"Anyone else feel that?"

Your question was immediately followed by an explosion.

"WHAT THE FUCK!?" Vatarie shouted, she was out of bed and had magic pooling around her arms before you'd even pulled the covers down.

"Is it just me of does that feel like ..."

"Delilah." You finished getting out of bed and rushing to the window. You couldn't see the royal estate from where you were but you could see the debris raining down and the smoke billowing out. "Fuck." You opened the window and jumped out, not even grabbing your clothes, worried any delay would just cause more damage.

Creating your wings mid-air you swiveled shooting around the side of the Dorms towards the estate. Dispersing your wings you land on the ground and side on your soles until the estate come into view.

What you see is a quarter of if missing, Delilah floating with their dragon wings, white hair and with enough heat coming off them to start igniting the rest of the building. When you see them floating there you hesitate, trying to figure out what was going on.

Delilah raised their hand and from it a belch of flame struck their former room.

Clare appears at your side. "What did you do?" She asked surveying the situation.

"I'm working on it." You said back jumping towards the open part of the building. When you land on a burned part of the former wall you see Gabrielle standing in a very intact looking side of the building, a distinct line along the ground between unburned floor and incinerate floor.

"JUST TELL ME!" Gabrielle's scream from the remains of the building was responded by a second raised hand from Delilah and two torrents of flame belching forth. It was so bright you couldn't even see but the heat was immense, had you been wearing clothes they would have been destroy. When the flames dissipated Gabrielle remained standing, a wall of magic between her and the flame.

"What did you do?" You asked Gabrielle.

Delilah's head snapped onto you. They were totally naked with ghostly pale skin except for their face, their eyes were blood red with fissures spidering out from them. A hand turned in your direction and they fired another burst of flame. It was easy to counter. Your hastily erected dead zone removed the oxygen the flames would have burned removing the heat from the attack and the raw magic that was left battered against a shield closer to your skin. You are so glad you learned how create a vacuum around yourself.

Gabrielle's mouth moved but you couldn't hear her. Oh right. You shifted the dead zone to only be between you and Delilah. "What?"

"I just want her to tell me about the Cult." Gabrielle said through heavy breaths, unable to maintain her shield under Delilah's ****.

The last word earned a scream from Delilah and around her body an explosion formed. You'd spread your magic throughout your body so were able to see the detonation happening and were fast enough to jump in front of Gabrielle. She'd lasted so far but you the explosion hadn't happened yet and you could feel it. The air pulling pulled towards Delilah to give the detonation more ****.

Standing between the two women you threw up as many shield around the building and Gabrielle as you could without risking yourself more than necessary. Your dead zone was still active and you extended it around Delilah as much as you could so you felt confident the explosion would be mitigated.

The feel of it was unlike anything you'd expected. The air that Delilah had sucked in flattening your dead zone, filling the vacuum with flame and ****. Your shields cracked under the pressure and the building around you just stopped existing. The noise was the worst part. As physical a thing as it was aural, when you stopped hearing it, it was only because your ear drums had burst. It only when the explosion ended did you recall a sentiment from Clare. Eve was a walking nuke.

You healed your body, though your ears still rang, and looked at Gabrielle. Like you she had blood around her ears but it wasn't flowing and seemed to have healed. "Clare!" You shouted at loudly as you could.

Clare was there before you finished saying her name. "I shielded the dorms from her explosion, Ana's estate is half standing. What the fuck happened?"

"Learned Eve had a Cult following her, figured it was related to my mothers note about getting Gabrielle home. Eve said she didn't want to talk about it." You looked at Gabrielle who didn't seem all that guilty in response.

"Oh so Eve's reliving her thousandish years of ****. Was you're mothers plan to obliterate the city because," You felt another pull of air and all three of you threw up as many shields as you could, without even needing to say anything you all knew to direct the explosion upwards.

Delilah detonated again. This time you're sole focus on shield and not your dead zone made them more effective. However as the explosion ended Gabrielle fell to a knee gasping for breath due to the magic she'd expended. Should have worked on her magic as much as she a way to get home.

"that is where this going." Clare finished. You didn't have an answer to that, you didn't even know, maybe that was your mothers plan.

"How do we, snap them out of it?" You asked, Delilah screamed again and from her wings and mouth fire slammed into your shields. It was incredible heat, even through the shield you were getting hot. "Fuck they're smart." You were getting hot, the shield was a bubble and Delilah was heating it up to cook the lot of you inside it.

Clare shrugged. "Traditional a hug, beating them ****, or exhausting their ma-"

Another detonation, and without Gabrielle this one shook the building.

"-gic." Clare finished. "I thought I told you to babysit." She said looking at Gabrielle as she tried to get back onto her feet.

"We have to get them away from the city." You said. All three of Clare's options were far from immediate and Delilah was going to cause a lot of damage the moment they decided to focus anywhere other than on you. "I'll try and get her over the ocean, make sure everyone's ok." You formed your wing, If you hit Delilah hard enough you might be able to tackle them part of the way to the water.

"Christopher." Clare said putting a hand on your arm, she stared into your eyes for a long moment. "You fucking better come back."

"Relax, I've already beaten Eve once before." You said giving her confident smile and launching yourself at the currently insane ongoing nuclear explosion, before you had a chance to remember that last Eve had no interest in fight and just wanted to have sex.

Slamming into them was an eerie feeling. You had to drop your shields to hit them and the heat instant burned your skin, even with your magic suffusing your body, healing it as quickly as it burned. Delilah themselves however were colder than ice. As your bare shoulder hit her you felt your skin freeze and crack before it was replaced with new skin that did them same.

You let out a scream of pain at the two completed different feelings of burning. Delilah didn't react to your collision beyond being carried back. You pushed through, ejecting as much magic from your wings to accelerate while they did the same with theirs to slow down.

You head was under their arm so you couldn't see what they were doing but you felt it. Your magically reinforced spine snapping in two as they brought their fist down on it, the flash frozen skin muscle and bone shattering. It was actually helpful for you. It cut off all the pain below the bottom of your ribs but not where your wings were formed.

You pulled magic away from your wing to shield your upper spine. Delilah's combat intelligence was instant so while you were forming those shields her finger clawed at the back of your neck. They weren't able to break through your shields but the bubble trapped all the heat inside it. You weren't sure if bones could melt but as you lost feeling in all but your head you were pretty sure Delilah was doing it.

She threw you off her and without any control of your body aside from your head you couldn't stop her. Your magic was healing the damage she'd done but you had no idea how bad it was, or even if your magic could heal it. Your non-selfconsciousness, that maintained your body was literally cut off from the rest of your body.

As you fell you spun, seeing the city below you, All that and you'd only manged to get Delilah over the docks. You felt the air on your face pulled towards them. You let your aura out, you couldn't breath so you couldn't talk, the only way you had to communicate was through your aura.

You felt theirs instantly. An inky blackness that, the moment your own touch it, spread, infecting your aura until it hit you.

You weren't falling all of a sudden. You were standing by a cave. You looking down at your body, undamaged and clothed. You heard a scream of pain from inside the cave. "Delilah?" You questioned running towards it.

Before you could enter the cave a hand grabbed you. "She'll kill you all." You looked at the hands owner but could only see an inky blackness devoid of features.

Delilah screamed again and you tried to pull free. "She needs help." The hand didn't let go.

"Then help." The blackness slide over your arm and down to your hand, a dagger forming. "Save them from this." The world moved around you and suddenly you were standing among hundreds looking up at plinth. On it lay an unfamiliar woman. "Do what I failed to do." A female voice said as an indistinct shape formed, standing next to the unfamiliar woman's head, in one hand a rod of metal with a glowing hot tip. You felt yourself pulled forwards. "For all those that will die if not, for all those that have died because." The dagger in your hand ached, desired to enter the flesh on the unfamiliar woman.

"NO!" Shouted trying to stop it. But it was futile, the dagger would puncture, the woman would be ended and it would be stopped. The hundreds behind you watching fell, turning to dust.

"It must happen, it will always happen. Who are you to decide against that?" The woman standing by the plinth asked. The dagger raised itself, pressing its tip against the unfamiliar woman's chest. Only then did you recognise them, Delilah, her eyes burnt out, body broken. "It is right, or else it was all for nothing. It's over now." The other woman said in Eve's voice. You looked to see a mirror of Delilah even more broken.

The dagger pressed ever downwards. There was nothing you could do. This wasn't something you had control over, you were just a passenger, nothing more or less, on observer to a tragedy ... "FUCK THAT!" Your other hand grabbed the length of metal from Eve's hand and wrenched it free. Putting all the might you could muster you brought the rod down on your dagger controlled hand. The rod passed through it, snapping your bone and tearing your skin but freeing you of the dagger. Who care's about a hand Delilah needed help. You used the rod to smack the dagger, still held in your former hand away. You looked at Eve who's broken visage was repaired but not her spirit.

You understood now, why their aura was always so controlled, why Eve refused her past. And it was the most obvious answer. Eve wasn't traumatized, normal people get traumatized, Eve was out the other side of trauma. The only thing that had been holding the two of them together had been Delilah, Grabielle's prodding collapsed that. If their aura hadn't been so controlled anyone who touched it would have gone insane. This whole thing was Eve's sanity trying to recover the only why it could understand how. To be subjected to what she'd been through must mean she deserved it and now Delilah was a part of her and vice-versa Delilah must deserve it as well.

Wrapping Eve in a one handed hug you kissed her cheek. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for, a lot but for now, I'm sorry I never thought about you, just about Delilah."

Eve started crying into your shoulder. "What did I do to her?" She pushed you away. "Delilah, what did I do? I didn't mean... Please don't be gone."

"Gone?" You asked as you felt yourself pulled away.

You were falling. Your aura still touching Delilah's but no longer infected by it. Their wings vanished but the air was still pulling towards them. You didn't have time. Even if they got control back the amount of magic they were building up had to go somewhere.

Focusing you created your wings on your head, slamming your body into them you carried them out over the sea. The further you had to work with. You couldn't exhaust yourself, with how damaged your body was without magic you'll die, but you had to get Delilah far enough from the city.

When the detonation happened all you felt was white, in your eyes, your ear, your aura, your magic and your mind.