Desire. Obsession. Love. Muddled, hurtful emotions cascaded within the tempest. The dark clouds brewing over the elemental’s body filled with a brooding energy, corrupted by hate. They wreaked havoc in all directions, unleashing scorching fulmination upon the Technicist facility.

Ceres dodged a bolt of levin. Its streak drove a fiery torrent through the floor, punching a hole through it just the same as the one that lingered far above.

Grovalt deflected them with his massive sword, each one sending painful aftershocks through his entire body. He weeped for the loss of his otherworldly pain tolerance, though he knew it wouldn’t make much of a difference now. Pain or not, no amount of bad weather would throw him off this path.

An ear-piercing roar let out. Nakir, in dragon form, launched off from the landing pad and fought with the Archmage high up in the air. Even with a dragon clawing its way through his starry clouds, Zandos managed to keep hurling spears of lightning down on his foes without tiring. Nakir’s claws couldn’t reach his core. Every time he lashed out, they would phase through his body as if it were composed of nothing but cerulean mist and dust.

“I can bring him down!” Zenzi cried over the raging hurricane pushing and pulling her. “Grovalt! I need you to freeze him in place! Stun him. Anything!”

The pale man nodded, staring daggers into the crazed Archmage. Vitriol is all he felt for him. He couldn’t understand the man, nor the Sorceress. Something told him that they probably didn’t understand him or the others, either. I’ll make them understand, he thought. I’ll make them understand just how much they hurt us. How much they hurt Ceres…

“Brat!” Maxra tackled Ceres to the creaking floor. Just as they hit the ground, a supercharged thunderstrike exploded the space where the girl had been but moments before.

Ceres stared in awe for a moment, then got back to her feet with the anisai.

“Thank me later!” Maxra threw the last of Venza’s daggers she had stolen at the enemy. They flew through the crackling air, three of them shot down by wayward sparks. However, two hit their mark. Zandos let out a brief shout in pain.

“Why do you fight against the inevitable!?” The Archmage’s voice boomed again. “We must face the impossible now, or we will not have another chance! Don’t you fools understand!? Your futile cause will only perpetuate the lie!”

“The only lies here are the ones you and that bitch are full of!” Grovalt flexed every muscle in his body, or at least attempted to, sending waves of frost along his weapon. Soon enough, it was coated in an ultra-thick layer of rime. He aimed carefully. The eye of the storm was in view, but only for mere seconds at a time.

“Varia zi sialeif!” A godly white painted the raging winds. Raum’s flock of heavenly birds assaulted the whirling tornado, forcefully tearing it from its master’s defense. The Archmage was using them not only as a shield, but also as a weapon. Despite Raum’s progress of dispersing the winds, the razor-sharp air cut his arms to shreds.

“Raum!” Grovalt shouted, but came to a sudden realization shortly afterward. His friend had given him the chance he needed. Winding up like a trebuchet readying to unleash a mighty boulder, Grovalt heaved his entire greatsword at Zandos. As soon as it left his hands, a thundering snap rang out almost rivaling the storm around them. The sword spun around and soared through the air before being enveloped by the Archmage’s defenses. Only, they had only shielded the outside. The sword had successfully infiltrated his wuthering shield, and in doing so, hit their target with a terrifying amount of force.

The Archmage screamed in pain. While the daggers had cut him deep, they were nothing compared to the huge slab of steel flung into his body. Not only did it cut into his vitals, but it was freezing the very blood in his veins as well. “You truly know nothing…!” He tore the sword from his bloody, starry robes, and the wind carried it along the whirling mass surrounding him. Around and around the sword went, its speed building and building atop itself, until finally Zandos let it go.

Grovalt’s greatsword careened toward Ceres, blocking half her vision as it flew straight towards her. “Shit!” She threw up her dragon arm out of pure instinct, deflecting the blade and sending it flying back down into the ground. The force was too much for her slender frame, however, and she went tumbling backwards off the steep metallic cliff.

Nakir dove after her, his entire body nothing more than a black dart spiraling down into the abyss below.

Zandos shrunk into himself. The violet lightning struck even harder than before. Massive holes were punctured into the flooring. Electricity ran through it and began to melt the Ravens’ shoes and burn their feet.

“Damn it, he’s-” A violet streak zapped Zenzi, cutting her sentence short. A hole no bigger than a pinprick had burrowed all the way through her leg. Her clothes sizzled, the early makings of something setting on fire.

“He’s charging up! Something huge is coming!” Maxra yelled at the top of her lungs.

But it was too late. Archmage Zandos spread out his entire body like a starfish, cackling all the while. It wasn’t a mad laughter anymore. It was a sad, desperate, depleted cackle. “Using the surging possibilities within me, I unleash annihilation! The bane of all fools! The Storm of Prenalm!” Several translucent portals came into being around the cosmic storm. Strange lines, almost like musical notes but not quite, materialized in front of them. Then, lightning jettisoned from the runes. It was unlike anything Zandos had created. It wasn’t the vicious, violet lightning he had conjured. It was colorless, yet as it flickered, it resembled a teal blue. It was unknowable, as if it was electricity called down from another planet entirely. It very well could have been, though nothing came to any of their minds as they fell from the destroyed platform. The landing pad had already been a teetering, punctured mess. Zandos’s last attempt had been the final nail in its coffin.

Thus, the Ravens fell into the vast darkness with nothing but their desperate screams to fill their graves.

The portals opened by Zandos closed, the strange symbols fading along with them. Desolate chimes rang out for no one but the lone mage to hear. He floated in the air, slowly recovering. His elemental form receded, bringing back his human side, or at least, his humanlike form. He looked at his burnt, scarred, callused hands and chuckled. “I did it, Nia. I did it. I killed them. There’s nothing left now. Nothing left but our dream. Our impossible dream.”

A great shadow flew upwards in a perfect vertical line from the abyss to the musing mage.

“Ah…” Zandos fell from his suspended flight and crashed into the remnant of the catwalk, then rolled over onto a wide, stone pathway. Large, metal arches lined the path. It led further into the Technicist city.

The black dragon landed before the bleeding Archmage. Not only had he received a freezing slash and multiple daggers thrown his way, but he had been cut by Nakir and Ceres’s claws on the way back up as well. A sanguine puddle formed beneath his heaving body, his blood as nebulae and his tears as starlight. The Ravens weren’t without their own injuries, however. All of them were cut, bruised, burned and bleeding. Their bodies rose and fell, exhaustion plugging their airflow and weighing down their arms and legs.

“That… was close…” Maxra sighed.

“Much too close…” Venza agreed.

Grovalt stepped forward. Luckily, his blade had wedged into the platform. While it fell, the warrior grabbed it on their way up on Nakir’s back. He walked towards Zandos, pain coursing through his calves. Blood oozed from his wounds. The lightning had hit him much more than he would care to admit. The same vitriol that had risen to the top of his mind before was on full display in his words and on his face. “...You let your guard down.”

Zandos was too exhausted to move a muscle. He felt like some lopsided homunculus that had escaped from a lab. A blobby, fleshy mass of despair and self-loathing. “Right… suppose I did.” The puddle of sinking emotions didn’t know what to say or do. He could only stare in pity from behind his starry mask. “What… of Esternn?”

Grovalt twitched. The remark shot a pang of guilt through his heart. “He’s dead. You killed him, and dumped him in that pit.”

“Suppose I did,” Zandos replied with a confusing tone of voice. It wasn’t quite sadness, but it wasn’t spitefulness either. “Esternn… you stupid fool. Why did you have to butt in…? Why didn’t you just travel the world, like you said you would?”

Grovalt gave into his exhaustion and fell to his knees, his sword at his side. A mixture of rage and confusion crawled up his face. “What the fuck do you mean? To save you! Why else?”

“Save me. Hmph. Haha. Hahaha.”

Ceres walked up to the Archmage’s other side. She didn’t know what to think.

“Maybe. But he was still a fool to the end. I never needed saving.”

“If you say that again, I’ll-”

“What, northerner? Kill me? You’ve already done that.” Zandos turned and pointed at Ceres with his crooked, inhuman finger. “You… were never a factor. A dragon bonding with an Outlander? How absurd… Even so, you’ve come this far. For what? Your sister?”

“Yes, that’s-”

“Why do you fight the resurrection…? Without the Aspect, Lily and the world as a whole are doomed. The archon will rise sooner rather than later. Don’t you get it? You fight against the true savior. Your sister is but one life to save hundreds. Thousands.”

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Ceres glanced over her friend’s faces, then looked at Zandos in shock. “What do you mean? Savior? I don’t understand.”

“You know what I mean… Your sister’s true nature… The night the stars fell…” Zandos’s celestial body began to fade into transience. The stone floor appeared underneath his translucent being. “Through blood and madness… doubt and despair… she alone can save this world. A great calamity is nigh… A promised end written into our very souls. Without any say in the matter… she gave us life… and now she returns to take it back…”

“Hey! Hey! Answer her!” Grovalt tried to grab Zandos’s shoulders to shake him, but his hands slipped right through his incorporeal form.

“...Esternn? Eloise?”

I exist for her.

No one else.

“I didn’t have a choice… but I would do it all again, if it meant seeing her smile…”

A real smile.

Nothing like that fake grin she wears.

One day, I’ll help bring the light back into her life.

And on that day, I will see the brightest, most brilliant smile.

Clear as day, brighter than the sun.

And when I do, it will all be worth it.

I can feel it.

It’s getting closer…

Just one more step…

“So close… I can almost see it…” Zandos’s mask slipped from his face and crumbled into black resin. He grasped at the air. He grasped, his arm outstretched towards the leading pathway. He could almost see the Sorceress at the end. She was a black dot next to a smaller, blue dot. He grasped for the future.

Ah…

It makes even more sense to me now.

If everyone got what they wanted, this world would be a much darker place to live.

Nia… I’m sorry…

In the blink of an eye, he vanished into bits of stardust and light. They floated and flickered like a lone lantern blowing in a harsh windstorm, then slipped into a hidden oblivion.

“Ceres…”

The hybrid raised a palm. “I… can’t. I promised. No one can ever break a promise with Asteria.”

Grovalt peered down and nodded sadly.

“Let’s go see her.”

The group was silent.

Grovalt picked up something from the black resin Zandos left behind. It was a piece of his mask, still preserved somewhat. It resembled a sapphire gemstone that glimmered under the gloom of the underground.

They strode down the stone pathway. Beneath each archway, to the left and right, were glass pods. Within them held more students. Experiments. Each one was mangled and deformed in some way. There was no doubt that they had all been subjected to forceful breakdowns, something that tightened the grip on Ceres’s heart. The truth could never be locked away for long. She knew that eventually, the events of the past would arrive to alter the future. She could run from it, she could hide from it, but nothing would change. She was swept up in all of this, along with her friends. A cruel game that made her kill. Made her a murderer. A killer of hopes and dreams, even if those hopes and dreams were similarly bathed in blood. Maybe Arkiel was right, she thought.

“Go on…”

“Hm? Lily?” Ceres whispered to herself in reply to the strange voice in her head.

“Don’t be afraid.”

“How…?”

“Please, Nia. It’s probably just the cat. He used to play down there all the time.“

An inexplicable, terrible fear rose in Ceres’s chest. It crept up her insides like a black widow, and injected a venom of unease into her bloodstream. She felt paralyzed, but her determination wouldn’t let her injured stride lag behind the others.

Wires. Roots. Coils. All spindly things, writhing and hugging each other in a strange dance on the ground. They led to a glass pod. Within it was something none of them wanted to look at, yet couldn’t look away from. Something so deformed, so inhuman lay inside. At the same time, it was horrifically beautiful. It was bone white, just like nearly everything that Aretztikapha was composed of. A dryad? Lily? Both? Neither? A monster? A cruel experiment?

And against a nearby pillar, crucified, was Asteria. The portrait that had once been her prison was facing flat against the floor below her. She didn’t speak a word upon seeing her older sister, though she wasn’t gagged. Her face said otherwise. She could not communicate her frantic feelings. Her warnings. Her fears.

The Black Sorceress, among them both, had her hand pressed against the glass holding ‘Lily’ inside. She hummed a strange tune, then spoke to herself. “Yes, I know. It’s alright. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. Nothing can hurt you. You’re safe. Soon, you shall be free. Oh, I see.” She turned to face her guests, a host for the sorrowful reception.

“Give me back my sister. Now.”

Nia smiled. It was an eerie smile, as if something was pulling at the edges of her face. A fake, sewn-on grin like something a doll would have. “All in due time, Ceres. I had wondered whether or not you wanted to start. After all, isn’t it fair that you tell your friends here what they’ve been fighting for? Why don’t you finally tell them what your sister really is?”

“I can-”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Nia pulled a bloody pair of scissors from her clothing. She snipped them in the air a few times for emphasis. “Whatever promises you made, I broke them. She has no power over anything as of now.”

Ceres was about ready to jump on her. Ready to claw her to pieces. But for now, she realized that she needed to play along. If she made the wrong move now, it could cost her not only her own life but possibly the lives of everyone around her. It was a horrible thought, but one rooted in reality.

“Or shall I?” Nia tilted her head to the side, almost like her neck had been snapped. It was inhumanly fast, and it made everyone including Ceres jolt. “I can tell them… if you aren’t mentally prepared. It doesn’t really matter, does it? As long as the information is given to them, we can begin.”

“No,” Ceres replied. “I need to tell them.” She turned to face them all. “It’s something I should have told you all, long ago. Asteria is not my sister.”

Everyone, even Nakir, was taken aback. “W-What? Little one, how can that be?”

“The truth is, we adopted her. But it’s not that simple. She’s… not from here. She isn’t human. It was ten years ago…”

It was a night veiled in a gentle mist.

Stars showered down from the sky. Luminescent, effervescent, enigmatic stars full of longing. The people of the Outlands, of the many villages there across the endless hills, mounds, and the great plains, gathered together and looked upwards in wonder. A repose like no other wrapped them in a quiet embrace. The calming emergence of the stars was something only elders could speak of, as it was so very rare, and only happened once in a generation.

Endlessly, the beams of light sparkled and danced across the black sky. It seemed so lonely up there, yet most of the villagers wished that they could leave everything behind and join them. Unto a world free of pain and strife.

“Y’know, Ceres, they say that stars come from the Blissful Sleep.”

“Really, daddy?”

“Yes, really. The elders say that in one’s final moments, when they are laid to rest among the many others sleeping beyond the clouds, a star is born to replace them. To give hope to those that lost someone they loved dearly.”

“Wow. Will I be a star someday?”

“Of course. We all must pass on one day.”

Ceres’s mother joined in. “Yes, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. Don’t let your father scare you.” She nudged him playfully. “When we pass, because we are special to you, we will become special stars in the sky just for you. And when you look up to them, you’ll realize just how important we were to your life. And how important you were to ours.” She lovingly kissed Ceres’s forehead.

“So… everyone up there is somebody important to someone?” Ceres looked up pensively.

“Indeed.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“Anyway, we need to make dinner. Come back inside when you’re done, alright? Once the shooting stars stop, it’ll be just like any other night.”

“Okay…”

Shortly thereafter, a star fell from the sky. Sparkling, azure light imbibed with infinite dots of color fell to the far reaches. Ceres ran off, her mother and father calling out to her, demanding she come back.

After searching and searching, climbing and stumbling through rocky ranges, Ceres found the brilliantly shining light. Upon seeing it up close, she fell in love with it instantaneously. She stood at the coast, stretched out her hands, and warmed them on the star. She felt its light tickle her fingertips. But deep inside, she knew, or thought she knew, that a star could not be embraced by a human. Even so, she poured her hopes and dreams into the star. She gazed at it longingly. She felt her love for it burn deep within herself. Once she couldn’t hold back any longer, she jumped at it with not but love in her chest. With the strength of her soul, the wish burning just and bright within her mind came true. Instead of merely winning the star as a present, she, in turn, had taken the whole world into her heart, and each and every star glowed within her, love overtaking her wholly. She loved the star, and had found herself. The star loved her, and had found itself.

A different warmth was within her arms. Stepping back, she realized the star was gone; in its place was a barefooted child with long locks of blue. White, twinkling lights glowed in each strand of her hair. A dash of violet graced it with enough vibrancy that it could be indistinguishable when compared to the very sky they were under. It, of course, being only a miniature version of it.

Ceres stopped when she saw the sadness on her face. She was crying, her dreamy eyes full of sorrow. She told her that she lost something precious. She hugged her again. A glass teardrop fell from her eyes, as stars showered from the sky. “I will never let you go, because you are important to me. You aren’t like those other stars.”

“Yes,” the child answered. “And you are important to me, because you are nothing like any humans I’ve met. You came to me, and I to you. When you are lost, I will find you. When you are cold, I will warm you. Because you are not like the thousands of other little girls in these lands. I have chosen you, and spent time with you, and so you are more to me than any other person could ever be.”

The star was capable of wondrous magic the likes of which the village had never seen before. It could create miracles, cure any illness, and create food in the blink of an eye. However, one day the star began talking and pleading with the residents. Accepting their love for the star, the village promised not to use its magic again and to love it for what it was.

The star was then named Asteria, and it grew, and when it did the memories of the star’s falling were lost to all of them except Ceres. Her mother and father were left with the belief that Asteria was their true daughter in flesh and blood.

Asteria came to Ceres in a dream and told her that only she could remember because she was the one she trusted most to take care of her and keep her safe. She then asked her to promise never to tell another soul of her true nature, for it would destroy everything.

And so the girl promised the star, whom she loved so dearly.