The compound that sprung up where the motel used to be has also disappeared by the time we get close enough to actually see the whole thing. That familiar dark, cold purple glow I've come to associate with Renata and her monsters seems to be radiating out from the pit of black mist at its center, making looking at it like staring at a strange, unstable solar eclipse. I doubt there's anyone left alive down there, and I don't see anything that looks like what I've imagined Renata to look like either.
Incarna is the first to speak. "Are we sure she's-"
"Up here, girls~" The voice is deep, yet feminine, and comes from above us. Despite the distance to the speaking figure, her words are clear as day and easily command our attention. She's tall, even more so than me, maybe seven or eight feet. Enormous, feathered wings like those of a crow sprout from her back, flapping far too slowly to actually carry her aloft. They somehow both reflect and swallow whatever that purple light beneath us is.
Her ears are elongated and pointed, and her eyes look like their colors have been inversed; black sclera, purple irises and white pupils. Her hair is long, black, and pulled back into a slicked style very similar to what Jeanette wore in her transformed state. There's no question about her freaky, alien and yet scary beauty, especially not when you notice the way her slim, elegant dress flows around her body, the train of the garment flowing far beneath her feet and spreading out like the tail feathers of a giant bird of prey.
Onyxia wastes no time. Even in the weird dead zone of the tapestry around our enemy, it takes no effort to feel the way the strings react to my girlfriend's magic, pulling on the strings connecting us all. "CELESTIAL KNIGHTS! THE AR-"
"Silence, wench." Renata barely raises her voice to be heard over Onyxia's shouted spell, and yet the authority in her words is absolute and makes us all freeze and shut up to pay attention. "I'll let you do your little spells all you want, but first, you must hear my offer, Celestial Knights."
An offer? What could she want to offer us?
"Turn over the traitors, your so-called Squires, and I'll leave both you and your planet alone for the time being. One hundred years of peace with no interference from the outside. I'll even keep the others away."
Confusion echoes over our psychic comms channel. Onyxia flies a couple of feet closer, while also putting herself at eye level with the enemy. The rest of us follow, placing ourselves behind our leader. "The others?" She asks the question we're all thinking.
"Oh, silly child. Did you honestly think I was the only entity out there with a desire to plunder your planet's resources? Truth be told, you're lucky I laid claim to you. Very few of them dare mess with me."
The thought that there are others out there both scares and mystifies me. How could none of the several space exploration agencies on Earth have found anything? How do they all stack up next to Renata? Scary as that thought is, though, in our collective consciousness we all know we can't give her what she wants. It'd leave me as Earth's sole guardian in case Renata decides to go back on her promise, and even if she doesn't, we're still serving the future of humanity, as well as the rest of our galaxy, to her on a silver platter. Only Kaida is hesitant about what we all know we have to do, but deep down, she's along for the ride.
I'm on their side in this, of course, but I have a question of my own, so before Onyxia can reject on our behalf, I fly up to her side and put a hand on her shoulder. "And what about Jeanette? After we severed her connection to you, she went into a magical coma and hasn't woken up. What can you do for her?"
Instead of answering immediately, Renata squints as she looks at me. Like she almost hadn't noticed I was there. "Ah, yes, my little experiment. You know, I should thank you, Destiny. Without your involvement, I would never have had the option to contact poor, lonely Jeanette."
"Great, thanks. I didn't need your help to feel guilty about that. So, can you help her or not?"
"Accept my terms, and I will restore my connection with her long enough for her to wake up, then safely break the compact. She'll remember everything, but be awake."
"That's all I need. Onyxia?"
Despite flying, I take a step to the side and back, gesturing for my girlfriend to take the lead once more. As a response to Renata's proposal, she takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and starts gathering power. Mystical flames, the same colors as their magic, gather around the feet of every Knight except for myself, and I can already tell what happens next is going to be impressive! Third time's the charm, right?
Renata just sighs and rolls her eyes in annoyance.
"CELESTIAL KNIGHTS! THE ARMORY IS OPEN!"
The flames roar and grow, engulfing each Knight like a second transformation. A quick scan of my general memories doesn't let me recognize anything like this happening to any of the prior generations of Celestial Knights. It fills me with a sense of wonder very similar to what I felt when seeing the girls on TV before my own first transformation. I might as well start fangirling.
The fires end in a final outward burst, I'm certain would cause structural damage if we'd been caught in an enclosed space, revealing each of the Knights in what I'm certain some would describe as their final forms. Where their normal uniforms are, well, uniforms and despite the varied colors make them look like a coherent unit, this transformation leaves them all looking mostly like individuals. Each of them now also sport some trace of their Squire's appearance, as if they've been fully merged with the source of their magic.
Aria and Vida both now have fox and bunny ears and tails, respectively, which I have to admit makes them look cuter rather than more fearsome as the rest of the Knights do in this state.
Kaida's very hair has become the fire she commands, making her look like the depiction of some old sun deity.
Incarna's skin has grown large patches of purple scales that match her hair, and her fingers end in wicked-looking claws.
Onyxia has lost every trace of color on her being, becoming monotone like she's in a movie from a hundred years ago. The pink hair is now white, and the colored parts of her uniform have become black, but she looks no less intense.
The one thing visually pulling them all back together is the fact that their skirts are now longer, and the blazers of their uniforms have been replaced by medieval-looking armor. Little bits of metal extend down to cover their thighs on the outside of the skirts. Don't ask me what everything's called, I'm no expert.
"Fine. Annihilation it is," Renata says with an almost terrifying calm in her voice, reaches her arms wide and brings them up above her head with what looks like considerable effort. The effect is immediate enough that I don't have to wonder what she's doing.
The strange eclipse-looking formation beneath us literally lifts off the ground, still looking like a two-dimensional plane until it folds in on itself and becomes fully real, yet once again flattened against the sky behind Renata. The tapestry is in absolute tatters around me, but I don't even need to stretch my senses through it to realize the level of power she's working with. We're fucking screwed.
It terrifies me. I'm still paralyzed with fear when monsters, fully formed and some of them even bigger than anything we've ever fought before, start spilling forth from the portal. Wings, thrashing limbs, writhing tails, gnashing teeth. You name it, and the horror of that trait is on full display, practically fighting its brethren to escape from the portal first. What hope do we have of stopping more than a few of these beasts, much less Renata at the same time?
"Hellfire."
Behind me and to the left, I hear Kaida's incantation, spoken rather than shouted as she usually prefers, and before my eyes, a pillar of flame so hot I feel like it'll burn the hair off my forearms from more than a hundred yards away manifests. The pillar shapes itself like a spear as it drives into the belly of a monster shaped like a horrifying beetle. Her hand stretches out, grips something invisible and jerks upward, causing that enormous flaming spear to mirror her motion.
The beetle has barely gotten half of its torso through the portal before its hardened shell cracks under the heat and pressure, yanking an unearthly scream from its throat for a second before it starts dissolving into that familiar smoke.
Having seen Kaida take the initiative like that, it's a mere moment before the rest of the Knights spring into action. Incarna's new form proves more suited for close combat than using ranged weapons as she usually does, and she doesn't hesitate to rush the first monster that touches down on the ground beneath us, where the government compound used to be.
Despite how she barely reaches the top of its double-jointed ankle, my friend wraps her elongated arms around the limb and gives a mighty roar as she lifts something so heavy it would sink into the ground if it obeyed our world's laws of gravity. The gigantic, bipedal rodent loses its balance before it realizes what's going on, only to be swung like a baseball bat into the monster touching down next to it, causing both to tumble and tangle with each other.
Incarna is too far away for me to properly hear the incantation she calls upon, but whatever it was, a dozen rifles take up formation floating around her and pump several blasts of magical, super-heated matter into the two monsters with an astounding alacrity, finishing them off as quickly as they appeared.
Fitting with her new bunny-like appearance, Vida moves considerably faster than I've seen her do in combat before. Sure, she can fly just as fast as the rest of us, but she usually doesn't move around this much. Focusing on the few smaller monsters that swarm out around the bigger ones, our healer abandons her usual pacifist role and starts swinging her staff like the blunt force instrument it is. Shouted phrases accompanied by bursts of green light disorient, confuse or even outright vaporize some of the ones that have already taken damage from various sources on the surrounding battlefield.
I've always been in awe of Aria's psychic powers and the ways she wielded them, both creatively and more bluntly, but seeing her hang back behind the rest of us, dancing a little with her eyes closed, new fox ears and tail swaying in the wind as she conducts a symphony only she can hear makes me wonder what she's doing.
At least until I notice one monster having trouble pushing out of Renata's portal and another stumbling over itself to give Incarna a chance to dispatch it with ease. A third even manages to look confused for a second before it practically throws itself at one of Kaida's infernal spears. Despite not killing any monsters on her own, she's helping out in a way no one else on the squad could.
Holy crap. No wonder the Knights keep the Armory as an ace up their sleeves if they get this much of a power boost. I wonder if there's a downside, since they can't just use it all the time.
"Destiny, come on. We've got a duty to attend to." Onyxia takes my hand and pulls at me gently to get me to focus. Not even a full minute has passed, but I was still stunned both by fear and astonishment at the things my friends are now capable of.
"Yeah. I'm with you. Always."
Readying our swords, we hurry through the air at Renata, whose face is contorted in a sneer as she surveys the damage the other four Knights are doing. In particular, she glares at Aria and has already started flying toward the youngest Knight when Onyxia and I cut her off.
My girlfriend is quick to start attacking with her twin short swords, wasting no time trying to go for the kill with her first strike aimed at the alien queen's throat, but a mere flicker of steel and the sound of clashing swords is all I need to know her attempt wasn't successful. Renata has manifested her own weapon, a vicious-looking spike of metal that practically formed out of dust and sand swirling in the air at her command.
"Would you mind? I was just going to murder your young friend over there. She's proving to be quite the nuisance."
"Over my dead body," Onyxia practically growls in the middle of her next move. Moving up and back, she tosses one of her swords at the witch with so much force it could bury itself in concrete even if it weren't magical. Once again, however, Renata parries the attack almost casually, this time with the back of her hand, batting the sword aside, at which point it gets quickly recalled to its wielder's hand.
"Skewer!"
Not my fanciest incantation, I know, but I don't exactly have time to come up with anything fancy. The result is immediate and powerful nonetheless as a magic needle the size of a telephone pole manifests by my shoulder and hurtles at Renata with enough force and speed to punch holes in those monsters she's so fond of sending against us. She narrowly shifts to the side, avoiding the projectile. Her eyes are wild with rage as she turns her head to look at me.
"Someone should put a bell on you! But so long as you keep announcing your attacks like that, I guess that works too. Still missed me, though."
She lifts up her left hand, palm open and fingers stretched wide as it points at me, no doubt charging a spell of some kind, but before she can fire anything, Onyxia pops up in what should be a blind spot. She swings with both swords at Renata's head, forcing the witch queen to not just dodge, but employ one of her wings to catch the swords in its surprisingly sturdy feathers and turn aside the blow.
"Don't forget there's two of us," our leader sneers and backs off defensively while using both of her weapons to parry a series of blows from Renata's long, metallic spike of a sword. This is where I see my chance, though, and dash in with Twilight Point, thrusting it right at Renata's center mass, though my strike, too, gets turned aside by a wing swooping down.
You'd be forgiven to have thought the Knights were taking a break, enjoying the calm while there were no monster attacks, but we barely even had to talk about it to all agree our duty wasn't done, and so instead of fighting, we trained.
On top of my sparring sessions with Kaida, which only grew in intensity once she could transform again, we trained as a unit. We trained in pairs, in trios. Against each other, outnumbered by the others, and any other configuration you might imagine. That's why we're more prepared for this fight than we would've been if Renata attacked before we all moved away from each other. She took a gamble on that, and it didn't pay off.
"Onyxia," I choose to talk over our telepathic network rather than out loud where the enemy can hear us. "I have a theory about something, but I need you to keep her attention for a while. Create a distraction. Kaida, if you have anything for that, please help!"
Alongside a pulse of recognition and agreement to my plan, Onyxia flies back a dozen yards and slams her swords against each other, fusing them into the large cannon she already deployed once earlier tonight.
The opposing forces of her power begin charging, creating a tiny eclipse between her hands, aimed right at Renata, who clearly isn't going to just let that happen. The alien witch hurries to follow my girlfriend, but gets blocked off by a wall of fire that makes her back away, only to be met by the invisible barrier of Aria's telekinesis behind her, successfully trapping the winged woman.
"SUPERNOVA CANNO-"
"ENOUGH!"
Before Onyxia's attack even finishes charging, Renata spreads her wings wide with a shout that echoes even in the vast, empty space we're fighting in. Hurricane-force winds pulse out from her, reinforced by blasts of magic.
The unexpected force throws Onyxia back, dissipating the gathered power of her spell in mere moments, the same way it breaks the dual barriers of fire and force on either side. "Your people are but grains of sand in the desert of lives I've consumed, yet you resist the inevitable with your stolen power!"
Her right hand lifts high, quickly gathering a spell of her own, an expanding bead of power that I'm certain packs more of a punch than anything the rest of us have thrown around all night. She seems to have forgotten my presence again. Perfect time to make my move.
I rush at Renata without saying anything this time, thrusting my weapon at her in the last possible moment. Twilight Point sinks into the surprisingly soft flesh of her back, deep enough that the glowing tip breaks through on the other side, just to the right of her sternum. My aim was slightly off, missing her heart, assuming her anatomy works like ours.
"Forgot about me again, huh? Maybe if you weren't so busy declaring your superiority you could actually keep track of me." I was right. Something makes it difficult for her to see and remember me, and if I had to take a guess, I'd put money on it being the same thing that has severed her from the tapestry. A double-edged sword.
My left hand grips the base of one of her wings hard and starts to twist. I put in every ounce of my arcane strength and force her to follow the movement as I put a foot on the small of her back and push her away from the small group of Knights actively fighting her. As a result, I put myself between her and the rest of them.
"Maybe I would bother if I thought you could actually hurt me." As she speaks, the hole in her chest heals up with surprising speed, not even leaving behind a trace of scar tissue. "Why are you not using your real powers, Destiny? Better get over that hesitation quick."
I grit my teeth and wince at her words. She's right. I'm hesitating to use any of my real powers, the ones that set me apart from the other Knights. But without being able to touch her, and without calling on Chaos, what can I even do?
"Just- Shut up and leave our world alone already!" Joined by my girlfriend, I rush at her once more, but my frustration and anger makes me clumsy enough that she just pivots to avoid my weapon. With surprising strength, the wing I had previously grabbed stretches out to block my view and swats me aside.
Onyxia does her best, but now that Renata takes the fight seriously, not even our teamwork holds up to the force she brings to bear. She's not even using her sword to parry any of Onyxia's strikes, relying solely on her wings and free hand to catch the flats of her opponents swords to turn them aside, leaving that long spike of metal she uses to fight us to be used only for offense.
At least Incarna and Vida have been holding their own so far, with occasional support from Aria and Kaida. Only the occasional glimpses of their glowing forms or blasts of magic make it possible to track them amid the murky haze of dark smoke on the ground around Renata's portal.
That all ends when Renata speaks an incantation in a language I don't understand. It doesn't even sound human, each syllable laced with so much power it makes my bones hurt.
The battle stands still for a moment when the tide of monsters stops spilling from the portal. One big eye peeks through, taking up almost the entire space on the other side for a moment before two hands so big they could cradle mid-sized battleships grips each side of the tear in reality and start pushing, slowly expanding the portal in preparation for its entrance.
None of us have ever seen anything that big. This thing would make the monster that killed most of Arthur's squad look like a fledgling. Panic and despair flash across our telepathic network. We're all terrified.
"I'm gonna take it out," Asha sends, each word filled with determination to cover for her own fear.
"Asha, you can't," Kaida responds. I briefly take my eyes off Renata to look over to our fiery teammate. This is the first time I've heard her use anyone's civilian name during battle, even over our private network.
"Of course I can. I'm the big gun, remember? What good is a gun if you can't use it when you need it?"
Even though our network communicates at the speed of thought, we all fall silent long enough to make it awkward. Asha lifts off the ground, quickly ascending to be level with the portal, where she spreads her arms wide and starts channeling her power.
"Eden! Is she-"
"She'll be fine. Just concentrate on your own fight," she cuts me off before I can ask the obvious question. The only reason I decide I can trust her about my best friend's safety is because I feel the rest of the Knights silently assuring me.
The monster's ugly snout pokes through the breach as it asserts its presence with the inevitability of a runaway train.
"Don't worry, Des. I told Shawn I'd come home, and I don't intend to break that promise."
In the air above my friend, the bright purple particles of her magic begin forming the silhouette of a high-tech weapon I don't even know the name nor purpose of. Given some of the other weapons she's been working with lately, though, I have a feeling this one is still experimental, or maybe even just theoretical. She can use her magic to shore up whatever science hasn't yet figured out.
Having finally cleared enough space, the monster reaches its ugly hand through to our world, fingers spreading wide before they start curling around Asha. This creature is so enormous that getting a proper idea of its form is next to impossible.
Without a firm idea of what I'm going to do, I already feel myself reaching for Chaos, left hand unconsciously gripping around the unseen force with my only current desire being to save my friend.
"NUCLEAR OPTION!"
The thin lance of purple energy is so bright that it makes every other source of light for miles seem dim. Despite how much thicker the enormous monster's arm is, none of us have any trouble seeing Asha's spell as it passes through her target's ethereal flesh and then fades. For a moment, it seems like nothing's gonna happen, but then a chain reaction of explosions starts at the monster's wrist, each packing enough power to create their own mushroom clouds as they spread down its arm and up through what little we can see of its unbelievably large body.
The world killer gets torn asunder from the inside out by the force of hundreds of nuclear explosions. The giant only manages to utter a pained groan before the light of my best friend's magic cracks its skin open and evaporates it so thoroughly that not even the customary black and purple motes get to manifest.
And then Asha disappears from our network. I freeze and panic for a moment before Eden starts sending orders.
"She's a civilian now. Vida, get her out of here, quick!"
From her position in mid-air, Asha goes limp and begins to fall, the purple light of her magic and indeed her transformed state itself slowly fading away as if it is being peeled off her body, leaving behind only the friend I've known most of my life.
"Yes, Captain!" Our healer, much faster than normal in her bunny-eared form, zips from her location above the portal, racing to catch Asha's unconscious body before it hits the ground. It's not even close, and when our comrade is in her arms, Vida hurries off the battlefield, no doubt intending to put Asha at a safe distance from which she can watch the rest of the battle if she wakes up in time.
"Aria, the portal expanded when that monster pushed from the inside." My girlfriend is quick to assess the situation, and just before she sends the order, I have the same thought as her. "You think you can close it from the outsi-" This story is hosted at novelping(.)com.
Renata practically vanishes before our eyes, even as we communicate at the speed of thought, and we barely manage to catch Aria's sudden surge of complete panic before the evil witch speaks. "Perfect distraction."
She's got Aria by the throat, holding her up with one hand as she squeezes hard enough for me to see her fingers curling in on themselves around my young friend's neck. The network collapses in Aria's panic, and she must unconsciously have stopped her flight too, judging from the way her feet start dangling.
"You know, with those ears and that tail, one could be forgiven for mistaking you for one of the Berokki, but your power is no match for even the weakest among them," Renata says, almost whispering as she looks into the eyes of a terrified Ida. "A shame you were chosen when you were. Any other time, and you might have proven a rival to them. Now you won't grow old enough to cross that gap."
Ida's eyes catch mine. She's usually so calm and collected, downright analytical. Not emotionless, but certainly weighing her words and actions before she says or does anything. Now there's only dread in them. The fear of what's going to happen next, even as her fingers claw and scratch at Renata's wrist.
"Oh, how I've been looking forward to taking your powers back."
Eden starts moving before the witch's other hand does. Her weapons blink out of existence as she grabs Renata's wrist and pulls as hard as she can, doing everything possible to stop the alien from bringing her hand anywhere near Ida. It is not enough. Our enemy doesn't just wield magic on a scale we never imagined, she's also physically our superior.
The now-familiar feeling of time slowing down as my senses automatically attune themselves to the tapestry flows over me, dispelling my momentary panic and fear. The tapestry is more or less nonexistent around us, evidently a side effect of Renata's mere presence, seeing as how she and the most immediate area around her is pretty much a blank hole in my vision, only broken up by the flares of colored light that are Eden and Ida.
A bigger flare of red off to my right catches my attention, evidence of Ayame preparing a spell aimed at Renata.
Unless I do something big, Ida will die here, and the rest of us are likely to follow. But what? I can't affect the alien witch at all with the threads of fate.
Then it hits me. Renata basically handed me the answer a minute ago when she said she wasn't going to bother paying attention to me unless I started using my real powers. I can only think of one thing in my repertoire that can touch her. Chaos.
I already have half a hold on something from when I subconsciously reached out earlier, so it won't take long for me to finish the call. But I can't just make the connection and hope for the best this time. I've got to do something different, and an idea that's been percolating in the back of my mind might just be of use.
I can't touch Renata, but I can touch everyone else, including someone the witch was previously connected to, despite the distance. Chaos can make that last connection to my enemy. With my right hand, I drag threads from Eden, Ayame, and Faye into one bundle. Whatever Asha did with her final spell has left her without that special magical something the rest of the Knights have, so pulling her in won't provide enough power for what I need. My own power is needed to cast the spell, so I can't offer myself up either. I leave Ida's thread as its own connection, and the same goes for Jeanette's.
As the threads are now, they're barely going to do anything. Maybe give the three connected Knights a boost. But I have two very specific objectives, and while I can't be exactly sure of the outcome, I have a theory that offering three Knights' worth of power as a bargaining chip, I might be able to temper the threads of Chaos I introduce to the spell with my left hand.
As I prepare to cast the most complex spell I've set up to date, I take some extra effort to spell out my intent. 'Trap Ida's life force inside her. Sap enough of Renata's power to make her more level with us, and trap it in Jeanette.'
Ready to finalize my work, I bind everything together, uttering the first incantation that comes to mind. I don't have time to think of anything as poetically fitting as I know Jeanette would appreciate.
"Severing Sentence."
I open my eyes after letting the powers I gathered unleash themselves upon the world, only to realize with horror that even after working in that accelerated state of mind, I might still be too late. Renata's left hand is already in front of Ida's face, an ethereal stream of light seeping out of every pore in my youngest comrade's face as she writhes beneath the witch's grip.
My girlfriend is still desperately trying to pry the taller woman off our friend, but seemingly to no avail, and Ayame is hurling a white-hot spear of fire at the taller woman. Without thinking, I summon Twilight Point to my hand and charge Renata with a pained scream. This time she doesn't even bother to stop me, allowing me to fully skewer her whole torso on my weapon, but still nothing seems to cut whatever she's doing to Ida short.
Nothing has happened for several seconds, and I'm already assuming my spell had no effect. That I did something wrong. It must have been my intent to do something to Renata.
It starts low, but the rumble rolling over the horizon builds quickly enough that it still manages to shock me when the crash of thunder follows in its wake, quickly succeeded by a whole cacophony. Whether it's the volume or the intensity that breaks Renata from whatever spell she'd put herself under, I don't know. She even loosens her grip on Ida's throat and lowers her other hand, letting go as she turns around with my whole weapon still inside of her.
I don't have time to be grossed out at the implication of what her insides are doing. Both Eden and I rush down to catch Ida. For once, I'm just slightly faster than her and catch Ida's limp body in my arms. She's still alive, just barely, but the threads are fraying all around her. This spell better hurry up and do its thing.
"What did you do?" There's a curious sense of wonder to her voice as she looks in the direction of her own portal. She must be able to sense that something fundamental is shifting around us. Rules are being rewritten.
Then, all at once, my spell finally takes effect. Renata's portal grows unstable and collapses in on itself, causing another crash of thunder. The force of the implosion tosses us all back, even Renata. I hold on to Ida as tightly as I can, hugging her close to my chest as we're hurled to the ground. I curl up around her and let my body take the brunt of the impact as I'm slammed so hard into the ground I feel bones all over my body creak.
Above us, the entire sky bleeds the same purple and black colors we've been fighting all this time, as if the portal's closure made it meld with the background, only for the whole thing to rush back where it came from, and invert when the portal opens back up. A purple circle ringed by black.
The blast that swept us away reverses direction, now pulling at us with a force so strong I'm forced to summon my weapon again and drive it into the ground to stop myself and Ida from taking a tumble.
"Hang on!" Eden yells on my left, wrapping her arm around my waist, even as she manifests one of her own weapons, the one made from Nox, and digs it as deep into the asphalt as its length allows. "I've got you!"
Ayame lands and does the same, giving us a silent nod as she lends her own strength to keep us all grounded.
Still flying in the air, Renata doesn't have the same option to create leverage as us, and the unrelenting storm isn't giving up.
"YOU BITCH!" She yells, her glare almost staring a hole through me. "What did you do? HOW?"
Whatever I did, the unseen force keeps pulling on us all, forcing Renata into her portal despite all of her resistance. "I AM IRRESISTIBLE! UNSTOPPABLE! YOU CANNOT DO THIS!"
Raging against the inevitable doesn't help the witch queen, and the split second her outstretched hand is swallowed, the portal closes again, leaving Eden, Ida, and I in the deafening silence of our wasteland of a battlefield.
"Holy shit. Y-Yeah, what did you do?" Eden asks, staring incredulously at the sky where Renata disappeared.
I don't have time to answer her. I don't even listen. The light in Ida's threads is quickly fading, but I don't need my sixth sense to tell what's going on. "Hey, hey, no. Ida, stay with us." I slap her cheek gently, forcing her to pay attention to us rather than whatever's happening inside her brain. "We're not done yet. We still need you."
She coughs. I keep her aloft in my right arm and reach out with my left hand, plucking at her threads, desperately looking for something, anything, I can do. Ida just... weakly reaches up, puts her hand on my wrist and pulls down.
"It's okay, Destiny. We did it. We won."
When she realized what was happening, my girlfriend froze and stared at us, but now she scoots closer, wrapping her left arm around Ida from the other side. She, too, slaps the young Knight. "Ida, stop! As your leader, I command you!"
"S- Sorry boss. It's too late. She took too much." Her voice is growing weaker by the second.
"No. No, no, no, no." Ayame stares in horror between the rest of us and gets to her feet, steps back and turns around, unwilling to face what's about to happen.
"Eo! Maybe Eo can keep you going until Faye gets back?"
"No, Eden. Where do you think she started? They... I think they're gone."
My girlfriend looks at me in desperation. "Destiny? Anything, please?"
I just shake my head and look back down at Ida, trying to hold back my tears. "This isn't something I can change."
And then, the last light goes out.