Soulless Beauty Aorta

BLUE, POSTPARTUM PSYCHOSIS

Rose's feet hurt. The four Aortae hadn't taken a break since they started walking after waking up, and there was still a way to go before getting to the core of The Shell, according to Hyacinth, where Mary was waiting, and watching. Gardenia had fallen asleep again in the arms of Heather, who was humming a lullaby, more for him and the others than for Gardenia.

They once again found themselves in a circular room, this one with water separating an outside platform going around the entire room, with a smaller, circular platform in the center, and large, stone cubes growing from the ceiling in different directions.

A blue Aorta with a mohawk appeared instantaneously, arms extending into long, electric whips, floating above the center platform. "You?!" Heather was bewildered. "Hello Heather, Hyacinth," He gestured to Rose, his left arm whip extended and arcing lightning as the tip drooped towards the water, "Now you, I don't recognize." Rose faintly remembered his voice.

"My name is Lascera, and I'm here to avenge Pathos!" His confident swagger shifted to a stern monotone voice, "Mary was inconsolable after you killed her."

[Azure Brash LASCERA]

"Killed her?!" Hyacinth spoke up, "She didn't even put up a fight! We talked and then she just sort of... gave up!" "Gave up?!" Lascera swung his arm violently, the whip sprouting from it barely missing Hyacinth and embedding itself in the floor inches from her foot. His suave voice rang out again, "She never would have betrayed us like that!" In one swift movement, Rose darted over to where the electrified whip stuck in the ground, grabbed it, and used her momentum to swing Lascera directly into a wall, slamming him against it. The shock caused Rose to drop to her knees as Lascera bounced off the wall and clattered to the stone floor. "I have no quarrel with any of you but her!" Lascera brought himself up to one knee from the ground, wiping the blood from his mouth before floating back over above the center of the arena. "But if you insist, we can do things the hard way!"

He began an all-out assault with his arm whips, slashing furiously at the rock of the miniature colosseum. Rose noticed that he was only directly targeting Hyacinth, and only blocked the attacks of the other three while spinning out of the way in mid-air to avoid Hyacinth's graceful chainsaw lunges. Rose rolled to the sides, dodging hit after hit.

"How does it feel to have lived long enough to see everything you ever loved, everything you ever believed in and fought for, slowly rot away? Tell me, Hyacinth! Tell me how we both feel!" Lascera was getting careless. He began swinging at random, cutting into the rock of the chamber walls and ceiling, breathing heavily with tears flowing from his synthetic eyes.

One of his random swipes sliced out an entire stone block from the ceiling, directly over Heather and Gardenia. Heather leapt out of the way to dodge it, calling for his daughter and hoping she would follow, but the confused child couldn't process what was happening in time, only able to glance upwards for a fraction of a second.

The cube hit the ground with a chilling crunch, silencing the room.

"Oh my god... G... sweetheart?" Lascera's voice broke as he immediately came to his senses, and stopped attacking.