Arcturus’ eyes shot open and he sat bolt upright as the sound of a dull whump rolled into his ears. He turned to his left, where Elethea was stirring with similar confusion in the bed beside him, the distracting shape of her body enclosed beneath the satin pyjamas she’d worn to bed. Appealing and enjoyable as the sight of his presumptive girlfriend, or whatever was supposed to name her with regards their slowly developing relationship was; the explosion took more priority.
“What’s going on?” Elethea groaned in annoyance as Arcturus darted across her to slip off of her side of his (or maybe their, at this point, regardless of the lack of more than kissing) bed, Perdition drawn to his hand with a flex of his [Telekinesis] as he stepped closer to the floor-to-ceiling window. It seemed relatively normal outside, at first glance, with the skyline of the city shimmering in the near distance.
“I don’t know, really. I thought I heard—”
This time when the sound came, it was far louder and accompanied by a colossal explosion. Arcturus staggered back from the window in surprise as night turned to daylight, and the grounds were lit up by a sudden volley of explosions across the massive perimeter wall and across the rolling green between it and the Villa.
“What the fuck?” Arcturus exclaimed as he heard Elethea run over to stare out of the window alongside him.
“Those weren’t done through conventional means.” The Highblade heiress said at his side, all tiredness vanished. “Those were aetherial eruptions.”
Arcturus knew immediately what that implied: They were under attack.
But why? And by who?
“Summon your armour.” Elethea said decisively. “We need to find Father.”
“What about you?”
“I have my elemental armour active already, silly.” She said in the affectionate tone she used when he did something she deemed ‘cute’, which itself was wholly juxtaposed to the situation at hand. It was hardly a time for sweetness, no matter how oddly endearing he found it.
“Right.” Arcturus said with a mental kick. Of course she had her elemental armour active. He was the cripple, not her.
Watch out!
Arcturus’ instincts screamed at him in the same moment as his window exploded inwards with a deafening boom, blasting him off his feet and smashing him into the wall at the far end of his room.
He released a low groan of pain and looked around him, seeing desolation everywhere. His room had been blown open by the attack against the window, and his bed was all but destroyed. In fact, if the passage of the attack hadn’t thrown him away from the window, or if he hadn’t chosen to investigate in the first place, the strike against his bed likely would have killed or near-fatally injured him instantly.
He could feel glass embedded in his skin and the shredded remains of his pyjamas barely clinging to him as he staggered to his feet with a crunch of glass and broken wood. A glance at his Health showed him at 1,870 / 2,307 and he winced at the near 500 point drop in hitpoints. He definitely felt it, what with his System-enhanced body aching like it had been put through the grindstone.
The silhouette showing damage to different areas showed light yellow basically everywhere, with only small splashes of green at various points to indicate areas that had survived more or less untouched. Before anything else, he started channelling his [Lightfire] ability and felt rejuvenating heat suffuse his core and surge through his veins; pushing out shards of glass and splinters small and large as it repaired and knitted together his damaged body.
As his senses returned to normal, he realised something he’d missed: Elethea!
“Elethea!” Arcturus called out and coughed, feeling rawness in his throat. “Elethea, say something!”
An answering blast of solarfire blew apart a section of rubble near the window, in the far corner of the room from him, and Elethea stepped out with a bloodied face and an angry look on her features. Her aetherblade was in her right hand, and she was looking at the bed as if it had personally offended her.
“Are you okay?” Arcturus called as he walked towards her, only to be stopped as she threw her hand out.
“Wait! That attack came from outside, there might still be people watching. Don’t go within line of sight of the frame.”
“Elethea, it’s more like a gaping hole in the wall at this point. Everything is in line of sight.”
The noblewoman glanced at the window again. “I saw the attack when it happened.”
“You… How?!”
“I’ve had more time to develop my senses and learn how to enhance them with Aether. That was targeted, and it was a linear strike.”
“Well that’s just per—” Arcturus’ anger was cut off by another flash of lightning, and the appearance of three white-armoured individuals bearing matching masks edged in gold filigree, each one displaying a different item: One with a lightning bolt, one with a mountain, and one with a flame.
“Heretics! You are hereby charged with Cardinal Sin by the Church of—Hrk!”
A wave of solarfire exploded out at the three Church Agents, which Arcturus assumed they were, and he wasted no time hanging around. His legs took him to the door and he smashed it open with a kick, his System-enhanced Strength blowing it off its hinges and into the corridor beyond.
Elethea appeared next to him a heartbeat later in a burst of golden-white fire, and Arcturus glanced behind them. “How long?”
“Seconds.” She said as she looked back as well.
“We need to regroup with the others.”
She nodded and they raced off as the sound of shouting voices and pursuit echoed behind them, Elethea reaching out to yank him away from a blast of lightning that curved and drilled into a tapestry, igniting it as they raced past. “Summon your armour, you idiot!”
Cursing his distraction, Arcturus did as she suggested and triggered the summoning process while they ran. He still hadn’t activated Perdition, but the dormant hilt was easier to run with than a live blade, and Elethea had seemed to share his opinion; her own sword Adjudication deactivated in her hand.
A timer started on his HUD and Arcturus darted a glance at his minimap as they raced along the corridor and skidded around a turn, racing down another corridor towards the stairwell in the distance. As they ran, notifications cropped up in his vision, but Arcturus ignored them. Something more pressing held his attention as the sound of pursuit echoed behind them.
“Where the hell are all the staff?!”
“That’s a good question!” Elethea responded as she glanced behind them. “But before that’s answered, dearest, could you make their pursuit more difficult?”
“Eh?”
“Enclosed space, Arcturus.”
His eyes widened as he realised what an absolute dunce he’d been. Of course. It was glaringly, disgustingly obvious. Arcturus stopped running and spun, pulling deep on his aetherial core and pushing out with both hands. The air around him warped as his [Telekinesis] activated, and Arcturus sent a squared wall of hyper-condensed force hurtling at their pursuers for the hefty cost of 350 mana.
The corridor was torn up by its progress; sconces shattered, portraits detonated, and tapestries eviscerated as the telekinetic attack obliterated the material objects in its path. Two bolts of lightning, a stream of flame, and several spears of granite smashed into it ineffectually as their pursuers attempted to halt what they could vaguely see coming.
Seemingly realising it was futile, they turned and bolted for the previous corridor, assumedly to seek shelter until the attack passed.
As they did, Arcturus’ timer hit zero.
His armour appeared on him in a flash of fire and crackling energy, shrouding him in its protective embrace and steadying his feet, calming his heart, and relaxing his body. The Strength, Vitality, and Charisma boosts kicked in immediately and Arcturus smiled to himself.
“Well, that’s better.”
Elethea sighed from beside him. “For such a ferocious warrior, my prince, you are shockingly lacking in core combat instincts at times.”
Arcturus side-eyed her. “Beat you, didn’t I?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it with a faint click, and pouted instead.
He smiled and darted his head over to brush her lips with a kiss, seeing and sensing her tense and then relax immediately.
When he drew back, she was blushing across her cheeks and nose. “Unfair,” she mumbled.
“All is fair in love and war.” Arcturus quoted, before taking her hand and dragging her back into a run down the corridor.
“We don’t have long before the three maskateers—” he glanced at her to see if she got it, and was met with a disappointingly oblivious look “—catch up again.” He finished in resignation. Terrans were culturally deprived.
“We need to find my father.”
“I agree, but we also need to find Adam and the others.” They reached the stairs and Arcturus released her hand, grabbing the railing as she did the same opposite him and they took the stairs two at a time, his enhanced Agility keeping him moving smoothly. “They weren’t in their rooms or else they’d have been running with us, so where—?”
“Andy is probably with Tylariel.” Elethea said matter-of-factly.
“Right, that—Wait, what?!”
“Focus, dear.” Elethea chided. “Danica, Caeara, and Adam are probably together somewhere as well. I know they’ve been sneaking out to the Lake lately—” She went silent as the same thought entered both their minds. If they were at the Lake…
“We can’t afford to run out there blindly.” She said immediately, reading his mind in an instant. “Arcturus, we’re being attacked and we don’t know by how many or what the state of the House Guard is, we can’t!”
“I can’t just abandon them!”
“You think you can save them faster than my father, Tylariel, and Tiberius?” Elethea demanded.
“I…” he went silent and cursed in his head. “Alright! Alright. Where should we look for—?”
Arcturus abruptly blanched as aetheric force washed over him and Elethea both, stumbling them and sending them staggering into the railings of the stairwell.
A titanic shock of force rattled the Estate, and Arcturus glanced meaningfully at Elethea before the pair of them raced down the remaining flights of stairs to the next landing, and jogged to the first viewing point they found: A jagged rend in the wall of the Villa.
The wind billowed Arcturus’ cloak around his armour as he and Elethea stared out at the sight before them in muted shock.
Hollering warriors in the white of the Church clashed with the green-and-gold liveried guards of House Rubastra, joined in the occasional instance by House Highblade Knights that had accompanied Beowulf for his visit. The melee was spread over the lawn, with more and more soldiers pouring in from a flaming breach in the perimeter wall.
Something important that Arcturus noticed was that very few of the soldiers had aetheric auras he could perceive, and the majority of those were instead still massed outside the perimeter wall. He was confused until he realised it must have been some sort of ward, and then further confused when he thought of the people that had attacked them.
Flashes of light and coruscating bolts of energy raced back and forth across the grounds as aether rifles were brought to bear, creating an eclectic exchange of visual stimuli as what Arcturus could only describe as ‘lazers’ of multiple colours fired across the span of the grounds with mass hiss-cracks of release.
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That’s a lot of lasers.
Automated turrets joined in, firing from atop the walls of the Villa and from where they’d been elevatored up from below seemingly innocuous patches of green grass, while animated wolf statues standing as high as Beowulf on all fours — acting for all the world like some weird version of lupine gargoyles — crashed into Church warriors and tore them apart with stomach-turning ferocity, and what had to be enchanted teeth.
His bewilderment was only amplified when he finally spotted the source of the wave of aetheric might that had washed over him and Elethea, and his mouth went dry.
Beowulf was in his bedclothes, his hair unkempt and body covered only in a selection of chainmail as he wielded his gargantuan sword against a much smaller figure bedecked in brilliant red plate. His opponent wielded an aetherblade as well, though theirs was made of blazing orange-red flames as it clashed with Beowulf’s own solarfire aetherblade.
“That’s Leon Fortunis.” Elethea said in a whisper of disbelief.
“What?!” Arcturus asked as the two Archons clashed, the shockwaves of their combat washing over him with near knee-buckling force. “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s the end.” A familiar, sad voice said from behind them, drawing their attention as they spun around.
Attired in a naggingly familiar set of silvery plate armour, with a faintly cobalt finish that matched her piercing eyes was Vivienne. Her blonde hair was left loose, and in her right hand she held an elegant, and momentarily familiar aetherblade hilt. When Arcturus saw it, something in him caused him to tense — panic and some unknown instinct wanting him to shy away from it. That blade could hurt him. That blade, he was absolutely positive, could kill him.
“Mistress Dubois?” Elethea asked cautiously. “What is going on—?”
Her words were cut off as Vivienne snapped her eyes over and unleashed a lightning bolt that blasted Elethea out of the window.
“NO!” Arcturus screamed, turning as he saw his presumptive-fiancée vanish from sight in the chaos below, unable to spot her amid the rubble and the flashes and eruptions casting variance of lighting quality across the estate. His heart hammered in his chest, and he turned back to Vivenne who was watching him with the same sad, regretful look he’d seen in her eyes the night of Elethea’s arrival.
“Vivienne, what the fu—?”
“I didn’t think it was possible, when I saw you. You looked the same, just… better. More handsome. More real. I thought I was going mad.”
Arcturus stared at her in confusion, Perdition’s hilt gripped tightly in his hand, as-of-yet not active. Some part of him was still hesitating, though whether it was out of affection, confusion, or fear… He couldn’t tell.
Snap out of it, Arcturus.
“I never knew you, you were just a face, but after you came here… I grew curious. My oath to Judicius compels my obedience, but you were a loophole. I swore to work for the best interests of the Empire and the Church. The wording gave me a way out; I believed you could be good for the Empire, and since it preceded the Church I could, just barely, convince myself not to report you. I had never seen anything like it, you see.”
Arcturus swallowed as she monologued, watching her eyes for some sign of insanity of wildness. He saw nothing, no insanity, no glazed look of mind control, nothing. All he saw was the same regret, the same sadness… and, unless he was going mad, a hint of desire. He glanced away from her at the stairs, and she seemed to notice.
“Don’t worry, the Exemplars won’t be coming. They’ve already left to chase different targets.”
“Vivienne, you’re monologuing like a crazy person.” Arcturus said, throwing caution to the wind. “Care to explain why you just blasted my fucking girlfriend—” the truth settled on him like a cloak “—out of the window?”
“She took away your chance at life.”
“What the hell are you—?”
“I tried!” She said almost desperately. “I tried to show you, to make you understand. I tried to give you the chance to choose correctly. I did everything I could, told myself every half-truth possible, endured nights of agony as my oaths warred with my desires and I fought to convince myself that I was doing the right thing!”
Her eyes were brimming with moisture at that point, and Arcturus was utterly lost, and more than a little disturbed.
“I gave myself to you, I tried to let you enjoy me so you’d listen to me. I needed to guide you! To save you! You’re a Miracle, Arcturus. You were Chosen by Him. I had a duty to my Faith to save your life, and that stupid little noble bitch ruined it… Ruined us. I knew it the moment she arrived.”
“You attacked her because I didn’t fuck you?!” He demanded.
“No! Whether you had me, or her, or both… That was irrelevant!” She snapped. “What mattered was her influence on you. I knew she’d figure it out, but I still had the chance to save you… When you talked about Civil War that night with Tiberius, I knew I’d almost lost my chance. You were so close to doomed, Arcturus. So, so close… I thought if I could just make you listen…”
Her cheeks were stained with her tears by now, and Arcturus was well and truly nonplussed, his mind racing as he listened to what he perceived to be some sort of mental breakdown — save that her gaze was steady, and utterly sane. That scared him more than anything.
“I know how men work. I’ve been used by them and used them my entire life. Inquisitors aren’t recruited, no matter what they say: We’re born into this life. We’re taken from orphanages, or families that wish the Church’s favour, and we’re developed. If we’re lucky, which we rarely are, our missions are quick and impersonal. If we’re not, they’re long, long commitments…” She shivered and seemed to curl in on herself for a moment. “I’ve serviced more nobles and grotesque people of interest to the Church than I care to recall. My body has been defiled a thousand times, and a thousand times more. I’ve been a plaything, a slave, a toy, a mistress, a wife… I’ve been whatever they ordered me to be, Arcturus, but with you…?”
She looked him over, and her lips trembled. “With you, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad… After all, I felt like you would understand me, you who were brought to this world by my own hand. You were my deliverance. A sign from Order. A way to be free. I could make you King, and then you could get me free.”
Arcturus’ heart skipped a beat.
Her hand had brought him here?
“Until Beowulf arrived. Until that giant, obnoxious, idiotic excuse for an Archon trampled in and declared civil war to be a fine choice, and my oath compressed onto me.” Vivienne continued unperturbed, her voice adopting a morose and manic quality. “You were damned from that point. Damned, because I’d failed, and you’d let that little whore bewitch her way into your mind. She tainted you. She ruined you, and now I have to do it again. I have to watch that innocent light leave your eyes again!”
Arcturus’ eyes slid across Vivienne’s armour, down to her weapon, and then back to her eyes.
Those beautiful, lovely, unforgettably intense blue eyes.
“It was YOU!” He snarled as the memory flooded back to him, and Perdition ignited in a blaze of abyssal luminosity.
The stairwell.
It was her...
A crackling aetherblade.
It was always HER...
Intense blue eyes.
SHE DID THIS TO US!
His death.
KILL HER!
W̴̡̪̃̎į̶̺̈́l̴̯͝l̷͇̆͒p̷̢̱͛̑o̷̧̰̾ẃ̸͕̝͑e̵̗̝̽r̴͍͉͑̏ ̶̬̱͑C̴̙̅͌h̷̺͋ê̶̮c̵̫̤͊͂k̷̳̣̔ ̷̺͂͠f̷̼̀̒ȧ̸̭ͅi̴̯̐l̸̯̍e̴̠̎d̴̰͎̽!̸̱̎̍
Arcturus exploded towards Vivienne as rage unlike anything he’d previously experienced filled him, unleashing a storm of Aether that cracked the marble floor at his departure and shattered the remaining windows. Telekinetic force coated him instinctively like a second layer, and Arcturus smashed into Vivienne like a bullet fired from the gun of a god.
Her aetherblade, crackling with compressed and shaped lightning, rose to parry Perdtion as the blade slammed into her own — only for her parry to turn into a desperate slide as Arcturus instinctively assaulted her with a triple-layered reinforcement of telekinetic power behind the blow.
Notifications blazed desperately for his attention ceaselessly as something snapped inside of him, and the voice in his mind screamed in rage.
K̶̘̉Ǐ̵͎̃͜Ḽ̷͙́L̷̗̹͝H̸̖̩̅Ẽ̵̹̮R̵̺̲̿Ţ̵̟̓H̴̟̍E̶̠͗͑S̵̰͈̉͒L̷̛͇̣̇Ẻ̶̳̜E̸̤͈͒̀P̶͖̀E̵͎̽͜Ŗ̵̈́M̵̦̞̔͋Ǘ̷̦̦S̵̖̀T̷̻͔͋́A̸͙͛W̶͚͈̉̋A̶̘̍̓K̵̦̗̃Ê̵̡̂N̶̜̄͒K̷̗̹̽͑Ĩ̸̛̳̠Ḷ̸̙̍́L̸̻͋̈́H̵̠́̎E̵̟̭̅R̶͚̘̋!̷͖̳̄̀
Her sword hilt caught him across the jaw and he staggered backwards, spitting blood and a tooth aside as he spun back to her — only to get kicked solidly in the chest. Arcturus slammed into the wall between two of the shattered windows, and his lips parted in a howl of rage, pain, and frustration.
Vivienne came at him again, and Arcturus threw out his left hand, causing her to instinctively dodge a telekinetic lance…
...that never came.
Arcturus raised his knee and smashed it into her abdomen instead as she closed and raised her hand to gather aether, somehow able to see every particle of magic as it drew towards her gauntlet. Perdition was tossed to his left hand and he slammed his right into her armoured torso with his fingers curled into a fist, discharging mana and reinforcing the blow with telekinetic force, empowered by the rage consuming him.
Vivienne’s blue eyes widened in the fraction of a second it took for the hit to apply through the laws of physics, and then she was smashed backwards through the landing and out the other side of the villa via the opposite window.
Arcturus’ body was slammed by a kick of telekinetic force as he erupted after her, generating mid-air platforms to leap down as he chased her to the ground where she was recovering.
Vivienne flung a bolt of crackling azure lightning at him, and Arcturus spun with the blow as it impacted his Bulwark’s breastplate, coming back around and responding with a massive bolt of [Voidfire] that blasted her off her feet, though dispersed against her elemental armour.
Because Vivienne was an Archon.
K̸̢̩̿͂I̷̝̓̈L̶̘̈́L̶̩̀̈H̵̼̳̊͂E̸̺͕̓̑Ŗ̵͙̃K̸̻̊I̵̜̫̋L̴̖̔̎L̸͙̍T̷̮͇̾H̷̞̲́̄E̴̳͇͂̚M̸̥͇̓͂D̴̰̽E̴̤͐̀S̶͈̃̏T̶̡̊R̵̗͇̓͝O̵̿͒͜Y̷̤̎T̷̯͂H̷̛͇̿Ẽ̷̯̍M̸̫̝̅T̶͍̫̽H̸̗̦͑Ẻ̷̪Y̶͎͑͠B̶̨͍͊̕Ë̸̼͝Ṫ̸̲̝R̸̬̘̎̆Ā̶̤͙͝Ÿ̸̨͙̓Ë̶̮̆D̶̞͑͑ͅU̵̳̍S̷̬̲̉!̶̥̆
Arcturus had the sense of self to glance at his Mana Bar, and noticed it was already halfway depleted. A snarl of anger met the realisation, and he exploded forwards fast enough to blow apart the grass beneath his feet, meeting Vivienne with a swing of Perdition that smashed her backwards again and into a fountain: Blowing apart the comparatively delicate stone and sprawling her in the water.
She flung a bolt of lightning at him from her back, and Arcturus was blown off his feet in turn: Spinning to slam into the grass in a smoking heap. He groaned as his health flashed away a chunk of hitpoints in response, indicating how powerful her blast had been. How fast she’d cast it, before he even noticed her doing it.
A sudden rush of movement caught Arcturus’ eye as he shoved himself up, and he spun to find a masked figure with a small tornado for a symbol.
The attacker raised a pair of shortswords at him with a cry of “Die, Heretic!”
Arcturus snarled and snapped his right hand out, catching the unidentified individual against a wall of telekinetic force, and then wrapping it around him like a vice. With a surge of 200 mana, Arcturus closed his hand into a fist, and crushed the man’s elbows, fingers, knees, and feet. Then, after he’d started screaming and frothing, morphed the telekinesis into spikes that rammed their way through his body in a macabre display of glistening, viscera-saturated transparent lances.
Arcturus dismissed the power a second later, wiping away a nosebleed and ignoring the notification that followed the event; the hatred and rage boiling in his very soul focused entirely on Vivienne and Vivienne alone.
Already the woman, the Inquisitor, was gathering aether for a more powerful spell.
Aether she would convert into mana.
He could see all of it.
Arcturus bellowed in hatred and charged her with another telekinetically-assisted assault, meeting her desperate guard with a reinforced hit from Perdition that sent her stumbling backwards.
Everything he knew told him he should be losing.
Everything that made sense said she should crush him like a bug.
But she didn’t.
They exchanged blow after blow with a dizzying frenzy, and he started to score hits: Wearing down her elemental armour blow by blow, glancing strike by glancing strike as Perdition seemed to grow more and more effective. [Voidfire] was summoned where possible to wear at her fast, and [Lightfire] was used in micro-bursts to heal him when she landed a fist, or a knee, or an elbow or pommel-bash that sent him staggering back from her prodigious strength.
Yet she could not put him down.
Arcturus started noticing oddities as he fought her; the small, aware part of his mind that dwelt within the haze of rage putting pieces together. Every time Vivienne struck at him with what should have been a critical blow, the space around her blade seemed to turn thick and sluggish, just enough for him to counter.
Every time she tried to use her speed and experience to dodge, her body seemed to react slower than she was used to; and he landed a blow against her weakening elemental armour.
The voice in his head was screaming.
He was screaming.
Vivienne ‘s blade was thrown up and wide, and her eyes flashed with fear. “Arcturus, please—!”
Her voice cut off as Perdition punched through her stomach in a spray of blood.
The rage that had been roaring in Arcturus guttered out like a snuffed flame, and his body abruptly felt heavier than he’d ever known it to be. He collapsed to his knees at the same moment as Vivienne, falling to the grass as she dropped down in front of him. His eyes, as red as the blood staining his face from both their fight and his own bleeding nose, rose to meet hers.
So blue. So beautiful.
Arcturus caught her as she fell against him, her breathing wet and weak, and her arms all but limp. “Why?” He asked hoarsely as he held her, Perdition deactivated and left forgotten on the grass beside them.
“You have no idea… How much you terrify them…” She rasped, watching him unblinkingly even as tears replaced those already shed. “Your father… learned the truth… About everything…”
“What are you—?”
“Terra.” She rasped. “The Gods.” Blood dribbled from her lips. “All of it. All of it. Every single p-part… A fucking lie…”
Arcturus looked at the woman in his arms in silent question as she continued.
“I knew… You were special—” She coughed wetly before continuing. “I knew you were… different from the rest of those… fools.”
Vivienne’s left hand rose to grip his helmet, and she wrenched it off when he didn’t stop her, smiling a bloody smile. “There he is… There’s that face…”
Her forehead fell against his, and Arcturus could feel the strength leaving her body.
“You freed me…” She said quietly. “That’s all… I wanted... “
“All this, all of it, because of the Church?”
“All this… and so much more. You… can’t imagine… Their sins… So… Vast…”
“Vivienne?”
“Tired…” She mumbled.
“I’m sorry.” He whispered.
“Me… too…” She said, her head just-barely lifting, and her bloody lips pressing against his. Wet, and tangy, and stained by blood and tears — and yet, and yet…
Arcturus felt tears on his cheeks.
“I knew…” Her voice trailed into a bare whisper. “...that you…”
Arcturus drew back to meet her blue eyes one last time.
“...were special…”
Vivienne died in his arms as their home burned behind them.