One Battle Finishes and another Begins

“It seems your story ends here, sister,” Moira said with venom in her words. “May you find light in the Lady’s embrace!” she said as she brought her warhammer up and was mid-swing when an explosion on the castle ramparts startled her. Fran took this opportunity to quickly scooch back and grab her sword. With her weapon in hand, Fran got back up to her feet and saw her sister’s face as she stared towards the castle. Fran, her curiosity getting the better of her, looked the same way.

There the two sisters saw as a large portion of the castle had been blown off. Debris was still falling from the sky, crushing any unlucky warriors that couldn’t move out of the way in time. All across the battlefield, people were stopping their fights to the **** to witness the conclusion of the battle on the castle ramparts.

“And that, my two guests, are the third army: Hell Wraths. They may not be as quick and nimble as my other two or can support those numbers, but they make up for that with their sheer destructive power!” Uratha said as she gave a rather wicked cackle. She was rather proud of the trap she had set up. “You two fools played right into my hands! That little fire tornado of yours seems to be a favorite of yours. And after seeing you use it twice, I just knew you’d do it a third time. So I made sure to summon a few of these guys underneath you so when you did go all big and flashy, you’d get more than you bargained for!” mocked Uratha, who was quite sure her opponents were at the vary least, defeated, if not destroyed.

“Brother, do you still live?” asked X.

“I do, brother. Can you still fight?” replied Y.

“I can.”

“Then let us finish this!” The two rose from the rubble that was on top of them, their bodies covered in cuts and burns, but the two still had a fierce determination to finish this battle as a victory. They climbed out of the hole that was made up of several blown up floors of the castle to get back to the ramparts where a very annoyed Uratha was waiting.

“You two just won’t die will you?!” she yelled as she summoned more Hell Prides and Envies. The two groups flocked all over the demons, who were doing their best to destroy the pests. Uratha did notice that X and Y’s movements were far slower than when the fight first started. So, their wounds are finally getting the better of them? Too little too late, I’m afraid. I don’t think I have the mana left to beat these guys. Uratha thought to herself as her mind raced to come up with some way to finish this fight that didn’t end with her ****.

Looks like I’ll have **** but to get up close and personal to finish them. Uratha’s left hand opened a small hole in a pocket of space-time where she stored her various belongings. As her hand left the portal, it held onto a wooden handle of a dagger. Its blade looked like a wave coming to shore and glowed with a faint white light. Time to put this holy dagger to good use. As Uratha steeled herself for her clear suicide run, a flurry of arrows rained down on the demons, each arrowhead burned bright.

“There’s no need for that quite yet, demon,” said Princess Sylva as she handed a mana potion to Uratha. “Drink this and prepare some more of those exploding demons. I have a plan that will require their use.”

“I won’t say no to free mana and not dying,” Uratha said as she took the mana potion and drank it. A sudden flush of energy coursed through her body as she felt her mana reserves boost back up to a more useful level.

“You aren’t afraid I’d poison you?” asked the curious elf.

“If you did that, then we’d both die. And I have a feeling you don’t want to die as much as me,” the sly demon said with a smile on her lips.

“You aren’t wrong,” replied Sylva as she agreed with the demoness for once.

“Shall I keep my other pretties as well, or can your archers handle the distraction?” asked Uratha as she prepared to summon some more Hell Wraths.

“Just summon as many Hell Wraths as you can. We’ll need a powerful explosion to finish off these creatures,” Sylva told Uratha who nodded.

“Shall I place them underneath again?”

“Yes, that should work. My archers will keep the two distracted and I doubt they would try that move again in fear you’ll have some more hidden away somewhere,” she told the demoness who nodded and began summoning her explosive demons.

“Everyone! Show no mercy! Aim for the vitals! Kill those abominations!” ordered Princess Sylva, rallying her troops to speed up their rate of fire and to put any mana they could spare into their arrows. Their mana, combined with the heated arrowheads, made each arrow akin to a miniature missile that now bombarded X and Y.

“Brother, the elves seemed to have empowered their arrows,” X observed.

“I concur. We could clear them out again,” mentioned Y.

“And if more Hell Wraths are hidden we will most likely die before we finish our task of killing the head elf and that demoness. We must do this the old fashioned way,” decided X, to which Y agreed.

The two large demons lept in opposite directions and began swatting at the elves with their swords. Most elves were able to get away, but a few that were midshot or a little too exhausted found themselves cut in half by the powerful swings. The elves quickly moved to a new position to open fire again but found that the two demons leapt at them again.

“Aim for their legs with the rope arrows! Tie them down!” ordered Princess Sylva. Her soldiers were quick to act with them switching from their standard arrows to their rope arrows. In perfect unity, as if practiced many times before, the archers were able to quickly fire arrows in a crisscross pattern that ended up with a spiderweb of ropes all over what remained of the ramparts.

“Brother, I seem to have become tangled in these ropes,” announced X.

“I, too, am caught,” told Y. “Let us cut these ropes,” he said as he lifted his sword arm only for it to get tied around his body in an unnatural way.
“Brother, are you ok?” asked X as he watched his brother struggle to free himself from his state. “Let me help you,” he said as he raised his sword arm to cut his brother free, only for his arm to be tied to his chest.

“It seems that, you too, have been caught in ropes,” said Y. “What shall we do, brother?”

“I am not sure. But it seems we may be in trouble,” said X as he motioned towards Princess Sylva, who was once again in the midst of casting her most powerful attack: Light Arrow.

“Whenever you’re ready, princess,” Uratha told her ally.

“Now!” she replied as she launched her Light Arrow. Mere moments afterwards, dozens of Hell Wraths jumped up from the ruins of the top few floors of John’s Castle and surrounded the two tangled demons.

“Brother, it appears we may lo-” was all X could say as a giant explosion once again rocked the castle’s ramparts.

“Again?! What are they doing up there?!” muttered Idena as she flew past a group of Order soldiers, each of them being electrocuted a second after Idena flew by them.

“I dunno, but whatever it is, there won’t be a castle left to protect! Patnado of Pats!” Miho said as she performed another Patnado of Pats.

“Seriously, you got to change that name!” an annoyed Idena told Miho, who giggled before she answered.

“You and Mikuru both said that! And I’ll tell you what I say to her: I’ll never rename it and hurt Mimi’s feelings!” she said as she blast away some more soldiers with a gust of air.

“TRAITOR!” yelled Moira as she rushed her step-sister, who just smiled at her sister. Moira’s hammer was blocked by Fran’s blade as the two struggled to push each other away.

“Come now sister, all I did was join the side that best aligned with my goals!” Fran said to Moira, who would hear none of it.

“You chose the side of a warlock demon worshiper! He brings darkness wherever he goes!” she attempted to tell Fran, who just shrugged it off.

“Ah yes, you were always so susceptible to Lord Brighton’s lies,” observed Fran, who showed no hint that she listened to her step-sister’s words.

“Lies?! He speaks the truth!” Moira said as she swung her hammer at Fran’s torso, who had to quickly jump back to barely miss being hit.

“No! He says what he thinks is true. Sadly for him, he’s a delusional old man who only wants power and obedience. He cares not for the Lady’s will, only his twisted sense of order and justice!” countered Fran as she swung her sword at Moira’s head who brought her shield up to block the attack.

“No! He has the Blessing, thus he must be doing the Lady’s will!” Moira desperately said in an attempt to sway her step-sister back to her side.

“No! All he’s done is deny you your Blessing!” Fran pointed out as she jabbed at Moira’s torso, to which her shield absorbed the hit.

“No, that’s not it at all! I’m not ready yet! I could never beat you! But I’ll beat you today and show to him and to everyone that I am ready to be the Warden!” admitted Moira, who knew she wasn’t ready to wield such power yet. Fran, however, had another reason why, and she just had to tell little Moira.

“Is it that,” Fran asked as she charged forward as Moira swung her hammer, “or is it that he doesn’t think he can control you once you have it, so he denies you what is yours,” she asked, knowing her words would borrow deep into Moira’s mind. It seemed to work as Moira stopped for a split second to think about the possible truth Fran had just told her. Fran, meanwhile, took this advantage and knocked Moira’s shield out of her hand. The act snapped Moira back to the present where she quickly swung her warhammer at Fran to get some distance between the two.