

He raised his blade. And I saw the final bit of recognition leave his eyes.

I sprung to my newly regenerated feet, and called my hammer to my grasp.

He didn’t see it coming.

Our weapons clashed in a burst of flame and sparks over the ruins of the room, as I swung around with increased vigor. He was forced back a step, as I kicked him head on, staggering him into a wall. He lashed out with a left hook, attempting to banish me again with physical contact. I swung the hammer’s shaft to the side, knocking his arm aside, before launching into another mighty swing, cratering the wall nearby, shaking the entire building by the foundation. He backed off half stumbling, drawing his blade out in front of him.

I didn’t waste a second, swiping upwards in a broad stroke, before swinging around the side with the pommel, knocking his bladework aside, and smacking the false Nico upside the head with the butt end on the way down. He lunged forward, forcing her back on the defensive, and shattering what remained of her armor with a lucky thrust. The golden flames had ignited parts of the room and though it likely wouldn’t catch enough to burn the while building down, the smoke would be a problem. Another wide swing, to force him back…before she decided she couldn’t stomach it any longer. The longer she stared at the thing which either once was or pretended to be the man she had loved, the more the life she held and had lost it’s meaning. It was just another abomination. That was what she told herself as she enacted the final segment of her plan.

She ran forward, taking a large burning cut down her stomach for her haphazard choice, the silver blade stinging against her skin. This creature did still have Nico’s still, and he took advantage of the smallest drop in her guard to potent effect. Or it would be potent, if she hadn’t wound up for her largest strike yet, smashing past his guard, the weapon flaring with divine power.

More of those grey flecks and tendrils of smoke, falling off of his form as he goes flying through the air, landing in a heap at the foot of the stairs. I rushed over, lunging onto the ground, and pressing the handle of the weapon to it’s neck. It’s form was missing fully chunks, that seemed to be collapsing in on itself.

“Who are you? What are you? And what nerve do you ha-“

His expression seemed to soften, a pained but familiar smile to me, as he leaned up and kissed me as strongly as he could.

It felt familiar. So, so very familiar.

I melted in the embrace of Nico Rosa Adan, as he wrapped his wings around me one final time. When he finally pulled away from me, I was looking at him in awe. He whispered a few words, which I didn’t want to hear. I wanted to hear a reassurance. I wanted him to stay with me. I wanted to not have to scream anymore. I got none of that.

“The final Crusader of Raguel cedes his blood to Cassiel’s final Crusader. May her weapons strike true.”

I grasped for him, trying to pull him close to myself one more time. His wings dissipated. The blade vanished. And the specter, the shade, whatever it was, vanished. With one final whisper on the wind.

“Take care of him for me.”

I stood in shock, was the last of the grey flecks of smoke vanished from the room.

I sat there, hammer clattering to the steps…before the cough of Gloria greeted my ears. I moved over to her, not minding my own wounds, as I planted my hands on her for a long few moments. The mortal wound from the blade, closed. I felt stronger. To the point where the fingers she had lost began to restore themselves. Within a few minutes, we were both restored, fully. My powers felt expanded. What would have exhausted her, closing wounds like these, where sometimes wounds would even appear on me instead, as a price. Now, none of it.

Simply clemency.

Gloria gave me a nod.

“…Thank you. I am…sorry. You had to go through that twice.”

I gave a long look around, at the ruins of the house. I offered Gloria a hand, pulling her to her feet.

“I can’t lay around here any longer. I’ll have time to mourn later, I’m sure. For now…I need to figure out what’s going on. I have a feeling that-“

I was cut off by the sound of distant gunshots, and rippling explosions.

“He isn’t the only one.” I finished.

Gloria nodded, moving up the stairs swiftly alongside me. I turned around to her as we did, through the ruins of the safehouse.

“We need to split our focus. I’m going to find that god, try and slow him down at the very least. You need to find your brother. You need to talk him down. Before things get worse.”

I threw the door open, into the frigid rain. It was still the afternoon, angry grey clouds moving above. I was drenched almost right away, Gloria and her weapons getting a similar treatment. I locked eyes with her, as distant gunfire, crushing rumbling, and detonations rung out.

“Good luck”

“Good luck.”

She began running off. I took a long look at the sky, and thought about things for a long few minutes.

It was an instinct, as the wings sprouted forth from my back, and the silver blade appeared in my hand. It was with an effortless heft that she raised both hammer and blade up, taking off into the air with a mighty burst of the wings. It felt natural. I soared, through the sky at a fast speed that I couldn’t fully control, but I was still guided forward by an invisible hand that felt ever so familiar. Even from wherever she was, Ruby was trying to help.

I could see the faint shape of the jaguar headed creature. Floating forward towards the central area of the city.

I saw it happen, all around me, the warping, the shifting of the terrain, forming subtle symbols of clocks, monoliths and sundials. I watched as the sky above began to shift and curl faster then should be possible. I watched as the sun from behind the clouds began to sink.

But I maintained my charge, even as the Silent Hearth slipped away. Because I could still feel his wings around me.

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