When Lyra Silver felt the sudden attack of regret, her moon almost crumpled like a discarded newspaper in a spring rainstorm. Even though she managed to steady herself, small pieces at the edge of the celestial body broke off and fluttered down to settle on the lake below. She lost ground that would be impossible to make up.
A crimson moon’s tears, fading into ash as the imaginary water of the lake soaked them through and left them abandoned and without magic. At this rate, she would soon be bled dry.
Because more than anything else, Lyra did feel regret for the way that she lived her life. It was a distortion sitting at the heart of her image, a truth she couldn’t avoid brushing up against every time she gathered herself. She leaned forward, almost completely deaf to the energies swirling around her as the Upper Sonora Society’s ritual continued. Her own pain felt deafening.
Yet she knew she as soon as that song ceased, so would she.
She couldn’t remember quite when the regret started. When it had twisted the innermost chamber of her heart. But here, slowly bleeding out all of the precious elements that made her exceptional, was when it would end. At the end of this road lay oblivion.
She didn’t regret witnessing Randidly manipulating Mana and allowing her wonder to sweep through her and transform her entire being, reorienting her world from the mundane to the magical. From that moment forward, she had found a direction. She DID regret not knowing how else to grab Randidly’s attention than clashing with him, of allowing petty jealousy to make her moods worse, forcing him to endure eccentricities as she did her best to ignore her feelings and learn from his accomplishments.
She didn’t regret having different opinions than him; Randidly Ghosthound was not flawless in the least. At the best of times he was a risk-taker, at the worst of times he was stubborn and committed himself fully to the most dangerous option. Especially in the initial orientation of the Zones, he made so many mistakes simply by absenting himself from the seat of a decisionmaker.
What Lyra did regret was going behind his back to try and accomplish her goals. Working with the being who was then his worst enemy without considering how that would be seen. Trying to undermine his efforts when she believed him to be wrong, without ever fully understanding his perspective.
She didn’t regret her current efforts. Of leaving Expira behind and moving onto the Nexus, essentially severing her connection the Alpha Cosmos in an attempt to better herself. She really believed that by learning the patterns of the System, she would be able to provide a perspective that would be helpful to Randidly.
Yet she regretted that she had chosen this particular path. She had been lured into this life by the promise of magic. Now she studied the bland nuts and bolts that supported the Nexus and wondered where she went wrong and why her heart felt so empty.
Her image shuddered as the pulling started back up.
A few more pieces of her crimson moon flaked off and fell into the water. What was once a full moon hanging above a lake had proceeded through two weeks of celestial time, nearing a half-moon form. As the pain and anguish forced Lyra to take a long look at herself, the light from the moon became incredibly pure.
But perhaps that was just the aperture steadily closing. The same quality was being squeezed through a smaller space.
I hate you, just a little bit, Lyra spoke silently to Randidly, knowing that he would never hear her words. She could have sent him a message, but she was too afraid to. Half afraid he would ignore her, half afraid he would show up and save her and allow her to witness a whole new varietal of magic. The other half is the same wonder I first had when I witnessed the way you moved.
She suffered in silence, waiting for the end.
Her end.
****
Randidly Ghosthound stared into the dense network of energy revealed by the mirror in his chest and saw the nodes holding the attack together. He saw the vicious claw of a fist whipping toward him, the full powerful of Fiero laid bare now that he had taken off his mask. He saw the inner workings of that energy, revealed by Pangu’s Asymptote. He also saw the powerful husks shambling forward, his Vulpis Squad forming up and preparing to clash against them.
Due to his current circumstances, he was limited in the actions he could take.
Randidly gritted his teeth as he examined the Folly fist. The heavy power is still there, but the core of this image has much more to do with Fiero than anything borrowed from Elhume. Looks like the latter of the Eight Fists rely more heavily on the Vulpine than Elhume.
His eyes flicked sideways, then back forward. He wanted to intervene and help the Vulpis Squad, but he couldn’t spare even the smallest bit of attention from Elhume. In the Sixth Fist, named Folly, Randidly saw all his own failures that had led him to this point. He felt that same nagging feeling he had during the meeting with Solomon, that hinted he had stepped into a pattern leading to ruin.
The ambient emotions in the environment turned bitter and ashen.
Yet Randidly Ghosthound didn’t balk at this new attack. As always, he would advance. And he poured all of his own subconscious darkness into his next spear thrust, to combat against Fiero’s Folly.
Stolen story; please report.
Dragon’s Fell Smite. Hungry Eyes, Hollow Heart, Cadence of Tragedy. Dusk Withers the Horizon and the Waiting Carrion Grins.
Congratulations! Your Skill Dragon’s Fell Smite (GD) has grown to Level 1101!
…
Congratulations! Your Skill Dusk Withers the Horizon and the Waiting Carrion Grins (T) has grown to Level 1271!
Randidly did not have the same weight of time behind his strike as Elhume, but already his Nether Core shifted and twisted to involve Pangu’s Asymptote in ways he didn’t quite understand. If the Nether Core was a beating heart, new chambers were being added to its functioning. And now he had accepted the histories of the fallen Nether people. Pain he bore in spades.
A spear wrapped in darkness, edged with a dragon’s malevolent claw met against the aged fist of Fiero.
Randidly’s senses began to spin and whizz. The impacts came first, a thousand little raindrops of interference that thudded against his Nether veins, threatening to shred the connections of his Nether Core. Even with his powerful Nether density, he still felt the strain. If not for the evolved connections passing through his newly constructed Momento, which also functioned as a Skill, his interior Nether would have been significantly damaged.
His images flared their power at first contact, but still Randidly shuddered as Acri crashed against the fist. In the long moment of strained impact, an emotional channel opened up between the two of them. Folly flooded out through the connection and slammed into Randidly’s emotional sea, a line of industrial waste spurting directly into the purified waters.
Congratulations! Your Skill Apostate Moirae’s Sedition Touch (GD) has grown to Level 1314!
…
Congratulations! Your Skill Randidly Ghosthound, Executive of Nether Reborn (GD)(U) has grown to Level 1579!
Congratulations! Your Skill Apostate Moirae’s Sedition Touch (GD) has grown to Level 1329!
The poisonous emotion bled out into a small portion of his surrounding emotional sea, but already his Nether moved and wrapped itself around the foreign matter. His Privilege of the Half-Shallah didn’t miss a drop of the invading liquid. His body had taken the punch and his soul had been sprayed with waves of depressing emotions, but Randidly Ghosthound gritted his teeth and pressed Acri even harder against Fiero.
Fiero’s beady eyes didn’t show surprise, just more of the same bitterness. “Still so confident? It won’t be long now-”
“Why do you act like I’ve never failed?” Randidly countered, leaning forward and pressing more of his weight against Fiero’s hateful Sixth Fist. Only through a few impacts and already Randidly’s joints ached. Yet he wrung more pressure from his musculature to keep his foe on his back foot. The ancient thief’s image didn’t waver, but the Songstress of Absence blossomed in Randidly’s pupils. He took more and more of the dark emotions and drank them down into the abyss.
“Your minor speedbumps-”
“All resulted in someone’s death,” Randidly hissed back. His shoulders trembled, small bits of his muscles beginning to tear. The negative influence had been safely cut out of his emotional sea, but now he felt his own fury and guilt and mistakes smoldering in the depths of that sea, turning all his emotion into incandescent plasma that threatened to be just as destabilizing.
Randidly spat out the words, his chest heaving. “That’s what you are missing. You tell me that I don’t understand how this fight isn’t about us, but what you’ve conveniently forgotten is that we aren’t the ones bearing the consequences for our actions. I’ve left a trail of devastation in my wake. As I grow, my very existence warps the possibilities for the people who follow me. And I don’t even fucking know what that means.”
Their images cracked and ground against each other for a few more seconds, then parted. Both Randidly and Fiero took a step back. Below them, the discarded Fiero hosts unleashed brutal, half-formed images that smashed back even the relatively more powerful Charlotte Wick and Raymund Ballast.
If he couldn’t wrap this fight up quickly-
Damnit. The veins of Randidly’s hands bulged as he squeezed Acri’s shaft. He knew he shouldn’t feel this way, having finally reached this plateau, but Randidly couldn’t help himself; each step forward just demonstrated to him how much more distance he needed to climb. The detestable sense of powerlessness swirled throughout his chest. Damnit…! I need to do better than this. To protect-
You can’t protect us all. Neveah slipped into Randidly's consciousness and nudged him slightly. You are not Atlas, Randidly, with the world on your back. You are the world. Do you see the difference? Because to fight every threat on your own really would be Folly.
By existing, we all fight. We are the example of another Path.
Fiero kicked off the air and rose higher in this central chamber until he landed against the ceiling. Instantly, the crystal Aether bubbled and seethed, restrictive tendrils stretching out and trying to submerge and lock down Fiero. Yet much more forcefully than this calcified energy struck at him, Fiero’s vicious claws plucked up all that raw energy and pulled. Raw Aether gushed down into his limbs, confused and chaotic at being plundered like this.
Fiero’s fists blazed. The air flickered, light bending and turning liquid in a halo around his body.
All that extra Aether wouldn’t add any extra detail to the fists Fiero threw, but Randidly pressed his lips together, knowing how much heavier all that energy would add.
His eyes blazing, Fiero drifted downward. Snakes of concentrated Aether slithered around his fingers. “You consider it a mistake to squish the miserable lives of powerless individuals. A laughable misunderstanding. Because what lessons do you learn from such ‘mistakes’... except that these individuals shouldn’t have been weak?”
Randidly felt another tremor through his heart. A part of him acknowledged that perhaps he had missed some emotional tang in Fiero’s Folly, because the frustration and impatience in his body kept rising through him. He wanted to be done with this draining fight. He wanted to win, now. He wanted to have the climactic confrontation and not need to slog through more.
He would advance, but he was tired. He still had all his Authorities, but Randidly didn’t know how they would fit into this struggle. Even after a small number of conflicts with Fiero had pushed his powerful body to its limits. And if he didn’t continue to push himself to the limits, on his own-
As Fiero took a fighting stance and prepared to throw a punch, a rumble echoed out throughout the crystal mountain range. A split second later, there was a resounding crack. A small flaw split the solid Aether.
Fiero stiffened. His gaze twisted to the left, in the direction the body of Elhume had been sealed.
Randidly felt a strange sense of relief fill him, as a small amount of the pressure against him eased; Solomon Rex had finally made his move.