Aurion Ch. 03

The Seer made his way to Michael's bedside before sitting in the chair vacated by the physician moments before with a loud sigh. He quickly rubbed his hands together and opened up his inner eye. Upon shutting his eyes and touching both of Michael's temples with his index fingers, he gasped.

"Amazing! I've never... I don't know..." he started before composing himself, "it seems that he is still in there somewhere, though I don't yet know where. But what amazes me is there seems to be something stored inside him. A giant, unprecedented force of energy-and that is in it's dormant state. Let me see if I can get a closer loo... AHH!" The Seer screened in agony as intense blue white light burst from his eye sockets and open mouth. His eyeballs were instantly turned to literal ash as the flesh surrounding the sockets was scorched as if by branding irons.

All three women looked on in shock as the guards quickly carried the screaming Seer away towards the physician. After a minute of silence, Nyssa was the one to vocalize their thoughts, "what in all the Gods' name just happened?!"

:..:

For the rest of the morning, there was no change in Michael's condition. After consulting with the commanders, the three ladies decided to head back to Doria for further treatment and care. They would leave behind a guerrilla force to confine, harass, sabotage and ambush any enemy moving through the area.

They didn't even wait until the next morning before beginning their trek back to Doria, moving through the night as fast as possible. A feeling of dreadful weight had settled on the shoulders of every man and woman in the group. Sending word ahead, they managed to make the journey in just less than two weeks at breakneck speed. In all that time, Michael didn't stir once. Each night Amila snuggled up to his side and wrapped herself around him, praying to every deity she could think of and offering anything in return for her lover. Kokochun wasn't much better but her duties as a warrior and her more stoic demeanor meant that her fragility wasn't so obvious.

When the finally entered the gates of the Dorian Capital, they all felt a sense of relief and safety. As it turned out, it was a false sense of security.

Twelve full Demons, entering the city in the guise of humans had formed a circle in the forum and thrown up some sort of force field barrier before turning inwards and beginning to project all of their Dark energy and life force into a steadily swing mass of swirling energy.

It was only when the shimmering barrier went up around them and their human forms faltered with their effort did the civilians and solders realize something was wrong and they were under attack. The formations of guardsmen who tried to advance to reach the spell casting suicide attackers were repulsed and violently thrown back whenever they came in contact with the barrier.

Amila, Kokochun and Nyssa had barely made it up the palace steps to greet King Domitus, Diana and Talasa when the attack began. Talasa threw herself over her Master's body and sobbed at his condition and imminent demise. She cared little for herself and her time apart from him had only enflamed her love for Michael.

Diana, taught by her years of court life, never allowed her face to express her true feelings but she couldn't stop the tears that began to steadily roll down her cheeks at the profound loss of her fiancé mixed with the fact that she would never get to avenge her father and brother.

Nyssa, in a rare display of affection, leaned over Michael's laying body and kissed his lips with a heart melting tenderness. Kokochun did the same a moment later before Amila, already emotionally wrung out, simply crawled into the wagon bed with Michael's serene body and curled around him to await the end.

For her, the greatest pain was the loss of what could've been. She just kissed her love and smiled as the tears ran down her face and the ball of Dark energy continued to grow as the Demons began dropping dead as their life force went in to a weapon that would level the city, cripple the war effort and pave the way for the conquest of the entirety of the world of Aurion.

As his four favorite women in the world mourned and awaited the demise of everything they knew and held dear, Michael's eyes shot open. Amila squealed when she felt Michael's hands pull her from his body. However, her excited exclamation was frozen in her throat when she looked up at the rising figure of her love and saw that the eyes staring back from his body were not those she had grown accustomed to.

Instead of the forest green eyes that held wisdom and empathy, Michael's irises blazed with a glowing blue that indicated untold power and not a little wrath as they took in the surrounding panic, despair and mortal resignation. His eyes flicked to the few Hoplites still attempting to push through the force field that protected the Weapon of Mass Destruction before he wordlessly strode toward them, leaving the women still shocked at his sudden revival.

The Dorians cleared a path through their ranks as he approached, allowing Michael to approach the rippling transparent force field that prevented any direct contact with the boulder-sized sphere of the pulsing Darkness that somehow seemed to simply absorb the surrounding light and send random shadows flickering in all directions. The surrounding soldiers and civilians watched in awe as Michael placed both of his palms flat against the force field, daring to hope that maybe this wasn't their end after all. With a solid push, Michael burst through the force field, causing it to shatter in an omnivore pulse of invisible energy that bowled down many of those in the forum.

Unaffected, Michael closed the remaining distance to seemingly agitated spherical container of compressed Dark Energy. The entire forum watched spellbound as he reached out with both hands.

"NO! It'll kill you!" screamed Amila, funding her voice for the first time since witnessing the immense power now residing in her intended lifemate. She dare no attempt to view his brilliant prescribe with her spiritual Sight, sure that she would react like the old seer whose eyes were burned out of his skull from his attempt to perceive such an impossible amount of raw power.

Michael turned towards her voice, his intensely glowing eyes still frightening her, and for the first time Amila saw her lover in the impossible being. Michael gave her a wry smile and winked at her playfully before turning back to the task at hand, causing her to exhale a breath that she hadn't known she was holding. Relief washed over her at the realization that her Michael hadn't been possessed by some titanic otherworldly force. No amount of power would change who he was, she thought.

The instant that Michael's hands made contact with the giant orb, his hands hissed and he he cried out as skin and muscle was melted away only to have the tissues constantly regenerated by his waking power. This meant that he could handle direct contact with the container of the most lethal substance in existence-at least to his kind-but he would be in agony as the tissues of his hands was repeatedly replaced only to be burned away, again and again.

Digging in with his feet and lifting with everything, Michael attempted to lift the multi ton orb. There was no movement initially, all of his exposed skin now affected on some level. However, as Michael changed his grip, he let out a roar akin to that of a supernatural Lion instead of a man. Painfully bright light exploded out of his eyes and open mouth, forcing many to look away. The large sphere began to rise in his arms as his legs drove and his back and arms strained impossibly.

The city watched in shock as Michael began to carry the city destroying weapon away from the forum, his feet cracking with concrete under him with every step as he staggered under the impossible weight. Amazingly, he began to pick up speed as all four women openly bawled and the city began to cheer, many having climbed up on walls and rooftops to get a view of the source of the unbelievable rumors. King Domitus, Felix and Jelme all saluted Michael's retreating form as he carried the energy weapon out of the city gates, having shifted it onto his shoulders like Atlas, he was now moving at nearly a full run as he carried the threat away from the city.

The city's cheering died down as the spherical weapon began to pulse more brightly and faster, to the pint where it was visible even as Michael passed the half-mile marker on the road to the Capital's gate. Moving out onto the open plains on an angle that took him as far from the city as possible, Michael had no illusions of survival. He would need every second before detonation to create distance between his lethal burden and the innocents in the city, including those he had grown to love.

Amila screamed at the top of her lungs and Talasa roared her fried when the enormous weapon detonated. The inconceivably large column of black flame exploded up and out in an enormous mushroom shaped cloud of seemingly living matter, vaporizing anything and everything within a mile in any direction. The sly darkened while soot and debris rained down in the manner of a volcanic eruption as the silent city watched and tried to conceive of such an epic force.

The city was saved. No one rejoiced.

:..: