Unconquered Pt. 16

"We're loyal to you, sir," the guard on the left said, quietly. "That means we're loyal to your wives -- and their orders were clear. And..." He threw up his hand. "Hells, sire, they make sense."

Ember sighed. "I suppose they do," he said, then slumped back into the bed. At the back of his mind, he heard a tiny voice, a snide voice, a voice he hadn't heard in a very long time. It was the voice that had whispered to him when he had been a normal villager back in Rataka. It had said: Lie down. Go to sleep. Relax. There's nothing you can do. Right? Ember hooked his feet under the bed and felt his heel bump against the cool metal of a chamber pot. He paused, biting his lip. The two guards smiled at one another, then at him.

"Besides," the guard on the right said. "Your wives are amazing! They'll have this in the bag without your help."

"Right." Ember hooked his foot on the chamber pot, feeling that it was dry and unused. He kicked it up into the air with a single fluid movement. While he might not have had the strength or accuracy of the Unconquered, he didn't need it to plant the pot directly into the guard on the left's belly. The breastplate he wore took most of the impact, but there was still enough force to stagger him -- and then Ember was on his feet and sprinting from the tent. He emerged onto the scattered shipwrecks of the coast, and spotted all that his Legions had left behind: Civilian attaches, refugees who couldn't fight, the injured. He saw a Ninth Legion courier, lounging against the smallest skyship that Ember had ever seen. It was barely the size of a human man, being nothing more than a pole and a pair of folded up aetheric sails.

The courier was chatting with a woman who had lost both of her legs and was still bandaged heavily. "Then I said," the courier said. "You can't pull that in the Sunder."

The woman burst out laughing and the courier looked quite pleased with his joke and his non-zero chance to get the wounded woman in bed. That was why he didn't seem to hear Ember until Ember was slamming into him shoulder first. The courier pitched onto his face, mashing up against the sand of the beach, and Ember sprang onto his small skycraft, tugging on ropes and spars in a mad dash to try and get the sails out and unfurled.

His two guards ran up, panting. They hadn't drawn their swords -- but they didn't seem to think they needed to. "Sire!" the left guard said. "Sire, if you go to that battle, you will die."

"Yeah, well, then, I'll see you in hell!" Ember said, then yanked a line taut. The sail at the top of the skycraft belled outwards, filling with arcanic winds, and the entire slender vehicle sprang into the air and whisked away, the lower sail unfolding as well and kicking the entire vehicle to a speed that was so roaring fast that Ember's cheeks filled out like sails themselves. He ducked his head against the mast, holding on tight, and squinted into the wind, holding onto the steering reigns as best as he could. His flight was less elegant than the ride he had taken on the village horse so long ago.

And that was saying something.

***

The sky above Samsara was a frozen conflagration. A coherent pulse of mana fired from a mana-cannon was an endothermic reaction. It sucked heat from the surrounding space, collapsing it into a starburst of sudden chill that could shatter metal and freeze a soul solid. But if that had been all that a mana-cannon did, that would have been devastating enough. Add to the endothermic blasts a concussive wave of magical energies and the unpredictable backlash that soldiers called 'mana burn' and you have an ingredient for a hell nearly as bad as the one with brassy cauldrons and hissing devils.

Battleships from both sides flew into the thick of enemy formations, trading rippling broadsides of crackling energy, while brass and jade armor buckled under the snap-cold impacts. Frost swept along handrails and rigging and men and women slipped from them to crash onto the decks, if they were lucky. Less lucky, they plunged into the ruined city below them. But among the heavy guns flew nimble craft, far smaller and far lighter, armed with everything from pintle mounted automatic crossbows to hull-hugging vortex arrow launchers. Those were the dangerous craft.

A trio of destroyers with a brace of vortex arrows could hammer them along the entire length of a battleship and crack the hull like an egg -- ripping it apart in a swirl of raw chaos and destructive energies. The souls of people caught in those blasts were ripped from their bodies with enough pain and horror that they would have traumatic nightmares in their next life after a long turn on the wheel of reincarnation. To stop the destroyers, both sides used their frigates and their lighter craft in the same way that a fencer might use a dagger.

Parry. Thrust. Deadly little duels among the bigger duel, no more earnest for the fact that they were on such a smaller scale, using far lighter weapons.

The Broadsword was one such frigate, caught in one of those deadly little battles. June Devilblooded ducked low as a Loyalist frigate skimmed by, so close that the aetheric winds of its passage rattled the rigging. From the side of the enemy came a chattering sound -- three automatic crossbows, hammering away as they fired their thick quarrels down onto the crew, who dove for cover. The captain, standing proudly on the poop deck, twirled the wheel and bellowed orders to her officers, while men -- sweating even in the arctic chill of the battle -- heaved the heavy barrels of the deck mounted mana cannons to bear.

June had planned to save her magics for her enemy. But she wasn't about to let the ship she was on get taken out -- especially not with her on it. As the frigate dove behind the Broadsword and swept itself around for another pass, she fished out a bottle of crackling blue lightning. She crushed it between her fingers, bringing her left hand up behind her. Wind swept around her body and her hair turned from her normal raven hues to pure white. She thrust out her finger and spoke a word in the that had been common in the tongues of the sky-spirits, before the Third Unconquered's conquests stamped it out of existence.

With that word, the energies sprang from her fingertip.

The lightning crashed into the frigate as it came around for the other pass. Wood splintered, brass melted, and the rigging burst into flame as the lightning bolt scythed out the other side of the enemy. The frigate tumbled in half, crashing down towards the city.

The crew gaped at June, who blew the last few sparks off her finger.

"Look out!" A man shouted. June had enough time to see the starbolt flying from the heavens before it struck the deck of the Broadsword. June slammed her palm down and sent herself flying upwards, summoning her stormwind rider with a reflexive twist of magic. She barely had enough time to clear the Broadsword before the entire hull exploded into a lethal haze of splinters. The fragments and the crew tumbled away as June crouched on the swirling yellow cloud upon which she stood. Standing on a floating chunk of sail and rigging, which was buoyed in the air by tiny ambient twitches of magical energies, was Goat who Wrestles.

Goat was holding a pipe in one hand. He puffed on it.

"You bastard," June snarled.

"Granted." He grinned at her. "Shall we?"

***

"Chirp, get down!" Xora shouted, then tackled Chirp before a mana-blast slammed into the Ruby Lunar. Chirp, their belly mashed up against the deck of the battleship they were on. Xora pushed herself to her arms and knees, panting. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yes!" Chirp nodded -- then kicked hard. One of the many enemy crewmen that still were onboard the enemy battleship went stumbling backwards, clutching at his belly. Chirp scrambled to their feet when Xora had stood as well. "Uh, thanks." They blushed -- feeling painfully useless. The entire circle of Lunars had leaped from the Stiletto to the enemy battleship. There was no chance that Chirp would have stayed behind -- but they remembered the promise Ember had made.

Chirp is never harming another person in their entire life! Not on my watch! Not again!

Chirp shook their head. That had been when they had hoped, had thought that maybe things would be all right. Instead, everything had gone out of control. They looked back and saw that more mana-blasts were crashing into the prow of the ship, fired by their allies towards the ship, possibly because they hadn't gotten the memo that the Lunars were onboard. Xora shattered an enemy marine's sword, then headbutted him down with casual ease, then dragged Chirp forward. "Come on," She said, giving them a little smile.

The back of the battleship shuddered. Parts went flying as hull-wood cracked and flew apart into a haze of splinters -- and into that destruction leaped the massive, house-sized body of Ceaith in her war form. As she landed on the rigging, her weight and her claws worked together to tear apart the fragile components that helped to keep the battleship in the sky. Once her paws hit the deck, she was washed in a blue glow, shrinking down to her humanoid form. Her laugh -- high and giggly and snorting -- carried to Chirp.

"Oh man," Ceaith said, her yellow/blue eyes glittering as she walked over. "We should get into wars more often!" The whole battleship shuddered under their feet.

"We need to get closer to the statue," Chirp said, trying to sound determined and not terrified. They pointed down at the center of Samsara, where the massive statue of King Bahul -- in his guise as the Regent -- remained standing, clad in the complex array of magitechnological devices that Ember seemed convinced would carry the statue up to the sun, to enact Bahul's mad plan to destroy the sun itself. Chirp shaded their eyes, frowning. "There are anti-magic generators. How are we going to get close to that?"

Ceaith was gone.

"Ceaith?" Chirp asked, looking for her, then looking at Xora -- while Tayar and Jaqueline jogged over.

"We should get off this ship!" Tayar said.

"Woooooooooohooooooo!"

Each of them saw where Ceaith had gotten too now.

Ceaith was on the bridge, standing next to the corpse of the captain, who was sprawled over the deck console. The bridge crew had fled, rushing for the escape boats, which were even now, floating away from the battleship as it started to slew, to skid, to come down, nose down, towards the anti-magic field generators that surround the golden statue. Chirp squeaked and grabbed onto Xora, who grabbed onto Jaqueline, before leaping into the air. Tayar transformed into her crow form with a flash of pearlish light, while Ceaith, still cackling, slammed down on a series of controls.

At the back of the battleship, several massive engines came to life -- blazing mana engines that kicked out flurries of snow as they added to the force of gravity and the angled, tattered sail. The nose of the ship trembled as it shot towards the collection of makeshift walls and anti-air defenses and anti-magical shields that surrounded the statue. Vortexes began to explode across the prow, taking out chunks of armored plating and stripping away swaths of the hull. But the massive bulk of the ship continued to go straight forward, unstoppable.

Ceaith launched herself smoothly into the air at the same moment the hijacked battleship impacted with the ground. The anti-magic field generators were ripped apart in a howling scream of metal and wood, and the men who had manned the anti-aircraft weaponry positioned nearby went scrambling away, trying to escape from the storm of brass and splinters, their heavy armor clattering like rain on a tin roof. Ceaith landed, lightly, on the small patch of clear ground ahead of the rubble pile. She stood, brushing her hands along her sleeves, then looked up at the statue.

Bahul stood upon the head of his creation, like an absurdly tiny jewel in an invisible crown.

Without the mask that Bahul had used to masquerade as a Regent, Ceaith could see the way that his mustache bristled and his lips turned down in a fierce frown.

"Hey, dickhead!" Ceaith shouted. "I broke your wall."

Bahul frowned. As he regarded Ceaith, Tayar swept down to land beside Ceaith, transforming to her humanoid form. Jaquelin, Xora, and Chirp came down next, Xora landing with a grunt as her legs shattered the stone under her feet. She stood in the rubble, looking abashed at the devastation she had caused.

"S-Sorry about that!" She called up to Bahul, as if he would be concerned about a hole poked in the pavement of a city that had been bombed into rubble and frozen into a permanent ice-flow.

Bahul's eyes settled on Chirp. "A Ruby that doesn't kill..." He said, his eyes taking in the lack of blood on Chirp, the absence of any weapons.

"Hey!" Jaqueline snapped, stepping forward to stand between Chirp and him. "Chirp doesn't-"

Bahul narrowed his eyes. "An Agate without patience or restraint."

"We're not defined by the gods!" Ceaith shouted up at him.

"A Lapis without faith, a Pearl without passion," Bahul continued speaking, his eyes narrowing with disgust as he looked at Tayar, who glared at him. "And an Amethyst that doesn't want to fight at all!" He shook his head slowly. "All married to a false Unconquered who isn't even here. Pathetic."

Ceaith growled, then sprang up -- landing on the golden knee of the statue. But before she could leap again, a shadow emerged from nowhere, as if space itself had unfolded and revealed a lithe, dark form. A knife flashed at her, but Ceaith kicked wildly away, twisting and squirming. The knife parted several strands of her brown hair -- but she landed on the ground beside Xora, panting heavily, as the dark figure dropped and landed, knife glittering in their hand.

Kergalian Rexatox Mishur Vilemarsh Kyife, the high assassin of the Regency, stood. She wore her mask, still, and her eyes gleamed hatefully behind the eye-holes. She tossed her knife from hand to hand, causally. "You're not my enemy," she said, her voice cold -- her eyes tracking to Chirp. "There we go."

Kyife reached up, tugging off her mask. Underneath, her face was prim. Proper. Beautiful, even.

And blazing upon her forehead was the shimmering red tear-drop of a Ruby soul gem. Chirp froze, their eyes widening, as Bahul spoke. "When I discovered the truth of this world, I knew that I had to destroy it. I had to end the Cycle -- to bring this miserable excuse of a worldshard to an end." He shook his head. "Three of my Lunars objected. But two? Two saw the light, just as I had hoped -- my Ruby..."

Purple lightning exploded from the ground, wrapping around Ceaith's ankles and her wrists. She cried out as she was dragged to her knees, her hair standing on end as black veins began to grow along her skin from the places where the chains touched her flesh -- as if corruption spread through her. Stepping from the shadow of the statues legs came the buxom, red headed, fox eared girl that she knew as the One Tailed Kitsune. But her forehead showed that she had a small pearl on it.

"And my Pearl," Bahul said as Ceaith saw that Xora, Tayar, and Jaqueline were all dragged down to their knees as well. The One Tailed Kitsune held her hand out, and nearly invisible lines stretched from it to the lightning bolts. Her eyes gleamed as she smirked.

"We're finally going to have a little order here," Kitsune said, quietly.

"You little-" Ceaith tried to surge to her feet, but the chains dragged her back.

"I left the false Ruby for you, honey," Kitsune crooned.

Kyife tossed her blade from hand to hand. She cocked her head, then shook her head slowly. "Oh please." And with that, she turned her back on Chirp, advancing towards Ceaith. Ceaith strained, struggling to try and pull her hands off the ground. But the purple lightning chains had dragged her down even harder, forcing her down, down, close to the floor. Kyife grinned as she held up her dagger. Green venom dripped from it.

"This is devil venom," she whispered. "The same venom my proxy used on your husband."

Ceaith trembled, gritting her teeth as she tried to change.

Kyife hefted up the knife, humming softly. "A little cut. Or should I stab you right in your heart?"

"Hey!"

Kyife and Kitsune both glanced up.

Chirp, their hands clenched, stood there, their eyes glittering.

"You forgot about me," they said.

"No, uh, we were ignoring you," Kyife said, smirking. "You're pathetic. You won't kill. You barely fight. You hate being a Ruby, and you can't even decide what gender you are." She shook her head. "What under the sun makes you think that you're worth more than a tiny fraction of a second of time."

Chirp drew a slow breath. They closed their eyes.

And then blood red light swept from their head to their feet. Their body unfolded, growing lager...and lager. And larger. And larger. As the blood red hue faded, sinking back into Chirp's body, they stood almost thirty feet tall, their body rippling with midnight black fur and muscle. Their wrists and their legs were joined by a vast patagium, which caught the sunlight and turned it brilliant red. Their eyes glowed brilliant red and they breathed slowly in and out, sounding like the vast bellows of a forge.

"Just because I won't kill you..." Chirp growled. "Doesn't mean I won't hurt you."

The One Tailed Kitsune lifted up her hand, beginning to speak the first word of the Broken Winged Crane. Chirp's clawed paw snatched her up and flung her halfway across the city. Chirp was quite deliberate -- the One Tailed Kitsune smashed into a pile of rubble and ended up pinned through the left knee by a chunk of jagged rebar. She tried to articulate a word around the horrible pain and found that it was quite impossible.

Kyife lifted her blade.

Chirp snatched her up and threw her down into the ground even harder. Again, Chirp was quite deliberate -- the impact cratered the ground and left Kyife bleeding from several broken limbs, her eyes unfocused. Her knife was missing.

Chirp panted as the crackling purple lightning vanished and Ceaith sprang to her feet.

"Chirp, I love-" She started.

But the rest of the sentence was lost in the roar of the engines coming to life.

***

Ember clung to the courier craft, his body wracked with cold shudders. On the one hand, getting to the battle seemed like the best thing to do. On the other hand, he had forgotten how fragile he had been before the power of the Unconquered had filled his body. Back then, he could have flown from the beach to Samsara without a shirt or pants beyond a small wrap without freezing to the bone. As it was, his teeth chattered and his fingers felt numb, even as he came closer and closer to the battlefield ahead of him.

From what he could see, the Lycan and his forces were both beginning to dominate. Several loyalist battleships were already crashed onto the ground, sprawled out, their guts opened up onto the ruins of the city while their engines burned with blue flames.

But then Ember saw a pin-prick of searing blue-white light. He winced against it...and then he blinked away the pain as a roar, subliminal and low, reached his ears. Then the pinprick started to rise into the air, and below it he saw a billowing, spreading expanse of white roiling smoke. His eyes widened as he saw that the golden statue of the Regent was beginning to rise in the air, lifted upon a massive collection of blazing magitech thrusters.

Ember gritted his teeth, then tugged back on the reigns. He had had enough practice by now to figure out how to go up. And so, he angled upwards. The air got colder and colder as the wind roared past him -- the battle flashing by underneath him. But then the slowly rising statue was growing before him -- swelling from human sized to giant sized to the whole horizon. He saw that there was scaffolding around the chest, like some vast breastplate. He tried to bleed air from the sails -- and slowed. Fractionally.