Lua charged in, sword slashing through the mist. She could sense The Janus raising to block the oncoming attack. With a gentle magical nudge, Lua pushed the mist around her sword, carrying the blade slightly higher than she otherwise could, sliding her weapon up and over her opponent's before turning into a backhand that cut across The Janus's abdomen, splashing a flesh wound of blood across the floor.
“Gargh!” the wounded cried. “You miserable bi–”
The sword's twin sliced across her lips, cutting a line across her cheeks as The Janus desperately stumbled to avoid the fatal blow.
Inwardly, Lua told herself to not let up. She could hold her mist for perhaps a minute at its longest. Within in that time she had control of the battlefield and a selective edge against the precognitive powers of The Janus. With a sliding movement, she stepped in again and thrust her sword out. Her blade twisted in the fog, following its target like a bloodhound.
The Janus began reading the attacks better, taking longer strides in her evasion as she moved out of the way of the attack. While this made striking her much harder, it also made counter-attacks more difficult.
As Lua continued her pressure, stepping in with cuts after cuts, the woman snidely said between dodges, “How long. Can you. Keep. This up?” She laughed.
For a moment, Lua felt a burst of anger. The sudden change in her emotion made her slip up, her form shook slightly off as her left feet took an inch further than it shoul. It was an opening that The Janus took. Throwing her whip out, The Janus caught Lua by the leg and pulled. The blades of the whip dug into her skin and Lua let out a yelp of pain as she was dragged off her feet and fell back first onto the floor. The Janus quickly clambered over Lua, pinning the girl down while pulling her sword up towards her neck.
“What did you expect, child? Your little magic trick against my endless power?”
The world throbbed around them. The red veins that littered the landscape and Lua's body pulsated faster as The Janus got angrier in her words, as if the world itself was a part of her body.
Continuing, she said, “You only have that tiny bit of magic in you. But look around!” She gestured to the red lines on black. “Each and every one of this is magic for me. I can keep fighting forever! I have fought forever. My family line is older than the existence of your entire country. You truly thought you children will be the end of me?”
Lua exclaimed, “Do you ever shut up?!”
She set her circuits on fire. In a blinding light, the mist around her sparked and exploded, blasting away everything within its radius, including The Janus, who flew across the room and crashed noisily into a table which broke under her wake.
Slowly, Lua got onto her feet, careful not to strain her ankle, which was bleeding from from The Janus's attack. She had pushed The Janus far enough that she was no longer in the Bound Field. The world returned back to normal, and for the first time, Lua noticed that she and the still unconscious Pempe were surrounded. Outside of the Bound Field, the unspawn hounds had filtered through the hole in the glass wall. Lua was injured, tired, and had exhausted nearly all of her magic in the explosion. And the fact that the unspawns were still around meant only one thing.
The Janus was still alive.
“Bitch,” Lua heard from the other side of the room as The Janus stood back up.
The woman had covered most of her body with her cloak, the charred remains which she took off and dropped unceremoniously to the floor. Half her face was lightly burnt, and the other half was covered in soot.
Even though Lua held her swords back up to fight, she knew that it was it for her. Both her hands shook simply holding her weapons to level. As Pempe's chest continued to rise and fall with his breath, Lua floated the idea of killing herself, and perhaps saving him, Seks Four-Chan, Trini, Nos, and Joachim from having to fight the unspawns. It was at that thought that she noticed something. The unspawns that had surrounded them just seconds ago were gone. Nothing else stood in the room but the mortals.
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“What is the meaning of this?”
Lua turned to The Janus's confused voice. Standing – or more precisely, floating – with her was a strange, translucent white robed figure.
“Moira!” The Janus screamed at the figure. “What happened to the monsters?”
The avatar named Moira spoke, albeit with a tongue that made no auditory sense to Lua. Still, the words rang clear in her head, like an echo that lingered.
“The thread has been cut. A child has died early.”
“What?” The Janus answered in shock. “Not possible! Everything was foretold! I was meant to rule!”
Unfeeling, with its otherworldly whisper, Moira gave an ultimatum. “You have failed, Clotho. Your will is no longer needed.”
“No! You cannot just leave me! All these years! All these lifespan! You WILL OBEY!”
Clearly though, Moira ignored her. The creature faded from light, slowly dissolving into the background as The Janus continued screaming, flailing obscenity at the air. Lua could only watch on. Partially confused. Another part grateful. Overall, she was simply tired and glad that the worst was over as she let out a sigh.
At the noise, The Janus turned. Her disfigured face glared like a goblin out of the dark of its cave and suddenly, Lua found herself readying to fight again.
“YoU!” the woman spat, her words churning as if the voice had been ripped out of her throat. “ThiS IS yOUr fAULt! I'll kiLL yOu! I'll KiLL YOu!”
She charged at Lua who held her sword out feebly. As the woman got closer, Lua realised she was not being dragged back into the Bound Field. The zone had vanished with Moira. But the girl did not have time to ponder the implications as The Janus raised her whip to strike.
In an instant, a blast of fire – a dragon's breath – roared across the room pass Lua's line of sight, engulfing The Janus in its destructive path. The villain screeched in pain, cursing Moira and Lua's name with her dying breath. The girl covered her face from the heat that scorched the air, a stinging difference from the cold. A burnt stench filled her nostrils. By the time the fire died into smouldering flames across the wooden furniture, the world was quiet, and all that was left of The Janus was her charred, indistinguishable body. Lua traced the source of the fire and standing at the broken down wall was Pip, spittle of fire still drawing out the tip of her magma lance.
The newcomer was panting, sweating, and had cuts over her face and arms. But she was smiling wide. “Cavalry's here.” Behind her, Rehiy limped in with a battleaxe in his hand. He too had been in a fight.
Finally, Lua dropped to her knees, tears of fatigue rolling slowly down the side of her face as Rehiy walked up to her amd Pip went to check on Pempe.
“It's over,” she muttered under her breath.
She did not know how, why, and when, but it was over. She was alive. They were alive.
“Sik Rehiy,” Lua greeted without breath.
“At ease,” the drakin replied. “You all did good.”
“How are you here? Weren't you all evacuating?”
“We were,” the teacher admitted. “But when Pip found out you all weren't with us, she insisted on coming back for you.”
Lua looked to Pip. The latter smiled back as she examined Pempe. “He's fine. Just knocked out.”
Nodding, Lua turned back to Rehiy. “But how did you find us?”
From there, Rehiy's usually inscrutable reptilian face faltered. “We found a trail of blood left by Kingston. And... it let us to his body.”
Lua's heart sank and she could hear the silence from Pip as she focused on first aid for Pempe, trying to drown out the knowledge with her work.
Rehiy continued, “Enneya had fallen from the walls and onto Kingston's body. She's alive, but very badly injured. She told us what was happening, and from there, we just followed the sound of the fighting. The healers are treating her right now, but...”
His silence spoke volumes to her. Had Enneya been alive all the time? If so, how many of them made it? Would she even make it? Lua asked, “And everyone else...”
“Shichi and Shimona are trapped under a collapsed building. We're pulling them out now. Seks, Trini, and Four-Chan are fine, if not exhausted.”
“That...” Lua began. “But that thing. Moira...”
“Moira?”
She ignored him. “It said that one of us died early. If everyone else is alive then...”
Suddenly, she found strength to move again as she scrambled onto her feet. At first she stumbled, but once the momentum of her weighted body started carrying her forward, she dashed towards the door she came through, tripping along the way. Manic, she did not even wait for Pip to ask a raised question. In fact, she could not focus on anything but the door. Though the entrance was close, it felt a world away. Even after she barged through it, nothing felt real.
In the middle of the lobby, Joachim sat crying with silent chokes, hugging Nos's deceased body in his arms.