Sophie didn't hear anyone gush over her power; she didn't hear their cowering and fear.
She was in a killing calm.
She was well aware she was the only one who could see through the inky night. And it wasn't precisely sight she had through the night.
She was there as the night unraveled across their enemies.
She was the night and storms that confused and slaughtered their enemies.
She didn't need to see it; she was it.
Sophie's night and storms rammed into the Neverseen from all sides. Their enemies didn't scream; Sophie didn't let them. Her night was like a sharp blade, a cold vacuum plunging into their hearts, heads, and guts, killing them instantly.
Sophie was an Assassin; she was a quick, efficient killer.
She was never one to savor the crying moans of her enemies, no matter who they were, she always killed them quickly and quietly.
Her night filled her enemies' lungs, her storms clapped and thundered against their chests.
Her lightning-filled clouds shrouded around the confused Mirthless, squeezing around them and her lightning searing them. Her lightning was more powerful then it was before, it pulsed and crackled with more strength than ever.
Icy storms froze them in their spots, her lightning running through their hearts.
But, gods above, this was tiring her out already.
Her hands shook in her clawed armored fingertips, and she guttered a gasp as she held her power steady.
She heard the shadows whispering to her as Neverseen soldiers dropped, and Mirthless slaughtered.
"Keep going..." night called to her. Sophie shook as the night and storms started to overtake her.
"Don't stop..." Storm cackled at her. She felt the night and storm start to go beyond her control, and Sophie guttered again.
"Lia!" She heard Lilac cry. Sophie looked up into the pyramid and saw her sister desperately holding onto the empty panes of the pyramid. She finally noticed that it was too strong.
Kynareth gave her too much.
Sophie tried to rein it back, try to call back the raging storms.
"Come back," Sophie grunted through her gritting teeth. The night and storm cave her a hissing cackle as if dealing with a petty child.
"You can barely control our brothers of shadows and lightning, what makes you think you can control us?" Storm and Night cackled at her.
"I'm your stupid heiress; you bow to me, you bow to Kynareth."
"You can't even stand our Matron, why should we-"
"If you do not stop, you will hurt my men!"
"It happens in war, you would know Mentore, about the consequences of war?"
"I refuse to kill my own men! I'm trying to stop as many casualties as possible-"
"You can't see them, can you? The dead bodies of your Assassins are scattered out here." Storm taunted.
Sophie paled. She knew there would be casualties, but...
"Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, they all died under your orders of protection of the elves. The elves, Amalia, the species that taunts and spits upon the Vatarians! And here you are, sacrificing lives to protect them."
Sophie's hands started to shake, the Night and Storm rumbling with more power.
"Think of the orphans you created today mentore, think of the weeping mothers and spouses. Isn't it a promise you made to yourself, once you were orphaned? To never have another child go through what you went through?"
"You will return to me." Sophie seethed.
"We bow to no one." Storm and Night snapped back at her. Sophie took her soul and mind, using her telepathy to throw it around Night and Storm like a net, pulling them back into her body. They screeched and clawed at the net Sophie struggled to hold.
"You will listen to me-"
"Never!"
"I SAID BOW!" Sophie screamed across her telepathic net. Storm and Night suddenly were gone, like her thundering words snapped their bonds. They flew into her body and mind; Sophie's back arched as they swarmed into her.
And then she opened her eyes. She let out a gasp, panting and falling to her knees. She looked up from her mop of hair, glancing around.
The carnage...
Sophie had wiped out almost half of the remaining Neverseen forces.
Both the Assassins and Winged Warriors gaped at the Neverseen bodies, the Mirthless corpses.
The remaining Neverseen were bewildered and panicked, and Sophie's Assassins looked to her. Doreah looked at Sophie, waiting for orders to give to her Winged Warriors.
Sophie played all of their moves. There is only one thing left to do.
"GO!" Sophie roared. The Winged Warriors took to the skies, the booming sound of their wings echoing in the now clear sky. The remaining Assassins got up and sprinted forward. The panicking Neverseen soldiers and Mirthless were slammed by a flurry of attacks from both the air and ground.
Sophie was utterly exhausted; her entire pool of power empty.
Her men and women surged forward, but she turned around, staring at her bleeding brother.
"Meirda." Sophie cursed, running over to him. She ran over to her brother and went on her knees, bundling him in her arms and observing the cut. They spoke in their natural language, Inalian.
"Gods above Alexios, how the hell-"
"What the fuck did you just do?" Alexios breathed, not minding the blood bubbling down his face.
"I'll explain it to you later," Sophie whispered, running the tip of her fingers over the wound running across his face. His shoulder-length hair was cut up along the right side of his face, the wound starting from the edge of his right eye, branching to the tip of his ear, his hair choppy and blood-soaked.
Sophie whimpered as she tried to wipe away the blood. Her mind flashed back to the blood of Inalia, the blood of her own father dribbling down his chest and mouth as the Dunmer steel ran through his heart. Not another family member, not another one of her family lost.
"You're going to be fine," Sophie whispered, her voice shaking, "You are going to be fine." Alexios's right eye was utterly shut, blood seeping in and covering his beautiful ocean blue iris, blood clotting the eyelid wholly closed. Alexios was paling, the entire right side of his face drenched in his blood.
Sophie couldn't heal him; she can't do anything.
Sophie's hands shook as she took the black fabric of her armor, holding it against the wound.
"Look at that; you can be nurturing!" Alexios chuckled, coughing slightly on his bile and blood.
"Don't, I'm in no mood," Sophie whispered, her eyes hot. Half of her brother's face was covered in his blood. He might be able to live if they can get him to care fast.
"Lilac! Get back here; your sister is going to kill me!" Keefe's voice called from within the pyramid. Sophie whipped her head around, cursing when she saw Lilac desperately sprinting towards their injured brother.
"What are you doing?!" Sophie yelled, pointing her finger at Lilac to get back inside. Lilac ignored her, sliding to her knees to beside their brother. She didn't hesitate when she threw her arms around him.
"Lilac, inside-"
"I can help him!"
Sophie blinked in confusion, their brother also looking at her with a bewildered look.
"How-"
"I saw it!" Lilac yelled over the chaos of the battlefield.
"What?!"
"I can see things, Lia! I can see visions, real-life things right before they happen! I can do other things as well, and I think it might be able to help!" Lilac yelled. Sophie's jaw dropped, and she whipped her head around, shooting off her wrist pistol as a Neverseen soldier tried to hit them.
"Hathlani, we don't have time for your games-"
Lilac's back straightened, and she looked to the sky. Her ombre eyes had a bright glint to them.
"He's here." She breathed. Sophie turned into the sky, looking through the menagerie of Winged Warriors desperately swinging and piercing through the flying typed Mirthless and making sweeping attacks to the ground before shooting back into the sky. Sophie couldn't quite see what her sister was muttering about, and she turned back to her. Alexios was worriedly clutching onto her hand, and Sophie gave him a worried look aswell.
"Lilac-"
"Get down!" She screamed.
Sophie and Lilac threw their bodies over Alexios.
Sophie heard the hissing poison attack of the Mirthless before she saw it.
A Medirasa. Snake-like Mirthless creatures with poison spit and eyes that turn you to stone. It was heading right toward them, the injured Moretti family.
Sophie held her body over Lilac and Alexios, knowing that if the Medirasa just killed her, it wouldn't know that Lilac and Alexios were under her.
It roared as it slithered closer, faster then they could ever run.
The booming of leather wings suddenly filled her head.
Sophie whipped her head up fast enough to see the Medirasa's thick green poison shooting for her and her siblings.
And then the flash of muscled leather, and the blue crackling of shields.
Sophie gasped as blue shields crackled around them, the mysterious figure in front of them groaning as he held them up. His massive leather wings leamed with the blue light reflecting off of them. Medirasa's poison slid harmlessly off the shield, and it slithered right into the protection. It let out an unholy screech as the blue power crackled and seared through its scales.
The man's wings strained as he pressed on all of his power, his teeth gritting. The Morretti siblings stared open-mouthed and in amazement. Though Alexios and Lilac were confounded to realize who it was, a smile broke onto Sophie's cheeks, a sound of relief breaking through her lips. Medirasa let out a shaking groan as its slithering scales singed and coughed out smoke.
Ruy pulled back his shields, and the Medirusa tried to lunge for his throat, but he merely sidestepped the monster with ungodly speed and flicked his hidden blade out of its gauntlet, sliding it into the soft flesh between the scales. The Medirusa didn't even get the chance t let out a shriek of pain as it thumped to the ground, dead before it even hit the floor.
A bead of sweat rolled down Ruy's forehead as he turned to the Morretti siblings. His eyes met only Sophie's, even as Alexios burst into laughter.
"Took your sweet time, huh Ignis?!" Alexios howled.
Ruy's face broke into a small smile, letting out a sigh of relief. Lilac's eyes went to the pair of leathery wings on Ruy's back, the same ones imagined on demons. Ruy followed her gaze, and flexed the wings, rolling out his back.
Sophie was the first one off the ground, and she took small steps toward him. Ruy didn't move, his eyes never moving from Sophie's. Sophie took him in, almost like he wasn't real. Ruy's wings folded behind him, and though his face was blank, Sophie felt still cooling anger and panic off him. His hair was in its natural windswept state, his body still impeccably muscled, not a single day in that castle caused him to lose any battle skill.
"I'm sorry-" Ruy was cut off as Sophie threw herself onto him, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing slightly into his shoulder. Ruy stumbled with his sudden weight, but he wrapped his arms around Sophie in return, closing his eyes.
Sophie shook with relief, not only knowing they had a one-person better chance of surviving this war, but knowing that Ruy was alive, he wasn't abandoning them.
There was a small part of Sophie that was worried he was going to leave them behind for his new royal family. But watching as he nearly broke himself holding the shields up for them, relief overwhelmed Sophie so fast she didn't know what she was doing until she was hugging him so close she was crushing his ribs.
She could practically hear Lilac's internal squeal as she watched the of them hug, and could actually hear Alexios's long saturated gag. Lilac's hands were full of a warm light not like the light Alexios and with his flasher abilities, but something familiar, almost like a rising sun in her palms as she hovered them right next to his cheek.
"Jeez, there is a literal war going on around you two, and you have to drop everything just to fucking hug," Alexios coughed up blood, groaning and thumping his head on the ground, obviously extremely tired, "I'm literally dying and you all can't-" His face dropped as he realized something. He looked between the now separated Sophie and Ruy, his face in shock as his mind ran.
"You two aren't... you know, together? Are you?" Alexios whispered, his words still heard over the chaos of the battle. Sophie and Ruy didn't even need to look at each other before they shut the idea down.
"Gods above, no! I can't even imagine-"
"Me with her?! Are you serious!"
"Right? Unthinkable!" Sophie and Ruy awkwardly laughed. Lilac focused on Alexios's open wound, obviously trying not to laugh, while Alexios narrowed his eyes at Ruy.
"Good, because obviously, it would be seriously screwed up if you were courting my sister."
"Since you are one of my best friends..." Alexios glared at Ruy with his left eye, "And you are my sister." Alexios stared at Sophie. Sophie swallowed, and she diverted her attention to Lilac's healing powers.
Future teller and healer.
An image popped into her head, thinking about the rumors about what happens to those who can see the horrors of the future. Sophie believed the future was the one thing that remained a mystery, but after her encounter with Kynareth, she didn't know what to believe. Some absorbed into their predictions, some so scared about what they saw that they broke down. What if that happened to her baby sister? Sophie could image it, her sister broken and spouting nonsense while she wasted away.
No, that won't happen. Not if Sophie had anything to do about it.
"Lilac, when did this start to happen?" Sophie asked quietly. The young girl didn't answer, focusing on her brother. Alexios smiled at their younger sister, his left eye soft.
"You can tell us; it is okay." Alexios smiled. Lilac gulped.
"The night we met Sanaa in that forest when we were looking for Ruy. She pulled me aside, told me there was something in my blood that wasn't there before. Something activated as I turned of age or something along the lines." Lilac started. Sophie remembered her abilities began to manifest when she was around Lilac's age, so maybe it was a hidden ability in the Sofiran bloodline? But if that was the case, then Sophie would have some extent of the power as well, and the only power Sophie got from her mother was her Shade powers.
"I thought that it was from Eumelia, but," Lilac finally looked at Sophie, "She says it is from my father." Lilac sighed. Everyone tensed, glancing at one another.
"A hidden Vatarian power from one fo the highest Nobility families in Inalia," Lilac muttered. Sophie knew Inalia like the back of her hand, and she knew none, absolutely none, of the noble families had these powers.
"I can't remember when I make a prediction; I go into this weird... place where I feel like I'm there, but I'm not. But then I just act on my impulse when I come back to my senses, and my impulse is always right after I make a prediction.
Sophie was about to inquire further, but Ruy moved behind her, blocking five Neverseen soldiers as they charged for the crowd.
"We are too exposed like this; you need to get inside!" Ruy yelled over the chaos. Lilac and Alexios nodded, and Alexios wobbly got up, leaning on his sword for support as Lilac clutched his hand. He stumbled, but Sophie was at his side immediately, holding him up.
"I'm okay," He looked at her, "I'm okay."
Sophie gulped as they both started towards the exit, Alexios's body pale and weak. Sophie turned to Ruy and then to the battle raging beyond them.
"How did you get here so quickly? Even with the wings, it would take a couple of days to get to Eternalia." Sophie asked. Ruy opened his mouth to answer, but the Neverseen broke through their line of defense once again, and the leaders of the Cyevan Assassin Guild immediately squared their shoulders, sliding their swords out of their sheaths. Ruy's armor was a lot like her own, almost like a second skin made of plates of black metal. On the backs of his hands and the center of his chest were three glittering blue stones, set into the armor.
Sophie didn't ask where he got it.
He didn't ask where she got hers.
"See you on the other side." Sophie breathed. He nodded, readying sword as swarms of Neverseen surged forward.
"Don't get yourself killed." He answered.
No words of wisdom, no mushy goodbyes.
Just not the type of people they were.
They were going to get out this; they were going to live.
No one was going to tell them otherwise.
Gisela groaned awake, waking up to her son sitting in a chair, his elbows on his knees as he glared at her. There was no one around them besides a large man, blood dripping from his face and a slowly moving chest. But he was alive, but his face was pointed away from Gisela, she couldn't look at who he was.
Keefe's hair gleamed with sweat, lightly whipped around his head as his icy blue pierced into her. His leg bounced as he glared at her like he wanted to jump up and move, but he was stuck in place.
"You look good," Gisela said plainly.
He looked grown-up, no longer the little boy biting at her heels.
"So, finally grew a pair and shot down your mother?" Lady Gisela chuckled. Her son had no image of his typical humor and laid back stature; he stared at her with cold eyes and a blank face. Lady Gisela leaned back in her chair, rolling around her wrists against the ropes her son tied her with.
She just needed to wait it out, to stall him, enough for the Neverseen to save her.
"They aren't coming for you, Gisela," Keefe muttered, not moving from his chair. Gisela didn't let her emotionless face falter.
"The Assassins and Dunmer soldiers are keeping the Mirthless and your Neverseen cronies at bay. Vespera has disappeared from the battlefield entirely, not a trace of her." Keefe continued. Gisela bit her cheek as she glared at her son.
Vespera kept the name of the Assassins quiet in the Neverseen and close to herself, barely anyone knew about them. They knew it had something to do with Vespera's history, but she kept it all very quiet. Every time their weapons were ransacked or one of their occupied territories was overthrown, Vespera blamed the Black Swan or the Council. But Gisela knew it wasn't their style just to destroy everything so expertly and leave silently. Sometimes they would leave certain things behind that only Vespera understood, weird objects from a culture Gisela didn't understand, but Vespera hid them away before she could get a good look at it.
And then Gisela heard Vespera talking about the Golden Cord. The ability to speak to entities beyond this world, how Vespera believed herself to be someone's heiress. Gisela didn't know what it was, but she knew that it was a game-changer. And, so, she tried to get the cord for herself.
But her son stopped her.
"Do you know what you signed up for when you joined the Neverseen?" Keefe asked, quietly, suddenly. Gisela looked at him, confusion in her eyes.
"Did you ever think that this might be more than what you think it is? What you truly involved yourself in?" Keefe asked.
"I think I know damn well what I am doing. I am one of the leaders of the Neverseen, they follow me-"
"Just answer the question." Keefe interrupted, his voice still steady. Gisela tried to say that she did, that they all followed her blindly as they reached their eventual goal of control over the Lost Cities.
But she didn't.
Fintan and Vespera would whisper to each other, away from her. Secret operations performed behind her back.
Gisela didn't want to admit it, so she opted to remain quiet.
Her son smiled. Not a cocky or knowing smile, but a smile of pity.
"I didn't know either. When I learned how much of a monster you are..." Gisela didn't allow him to see her cringe, "I swarmed myself in trying to fix your mistakes. To try to heal what you broke. But the more and more that I got involved, the more I realized how over my head this was. So I stopped, so I tried to find peace." He looked at her, his eyes so sharp, he was trying to cut her to bits with his stare.
"But it was too late. You were so involved that I was dragged in again. I was not allowed to live in peace. You take things and make stupid actions with no consideration about those who are around you. Not only does it ruin other lives, but your selfishness blinds you aswell."
Gisela remained quiet, biting back on her retorts.
"You never tried to think about why Vespera is doing this, the fact that it might not match your ideals of the future. You never questioned the mysterious group that was destroying the Neverseen slowly and quietly, because you were too blinded by your glimmering vision for your future."
"You have no idea what is truly happening, Keefe; you don't know-"
"I know more than you." Keefe shrugged.
Gisela's knuckles turned white, but she didn't let him see her rising anger.
"I realize this is much bigger than you, or me, or the elves. All of this," Keefe pointed outside the broken glass panels of Foxfire, to the battle raging outside, "Goes beyond us, mom, no matter how much you like to deny it."
"You picture me like some impulsive little girl that is way over her head. I cover my tracks; I hide my secrets, better then you could ever imagine." Gisela snapped. Keefe smiled, and his eyes drifted to something behind Gisela.
"No, you don't." A young voice answered. A young girl walked forward.
Her long blond hair was in two french braided pigtails, strands sticking out and slightly covering her young face. Her eyes were a striking blue to lilac ombre, and they shifted over Gisela. Her skin was a smooth tanned sun gleam, not a blemish on her except for soft freckles splattering her nose. She was like a moving beam of sunshine, young and cheerful.
And Gisela swore she was looking at a younger version of that Moonlark who died years ago.
But there are rumors that she didn't die at all.
"Who..." Gisela wondered, but the girl simply smiled.
"You have a small Neverseen branch that you run meant solely for tormenting the elves. You have three residences, two in the Neutral territories, one on the edge of Atlantis that no one knows about." The girl started.
"The code to your doors change every 24 hours; you have secret entrances and exits running throughout all of your estates. Once you heard the news that Vespera was captured, you saw your opportunity to take over more of the Neverseen, starting with launching the attack on Foxfire that wasn't planned for another few months."
Gisela paled as the girl rattled of secret after secret about her.
"Why you-"
"About two months ago, you were in a secret meeting in the gnome kingdom, you were staying in the room farthest from the dining room, on the western side of the third floor. You spent your third night there hunched over your desk, going over a set of Neverseen plans meant to attack Atlantis. You were stuck about how to execute them because your only psonipath, Ruy Ignis, mysteriously disappeared three years ago, and you needed a psonipath to execute your plan."
Shit... shit-
Gisela glared at the girl, who simply played with the end of one of her braids, her ombre eyes aimed innocently at Gisela.
"How the hell did you know?"
The girl smiled, swinging her arms behind her back.
"Because on that third night of your stay, my sister was waiting in the shadows, ready to kill you. You complained about a chill in your room to the innkeeper, that was no chill, that was my sister waiting to pounce." She chirped. Gisela's face paled, and she glanced at her son, who was still stone-faced.
Gisela didn't know what to say.
"But none of that matters now." She smiled. She walked over to Keefe, sitting right next to him with her legs crossed and playing with the ends of her pigtails. As she walked past her, Gisela felt the girl thrum with power, deep in her veins. It was faint, but Gisela swore she could feel her energy and strength booming through her blood.
This girl was 9, maybe 10, but she was no elf.
She was something more.
Is she one of the Vatarians Gisela heard rumors about?
"Why doesn't it matter, may I ask?" Gisela snapped. The girl innocently looked up from her pigtails, smiling.
"My family is outside, slaughtering each one of your Neverseen scum. The Neverseen will be extremely weak after this, not to mention your soldiers will not be happy from getting their butts so thoroughly kicked." She leaned back in her chair, "And it is all your fault. If you manage to get out of our grasp and return to the Neverseen, they will be mad. And that anger has to go to somebody, and who else than the Neverseen leader who abandoned one of the captured leaders and launched an attack that was nowhere near ready and was nowhere to be found on the actual physical battlefield that she led them to?" She chuckled. Gisela squared her jaw.
How was this little girl spewing this much information? How would she know about these things at her age?
"I grew up knowing to learn every single detail about my enemies, so did my brother, so did my sister. We know everything we can and hold secrets from anyone we know." The girl shrugged.
"How do you-"
"I'm not a telepath. I just know what people are most likely to think when they go through your situation." The girl snapped.
Gisela rolled her eyes, and she let out a sigh of defeat.
"What are you going to do to me, may I ask?" Gisela groaned. This question did seem to make Keefe falter, but the little girl straightened her back, leaning up to Keefe.
"Let's show her outside."
"I don't think I can go outside in all honesty, Lilac."
"Then I can show her. But trust me, she doesn't believe us, we need her to see what is truly happening."
"Okay... but only to the edge of the panes. And careful of the glass." Keefe muttered. The girl named Lilac walked over to Gisela, carefully untying the ropes. Gisela started to ram the girl to the ground and run for the exit, but the was one step ahead of her, snatching an impressive dagger out from her belt and pressing it against her chest. Keefe bit his cheek as he watched from behind.
"Don't try anything. I'm no elf, you figured that out by now, I will spill blood if I need to." Lilac seethed.
The man who was recovering on the table chuckled, still in a dumbfounded frenzy from what Gisela guessed what blood loss.
"Hell yeah, Lilac, shank the-"
"Pigaínete xaná ston ýpno tou Aléxios." The girl groaned. The man loosely chuckled, falling unconscious again. Gisela hated that she was being stuck up by a child, but she followed as the girl guided her towards the empty panes. Gisela focused on her feet, carefully stepping over the shattered glass.
Hell, a beastly monster must have done this-
"SHIELDS!" A familiar voice bellowed from outside. Gisela whipped her head up, her jaw-dropping as she stared at Sophie Foster screaming over hordes of hooded assassins, all of them obeying her command. The hooded figures all held out their hands, a flat solid silver disk in their fingers. The disks flung open into solid silver shields, holding them in an unbroken line of immovable steel as Neverseen soldiers desperately rammed into their shield. Only a few Mirthless creatures remained, and they were suddenly cut into ribbons or gutted in the blink of an eye by the Assassins.
It was a beautiful symphony of death that sung around them. The Assassins hacked down soldiers left and right, if they lost one weapon they pulled out another. They turned and flipped, jumped and sprinted, ducked and slashed their way beautifully through the ranks. It was a dance to them, while others saw a cold-blooded killer, they were truly in a killing calm that only came from years of hard work and skill.
In their wake, the Assassins left bodies or whimpering surrendering soldiers.
Gisela turned back to Sophie, trying to put things together.
Beautiful black armor adorned her, dragon-like scales tracing up the sides, steel breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces, and much more. A red cloak hung from her shoulders, loosely flapping behind her as she helped her men hold their shields. Her hair was no longer loosely fluttering at her collarbone, it hung at her waist, half of it pulled up out of her face, the rest billowing around her. Blood, grime, and sweat coated her entire body, sweat sticking her gleaming blond hair to her face.
The original plan of completely surrounding Foxfire failed, Gisela realized. The surrounding soldiers meant to help the frontal attack lay dead around them, the full force of the remaining Assassins focused on their frontal front. They hounded them all up into an easily killable mass of targets.
Gisela gulped when she truly saw the carnage. She denied that she wouldn't be able to handle murder and blood, that she was stronger than the typical soft-bellied elves. But seeing the trained killers and the fine line of control they held against her dying Neverseen soldiers... there was no place for her on those front lines. She could deny it for as long as she wanted, but she would never step onto a battlefield. She would send every single man and woman before she would ever have to.
"You had no idea what you were starting." Lilac spat.
Sophie pulled back from the Assassins, they all held the line true and strong. Sophie looked to her side, to two men and one woman who stood by her side. They all held their fists to their heart, and that is when Gisela realized it...
The Assassins were taking orders from Sophie.
Sophie was their leader.
Sophie gave the two men and woman quiet orders, and they all nodded. The woman and Sophie branched off the sides, the men going the other way, around the line of holding Assassins. In the sky, winged men and woman swooped down and plucked off the ranks of the Neverseen soldiers.
The woman that followed Sophie had smooth dark skin, her darker hair in long braids, and tipped with golden trinkets. She wore silver armor with a long black outfit underneath, a long golden sword that twisted and curled in a foreign way Gisela had never seen before. In her hands, was a bow and her full quiver. Gisela's army was stuck between two wide rows of buildings, and the only way out was escaping back out of the city or through the immovable blockage of killers. Sophie and the woman tucked themselves into the very edge of their front line, hiding in the wreckage of a building. Sophie pointed her finger to the...
"Tell them to stay away from my general." Gisela snapped at Lilac.
"We have to end your stupid battle somehow." Lilac snapped back smugly.
The woman nodded as Sophie gave her the orders, then making eye contact with two men standing across them. The two men were both black-haired, but one had an interesting design under his right eye. His armor was quiet, loose, but held an abundance of weapons.
Gisela squinted at the other man. Atop his hands and the center of his chest were glittering blue stones, set into black plated armor that he wore like a second skin. Sprouting from his back was a massive pair of leathery wings, a spear on his back, a sword at his side, daggers at his hips. Something about him seemed familiar, and it wasn't until Gisela looked at his face did she recognize him.
Ruy goddamn Ignis.
"That bastard left us... for you?" Gisela seethed.
Traitor, asshole, how dare he-
Lilac kept one hand holding the knife close to her back, the other tugging on one fo her braids as she looked at the small group gathered at the edge of the front lines.
"What are they doing?" She muttered to herself.
Lilac's question was answered.
Ruy held out his hand, and sudden blue shields flickered to life. The guards surrounding the General suddenly slammed into the sides of the building, screaming as blue shields held them against the walls.
The woman accompanying Sophie jumped up, snatching not one, but two arrows from her quiver and loading them into her bow. She pulled back the bowstring right as the soldiers noticed her.
But it was too late.
The woman released the bowstring, the arrows whizzing straight towards the General.
And both hitting the horse the General was mounted on.
The horse hit the ground with pristine accuracy, one in the neck the other in the leg, and the General was flying off, landing on the ground with a smack.
He had nothing to run away on now.
And finally, it was the last man and Sophie's turn.
They both sprinted out from their hiding spots, moving with such speed it scared Gisela just to watch. They both held their weapons in their hands. The man held a sword and a circle-shaped shield, but Sophie simply had a dagger and sword in her hand.
The General seems to fully realize who was charging him.
He pulled a spear out of one of the dead bodies of the Neverseen nearby, holding it up to throw.
But who to throw it at?
He didn't get time to decide that, so he hurled the spear at the man.
Lilac's hand clenched the end of her braid, her knuckles white as the spear spiraled for the man.
The man smirked as the spear hurled for him, and within a heartbeat, he dropped his shield and sword, and caught it.
Caught it like it was absolutely nothing.
Gisela swore she could have heard the impact of that man's hand grasping around the shaft of the spear. No fancy powers, no stupid tricks, simply a true-blooded warrior that had skills beyond them.
Sophie surged forward, faster than anyone mortal should ever be able to run. She sheathed both her dagger and sword and before Gisela could even ponder why, the man tossed the spear to her. Her hand twirled the spear as she sprinted, and with a cry, she hurled the spear. Her entire body went into the throw.
It was like all fighting on both sides stopped to watch as the spear twirled towards the General.
Gisela could practically hear the squishing and gush of blood as the spear pierced the General's throat.
Gisela made a sound of protest, at the very back of her throat. She watched as her General's fingers grasped loosely around the spear. As he fell to his knees, the spear was in clear display for both sides of the war to gawk at, the other side of the tip of the spear protruding from the back of the General's neck, blood dripping off the sharpened edge.
The Neverseen stopped the charging against the line of shields, glancing around them.
Their thousands of men now razed down to maybe two hundred remaining, if they were lucky. The Assassins barely had casualties, and the amount of those Winged Warriors dead compared to the Neverseen was minuscule.
Gisela's hands shook as the Neverseen soldiers slowly started to drop their weapons at the realization. Lilac stepped away from Gisela, sheathing her small dagger back to her waist, but she knew Gisela wasn't going to run.
She had nowhere to go.
Gisela's hands clutched the sides of her cape.
It was over.
The battle was done.
MY. HANDS. HURT. 6266 words yall, hope you enjoyed!
The Battle of Foxfire is FINALLY over thanks to the lovely general dropping dead on the battlefield! But what next? What will the Elven Council do? Will Sophie return to Inalia in time for the meeting of Vatarian leaders?!
Keep reading to find out!
Okay, I finished writing this while getting my hair cut. I have naturally curly and dummy thick hair, so it takes forever. Character and Story playlists will be out soon! Also, please remember to support original artists!
Please remember to vote, comment, share, and follow!
_Sibylline_