The continued journey to Millennia was a much calmer one than past flights had been, and Luce was taking full advantage of the peace. Her head was propped backward against the window, and while it wasn't the most comfortable position to be in, she was fine with it. They weren't being attacked even if they were running for their lives, and that counted for more than anyone would ever be able to understand from outside the group.
The others were choosing to enjoy the quiet as long as they had it too, and the ship was almost completely silent as a result. Even if they had all slept well during their time in Loduke, they were still tired from the constant movement that had taken place before then. It was already much too late for them to catch up on a past lack of sleep, but they were doing what they could to make sure they didn't completely fall apart.
Because of the quiet that had spread throughout the area, Luce was able to hear it when people began muttering regardless of how much they whispered. She forced one eye open before glancing over in the direction of the front of the ship where Cryon and Lianna were exchanging hurried words of slight panic. What were they supposed to be afraid of? Why was Lianna out of the seat that involved piloting the ship? Luce rubbed at her eyes before rising to her feet and approaching them both, more than intent on getting answers.
"I don't understand it," Lianna was saying when Luce arrived. "No matter how much I try to pilot the ship toward Millennia, it seems like the controls are constantly skewing the opposite direction."
"Do you think we're going to have to stop and fix it?" Luce questioned with a light frown.
Neither Lianna nor Cryon seemed too surprised to see Luce there, so they simply continued their conversation with her newfound presence. Cryon hesitated before shrugging. "We may have to. I didn't think the controls were drifting though. I looked at everything while we were on Loduke to make sure the ship was in perfect condition before we took off again. We've been doing a good enough job of putting this thing back together after each attack, but I didn't want anything to slip through the cracks and come back to bite us."
"I guess that wound up happening anyways though," Luce muttered with a small shake of her head. "If you think it would be best for us to stop, we should probably do it sooner rather than later. I don't want this to complicate anything later on, so it would be best to resolve as soon as possible."
"I agree," Lianna nodded, her expression overcome with concern. "There must be some reason for all of this, and I don't want us to be left in a bad position because we didn't stop when we should have."
"We'll land on the next planet we reach," Cryon announced with a nod. "We're losing time because of how much the controls are drifting, so the closest planet right now is Fortunia. Aside from that, it's Amity. We don't want to land on either one of them though, so I guess it would be best for us to figure something else out. In other words, we're probably going to be flying for quite a bit longer."
Luce opened her mouth to say something, but she was immediately met with the ship lurching enough to nearly send her sprawling into the control panel. It was only thanks to Lianna holding up an arm to catch her that Luce didn't completely fall over at the sudden jerk of motion. Lianna was holding tightly to the back of Cryon's chair, her grip so tight it dyed her knuckles white. "Something is wrong," she murmured under her breath. "I guess we know what we're going to have to do."
"Land immediately," Cryon snarled. "Well, where do we want to take our chances? At this point, it's either Amity or Fortunia, and I hate the sound of both of those ideas."
Lianna made her way over to the seat where she had been operating the controls before beginning her conversation with Cryon, and she did what she could to try and jerk the ship in the direction of Fortunia. Unfortunately, the steering wheel didn't seem intent on listening to her directions, and the entire ship lurched once again as the steering wheel suddenly jerked its way over to Amity. Luce had grabbed onto the chair her father was sitting in, but she could feel her legs turn to jelly as a result of all the sudden thrashing. Luce liked to think she had a firm enough stomach to not get motion sickness, but she didn't think being in a ship suddenly gone haywire really helped much when it came to that.
"What's going on?!" came a squeal of panic from Sylvia. She had taken to firmly attaching herself to S.M.'s arm, and the other girl had resigned to simply allowing Sylvia to cling to her.
"The ship is malfunctioning," Lianna growled as she tried to fight the steering wheel. The minor complications that had kept the controls from listening previously were now going on strike, showing open defiance of everything Lianna wanted them to do.
"But that doesn't make any sense. We looked at it before we left Loduke, and everything was fine back then, right?" Iris questioned, doing her best to hide the way her voice was shaking. She was doing a poor job of it, and when the ship lurched again a moment later, she was almost sent to the ground. Anneliese was barely able to keep her in the seat, and Luce found herself wishing there were seatbelts in the ship. Then again, it wasn't as if any of them could have expected they would suffer so regularly from crashes as they were trying to get away from Fortunia and the Church of Starlight.
"We're going to be landing on Amity!" Lianna cried out over one shoulder. "I don't think there's going to be a way to stop it at this point! If anyone is willing to help me buffer the landing, that would be much appreciated!"
Tanith immediately made her way up to the front of the ship, sliding down next to Lianna so the two of them were sharing a seat. Tanith's eyes flashed violet, and a moment later, she was manipulating the air around the ship to make sure it didn't completely crumble as it fell to Amity. It was easier said than done to control the tiny traces of air that had escaped into the cosmos from magical planets in the past, but Tanith was doing an impressive enough job of it, and Luce was glad she was at least trying something.
"I can try and open a portal for us so we won't land so roughly!" Anneliese cried out. She raised one hand to try and begin executing a display of her magic, but she was ultimately cut off when the ship's angle shifted once again, this time angled directly down toward the nearby planet of Amity. The front of the ship was acting like an arrow that cut through the wind to try and land on the ground below.
"You won't be able to do it as long as the ship is moving this fast though!" Nebula exclaimed. She was grabbing tightly to the rest of the ship, and she held up one hand, a sudden sweep of light passing through the area. Luce figured out what she was doing immediately; Nebula was trying to see if the sudden malfunctions were brought on by any outside interference, but judging by the frown that appeared on Nebula's face, the answer was negatory. "I don't see any other ships around here that could possibly be messing with our controls!"
"I don't think defeating them would do much at this point anyways!" Rie shouted. "We're going to crash whether we want to or not!" From beside her, Reye had taken to the same air manipulation trick Tanith was using, but it was clear that it wasn't going to be enough to completely buffer their fall.
Luce glanced around rapidly, desperate to see if there was something she could use to try and keep them from crashing so roughly into the ground. She could already tell it was a lost cause though; the twins were right in believing they were destined to crash. Her grip on Cryon's seat grew so tight she came close to splitting open her top layer of skin, but it was all she could do if she wanted to keep standing against the rapid momentum trying to tear them all apart.
Luce couldn't say what it was, but for some reason, it felt like her body was weighing her down all of a sudden. She had jolted herself out of a drowsy state rather quickly when she realized something was going on with the ship, but her adrenaline should have canceled out that exhaustion. She could still feel her heart's strong slamming against her chest, the only thing keeping her from seemingly falling apart. She knew she had to stay awake and do something, so why was her body doing so much to resist her?
The atmosphere of Amity was streaking by on all sides now, and Luce could see countless colors around the area that would have been beautiful under any other circumstances, but as it stood then, it just made the sudden sleepiness setting in over her mind even worse. She barely managed to keep herself from stumbling and collapsing as the ship continued its fall. Even as Luce forced herself to look up at the ground below, it seemed as if that wasn't enough to keep her from completely collapsing.
Luce heard the sound of something hitting the ground followed by a small yelp, but she wasn't able to turn around and see what was going on. Instead, her eyes were wide as she tried to find a way to keep the ship from crumbling as soon as it hit the ground. The lush green grasses of Amity were starting to streak into view now, and Luce swallowed dryly. They were going to crash, and Luce could only hope this didn't end too painfully for them.
Somewhere else in the ship, Luce heard the dulled sound of an explosion followed by what sounded like the air being knocked from someone's lungs. A strangled gasp came soon afterward, and from there, something hit the ground.
Luce barely even recognized what was happening as the ship suddenly made contact with the ground, and her vision went black immediately.
~~~~~
The first thing Luce felt when she woke up was, unsurprisingly, pain.
Her entire body had a dull throbbing sensation, almost like it was ready to give up before she could even attempt to rise to her feet. Luce didn't know where she was, but she could tell that she was sprawled out on the ground somewhere. She could feel wind starting to blow across her cheek, and that was what ultimately forced her to open her eyes. Her body was still protesting the idea of her moving, but she knew she had to do something to try and move around.
As Luce's ears found a grip on reality once again, Luce became aware of the sound of crying. She had to put in much more effort than she would have liked to tilt her head back in the direction of the ship's rear. She realized along the way that this was where the wind was coming from.
When Luce had fully shifted her focus though, she was immediately hit with a wave of nausea when her eyes caught sight of blood. There was crimson everywhere, too much of it to be at all natural. She felt as if she was going to be sick, and Luce pushed herself off the ground despite the way her arms groaned in protest. Luce realized she had fallen to the ground not far from the front of the ship. Lianna and Cryon had both moved to the back of the ship though, so Luce was the farthest from the exit. Her fingers curled around the back of the chair her father had been in not long beforehand as she tried to come to grips with the scene unfolding in front of her.
Cryon was sitting at the back of the ship, trying his best to push the back door of the ship open as much as possible with shaking hands. Lianna was the one who was sobbing, and her arms were curled protectively and fiercely around the upper body of a figure soaked with blood. Luce blinked a few times before auburn hair came into focus, and she felt her stomach drop into her feet.
Alistair.
Before Luce could say much of anything on the matter though, she was cut off by the sound of shuffling outside. She felt adrenaline start to pump through her body once again, but this time it wasn't at all accompanied by the exhaustion she had felt last time. A quick glance out the nearby window told Luce that there were people in some type of uniform gathering around the ship, but they didn't appear to be hostile at all. If they were planning an attack, they would have already dealt some sort of damage to the ship. Luce could already tell this set of repairs was going to take the longest amount of time seen yet to fix the ship, but she knew it was going to take even more to fix the injury Alistair had been left with. Luce still couldn't see what the source of the wound was, but she could say with certainty it was awful either way.
"How kind of you all to drop in at time like this."
A woman's voice reached Luce's ears, and she glanced back over to the back of the ship. Her father had managed to push open the back entrance by now, but Luce could tell it wasn't going to easily open or shut until after they could put the rest of the ship back together. A small portion of metal had peeled off the right side of the door and was on the ground below, and upon closer examination, Luce could see this steel had been responsible for Alistair's injury. The wound in question was a puncture in his side, and Luce realized that Sophia had fallen to her knees beside him to try and patch up as much of the damage as possible. Luce could already tell it was going to take more than that to save him though. Alistair's chest was rising and falling weakly, but Luce could tell that wouldn't be the case for much longer unless they acted fast.
Luce was so distracted by Alistair's injury that she almost didn't even notice the woman standing outside the ship until after she managed to put aside her shock. The woman had blonde hair cut close to her face and a gentle smile on her lips. Luce could have sworn her heart skipped a beat at the sight of the woman, already having figured out who it was without needing to be told.
Leora Amsel.
Cryon was snarling at Leora when Luce glanced up to him, and she noticed he had sustained a gash in his lower leg during the crash. He didn't seem to mind this at all as he glared at Leora though. "Leora," he spat, voice filled to the brim with venom. "What are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same question, Cryon... It's been far too long since you graced me with the honor of coming to the Church of Starlight for a visit," Leora smiled. Luce had to wonder if Leora noticed that they crashed their ship in order to land, but she knew the chances of the archbishop not seeing something so obvious were slim at best. Odds were that Leora was fully aware of it and was simply choosing to ignore the obvious fact of the matter. "It's been more than twenty-five years, if I recall correctly... You were last here with Dawn when the War of Starlight was first beginning, were you not?"
"Cut the crap, Leora. I'm not in the mood to put up with it right now," Cryon snarled. "What do you want from us? I get the feeling you won't be letting us go quite so easily."
"I hardly think you want to take off at a time like this either way. Your ship is heavily damaged, and one of your passengers..." Leora's voice trailed off as she glanced down to Alistair, and Luce could see that he had somehow gotten a fraction paler since she last looked at him. Sophia was still doing what she could to heal him, but because of how notable the injury was, she still had a lot left to do before she would be able to consider him fully stabilized.
Leora shook her head as she continued to watch Alistair. "I believe it would be for the best if you chose to come with me to the church. Your companion needs medical attention as soon as possible, and your ship has been so heavily damaged that you won't be able to leave for quite some time. It would be best if you received care in a place where you will be protected from danger," she continued.
"We're not coming with you," Cryon told Leora, a glare forming in his eyes. "There's no way in hell that I would ever agree to--"
"Cryon," Lianna interrupted, her voice almost breaking under the influence of her own grief. She gestured down to Alistair when Cryon looked her way, and he seemed to realize just how awful the injury was. His eyes went wide, and for a long moment, all he could do was stare at the blood already streaking across Lianna's fingers. Lianna herself was covered in tears as well, her face red and puffy as she continued to sob.
Cryon was silent for a long moment at that, something conflicted and strained passing over his expression before he glanced up to Leora once again. "Alright," he muttered hesitantly. He was so clearly doing this because he had no other choice, and the waver in his voice was enough to make Luce flinch immediately. "We'll come with you, but only until you're able to help us with the ship and Alistair. Do you understand me?"
"Of course. I would never dare of defying your wishes... Even though you have done so to me many times now," Leora smiled. Her voice remained so perfectly level even as she fired an accusation in Cryon's direction, and even when he glared at her angrily, she simply shook her head and gestured to the other soldiers gathered around the ship. "Do what you can to escort them all back to the church. We must tend to their wounds as soon as possible to ensure that no others suffered grave injuries. Act as quickly as possible."
Lianna was shaking when she used her magic to lift Alistair out of her arms, still desperate to hold him close but knowing that passing him off to someone else was the best thing she could do for him right then. Sophia held up her hands and tried to continue healing him from afar, and Luce pretended she didn't notice the blood that was still falling from Alistair's wound onto the floor of the ship. The sight of the crimson made her think she was going to be sick, so she forced herself to look away, her fingers clenching tightly into a fist. This was the last thing any of them wanted to have happen, and she had no idea what they were supposed to do about any of it.
The other occupants of the ship were able to slowly but surely pull themselves away from the edges of the area and move toward the exit, but the soldiers outside the ship remained firmly around their group as they started walking in the direction of the church as per Leora's instructions. It was like they were afraid of the group running off, not that Luce could blame them. She wanted to run as far away from there as possible, and even though she knew she wouldn't get far, it was still tempting. Alistair was injured though, and he had to be a priority even if that had them playing right into the hands of the one they had spent so long running from.
Sylvia managed to peel herself away from the place she had been sitting near the edge of the ship, and Luce saw that her hands were shaking as the blonde girl approached her. "What happened?" Luce questioned. She already had a strong idea of what took place when the ship went down, at least as far as her perspective was concerned, but she knew that wasn't going to be enough to fully put the pieces together for everyone else. Sylvia was as good a place to start as any.
"I don't know what happened when we crashed," Sylvia admitted softly. "I-I don't know why, but... I felt like I was falling asleep. I couldn't keep my eyes open no matter how hard I tried, and when we got closer to hitting the ground, I just... I fell asleep. I don't know why or what happened to make me so tired all of a sudden, but... It reminded me a lot of what was happening to me back when Iago still had the curse running through my family. I felt like my energy was being drained no matter how hard I tried to fight back. I don't... I don't understand any of this..."
Luce wrapped an arm around Sylvia's shoulders carefully, allowing the smaller girl the chance to slot in against her body. "I know," she murmured. "But you weren't the only one who felt tired when we were on the way down here... I felt really weak all of a sudden too... Why could that be?"
"I don't know," Sylvia said with a shake of her head. "But... I'm worried. We don't know what's going to happen while we're here. There has to be a reason your father told us so many times that we have to stay away from the archbishop. She hasn't done anything to us yet, but... I get the feeling that won't be lasting long. Something must have happened for her to know we were going to land right here, right? How did she know we were going to crash in this exact spot?"
That was enough to send a shiver down Luce's spine. She hadn't even thought about that, so busy focusing on Leora's arrival and Alistair's injury to realize how strange the entire situation was. "You mean... You think she knew we were going to crash somehow?" Luce questioned carefully.
"I don't know for sure. I can say that we have to get out of here as soon as possible... Unless the Church of Starlight wants to fight off Fortunia for us, though I somehow doubt we're ever going to get that lucky," Sylvia muttered. Even though she was trying to make a joke, her tone did nothing to sell it, and Luce held her a bit tighter. "What are we going to do?"
Luce hesitated before she allowed her eyes to fall shut briefly. She wanted to go to sleep and wake up with all of this being revealed as just some nightmare she was having on the ship, but she knew it had to be real. There was no way it wasn't her reality no matter how much she wanted to protest the truth. Alistair was hurt, and they had been caught by the ones they had tried so desperately to escape.
Luce eventually let out a sigh before holding Sylvia even tighter to her body. "I don't know," she admitted, and she didn't think she had felt this hopeless in a long time. She wondered if she was going to ever have the chance to escape this place again. Given what her father had said about Leora, it was fully possible that they would all be spending the rest of their lives within the Church of Starlight whether they wanted to or not, and that somehow only made the situation worse. Luce hadn't thought it was possible for things to fall apart beyond what had already happened, and yet, there was Leora.
Speaking of the archbishop, she looked up to Luce a moment later, and Luce immediately felt the eyes on her. She snapped her eyes open and pulled away from Sylvia to stare at Leora. The blonde woman smiled at her gently, and Luce did her best to see every lie hidden beneath the surface. It wasn't easy to pick the pieces apart, but she knew there had to be more to this situation than met the eye. That was what Leora's entire problem was, right? She lied to people. This was just another part of her performance as far as Luce was concerned. Even if Leora turned out to be the most genuine person in the world, Luce would still be suspicious of her. Cryon must have said all those things for a reason, and Luce was going to keep them in mind no matter what.
"You must be Luce," Leora said gently, her voice so airy and gentle that Luce would have expected her to come from any environment aside from a ship's crash site. "I've heard quite a bit about you. Weren't you a hero in the Igni civil war? And the Thanatos War, if I recall correctly."
Luce shook her head. "It doesn't matter," she eventually replied. That was about as honest as she could get on the subject, not wanting to talk to Leora any longer than she had to. There was something about the way the woman's eyes followed her that made Luce feel like she was going to be sick, and for once, it had nothing to do with the blood that had come to stain the floor of the ship within the last few minutes.
"You can tell me more about yourself as we get closer to the church," Leora offered. She reached out one hand to help Luce out of the ship, but the blue-haired mercenary simply stepped out herself, keeping her hands firmly locked with Sylvia's fingers. Luce held her other hand, the one away from Sylvia, over the top of their clasped fingers. She wondered if Leora saw this act for what it was: a way to keep Leora from getting any closer than she already had.
If Leora did notice, she chose to not comment on it. Instead, she started to walk back to the church building itself, and Luce glared at her back the entire time. The soldiers that had come to close in behind her and Sylvia remained there the entire walk to the church, and Luce found herself resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder at the guards. Why would Leora bring armed guards to the site of a crash? How did Leora know they were going to crash to begin with? It seemed a bit too convenient that they touched down next to the Church of Starlight's headquarters too, but Luce doubted she would be able to say any of this without being called overly suspicious. She wanted answers, but she didn't think anyone was going to be willing to give them if they knew what was going on.
The church building came into view soon afterward, and Luce found herself staring even from afar. It was massive, easily on the same scale as the Church of Moonlight had been. Everything about it was huge and perfect, almost as if it had been carved with the intentions of being as radiant as possible. It was almost eerie how effortlessly clean the building was, and Luce once again felt a wave of nausea hit her stomach as she looked over the stained glass windows. She wasn't meant to be there. None of them were. They had been trying to avoid this place, but that hadn't turned out as well as they were hoping.
Lianna and Sophia were at the front of the group with Alistair, and Luce bit her lip at the sight of him. He had to be alright eventually, right? They were there at all because they were trying to help him, and they would do everything they had to in order to ensure he survived somehow. Sophia knew what she was doing when it came to healing people, and Lianna wasn't half bad at helping others with recovery either. Surely they would be able to combine their skills with the healers within the church to stabilize him and help him to come back from the brink... Right?
"Welcome to the Church of Starlight," Leora said, and Luce realized the archbishop was smiling as she looked over her shoulder at the spot where Luce was standing with Sylvia. "It will be our pleasure to have all of you."
She started to walk inside from there, and Luce glanced over to Sylvia. The other girl was just as uneasy as she was, but that didn't stop Sylvia from starting to approach the building. Luce could read Sylvia's thoughts easily; they were doing this for Alistair. If not for his injury, they would have never had to come here, but he had to be prioritized. As much as Luce hated to say it, the Church of Starlight was the best chance he had of surviving his wound. He was going to pull through somehow... He just had to.
Hang on for just a little bit longer... We'll do what we can. I promise.
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Welcome to the final act! What the hell
-Digital