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A Phoenix at War

Uprising

Angels were creature of Divine Energies. Unlike humans or other mortal races, they were fundamentally made of different ‘stuff’ than the rest of the inhabitants of Tower Thirteen. Many compared it to Angels being like ‘Divine Elementals’ even though there were Deos Elementals already. Angels were comparatively more complex than Elementals. Stronger, more resilient and natural masters of Deomancy, Angels were considered the natives of Haven and the vassals of the Mother Goddess. In all her long life, Aria had found very few people who were comparable to her in strength and skill.

Edith Solholme, however, was an entire different matter.

The Phoenix was pressed down on top of her, pushing her back with one hand with her Valor, Gungnir held horizontally between them both. Aria had to use both hands to keep the spear from falling against her chest and crushing her ribs. Solholme used her other to lash out at Harm. The Chronomancer had managed to slip past her, however, and her horror at seeing Hal-Seth’s crystal shatter was the exact opening that Aria needed.

She yanked Gungnir towards her, tugging the distracted Solholme down. The Phoenix’s eyes didn’t even have enough time to switch attention to her before Aria slammed her forehead hard into Solholme’s. The impact hurt and stars flashed before her eyes from the effect but it was enough to loosen Solholme’s grip on her spear and let her kick off the Phoenix. She rolled away, leaping to her feet and immediately bringing Gungnir back to the ready. Several crystal spears and swords sprang up around her, arrayed in a deadly halo towards the Phoenix.

No sooner had those weapons manifested did an enormous, blazing white blade of fire slam right into Solholme. There was enough force to carry her to the opposite side of the chamber and slam her against the wall. Blistering white cracks appeared behind her against the steel frame, a web of alabaster fire seething with rage from the site of impact.

As the flames died, Hal-Seth’s form was revealed.

The Champion of Adramalech was far more impressive now that his figure was not distorted by the crystal. His body was immense, at least seven feet tall, and brimming with a muscular frame barely contained by his crimson armor. His rainbow feathers glistened and sparked with white fire, highlighted ever perfect plume like he was covered in a coat made entirely of gemstones.

That armor consisted of a brilliant, red chestplate with gilded edges that, naturally, had defined pectorals and abdominal muscles engraved into its surface. On the back of the armor was a blazing, white emblem of a six-winged bird. Strangely, it only had one tail as opposed to the Cult of Adramalech’s design of having six. Two pauldrons shaped like the heads of birds of prey angling downwards towards his chest left his boulder-like deltoids and immense upper arms exposed. Bracers shaped like wings that could easily cut through flesh protected his forearms. A waterfall of crimson chains hung from his waist like a tattered, serrated metal coat. His thighs were covered in ruby plates that ended just before they touched his knees. From there, there was a short bridge of exposed, feathered flesh before greaves with a wing-motif took over. Strangely, he was barefoot, revealing his clawed, scaly feet.

Hal-Seth’s handsome features were twisted into a scowl. His rainbow feathers were ruffled and the crest of feathers on his head were pulled back almost like a pair of expressive ears. His burning, crimson eyes were filled with nothing but hatred, directed at Solholme. The irises shimmered almost like they contained fire.

“Give me one reason why I should not kill you where you stand now!” Hal-Seth barked.

Solholme didn’t reply and just stared at him defiantly.

“Uhm…” Harm began timidly, striding forward. “Lord Hal-Seth? Sir? Blessed Champion of Adramalech? Can I get a moment of your time?”

Hal-Seth turned his head, fury on his features. Aria lifted Gungnir defensively, holding a hand in front of Harm. The rage immediately turned to confusion as he glanced from the Angel to the Chronomancer.

“What is this…? Your fire… it burns… strangely.” He slammed Solholme hard into the wall one more time, once again sending a lattice of white-fire into the wall. The impact knocked the breath out of the traitorous professor and sent her to her knees, coughing for breath. Hal-Seth regarded Aria curiously. “Your fire burns with the brilliant light of creation. A… A child of Athena? Yet it burns far more brightly than that. I see the light of Chrysalis in you.” His eyes went to Gungnir. “That weapon… Crafted from Chrysalis?”

A strange question. Did Valors not exist during the dark ages of the gods? The Church always taught that the Mother Goddess granted Valors to people she deemed worthy. They would become great champions for her return and, in turn, the Valors gave them incredible power.

“This is a Valor,” she explained evenly. “Granted to me by the Mother Goddess for my devotion to her Church and return.”

Confusion crossed Hal-Seth’s features. “Athena has a Church?” He gently pressed two feathered fingers against his temples. “Just how long have I been asleep?”

Aria exchanged glances with Harm who merely shrugged in equal confusion.

Seeing this, Hal-Seth’s eyes turned to the white-furred Wulfun.

“And you,” said the Phoenix, “your fire burns but stands still. It is like… like a a still image. It continues to give off heat and light but does not flicker or burn any of its fuel…”

“That’d be because I’m a Chronomancer,” Harm responded. “Being Time Locked is sort of my thing.”

“Time… Locked?”

“Basically my body is frozen in the same moment in time. I can take any damage and I’ll eventually return to the same state after some time. Want to see?” He turned to Aria with a bright grin, holding his arms out wide. “Aria, let’s demonstrate! Impale me!”

Aria pushed his arms down. “Not now, Harm.” She turned back to Hal-Seth. “Hal-Seth, you’ve been asleep for millennia. The Phoenix race has been long extinct. We woke you up because Solholme there has triggered a series of events that could be catastrophic to all of Tower Thirteen.”

“Not to mention we wanted your side of the story,” Harm said, waving past Aria’s arm. “All Solholme said was that you were crazy. You performed a ritual unwittingly that killed the Bride of Adramalech but also would have killed every Phoenix and Avios on Tower Thirteen had she not put you into stasis.”

Hal-Seth looked appalled. “What?” Then he turned back to Solholme who stared defiantly at her. “Is that why you betrayed me?”

Solholme coughed, spluttering as she spat her words. “You were so naive. Still are. You believed everything the spiteful God of Fire told you without understanding that you intended to kill his lover to end the war. Did you honestly believe anyone would just hand you the reason to kill their wife?”

Hal-Seth looked both hurt and insulted. “She was suffering, Jubifyre. When a Phoenix dies, they are blessed to have the knowledge of their death consumed. She did not have that.” He shook his head sadly at her. “And worst of all.. She saw the other side. She was in the embrace of the Mother Goddess and she was torn from paradise. How can anyone not feel hatred and wish for release when they had stepped into true happiness only to be dragged into a world torn by war?”

The Champion turned back to Aria and Harm. “I do not know what you have been told. I do not know what the history books have written about our Empire but the the Phoenixes and the Avios co-existed with one another. The War of the Wings was a matter of principle and some Phoenixes even joined the Avios.” He pressed a hand against his chest. “I was on the side of the Avios! Myself and my Custodians fought beside Aurelene to bring about the end of the Empire.”

Aria shook her head in shock. The entire history of the War of the Wings had just been turned on its head. She looked to Solholme and the look of fury the wingless Phoenix’s eyes said everything.

“It’s true…” she concluded. “Isn’t it, Solholme? You fought beside the Avios. You were actively fighting to bring down the Phoenix race. That would explain why you didn’t want Hal-Seth woken up if he was going to bring back the Phoenixes.”

“That’s because his idea of ‘working’ with the Avios is insane!” she snapped. “He was going to make everyone ‘equal’. Remove the Phoenixes’ immortality!”

“You racist bitch!” Harm exclaimed.

“It isn’t about race!” she shouted back. “It’s about choice and living with the consequences of those choices!” She gingerly got to her feet. “Avios and Phoenixes were once the same race. We were all Children of the Fire, Children of Adramalech. But those that chose to abandon the Fire became the Avios. They lost their connection to Adramalech and mastery over Pyromancy but gained the ability to expand into other disciplines. They could cast Geomancy, Hyromancy, Aeromancy and so much more. But when Hal-Seth wove the spell that gave the Phoenixes immortality, they grew jealous and wanted it back!”

Even Hal-Seth looked hurt at the accusation. “That was my mistake, Jubifyre.”

Harm waved his paw through the air. “Okay. I’m honestly starting to lose track of all the twists and turns this story is taking and it seems that every time we figure out one thing, someones come in and contradicts it. Can we please get the story straight because thirty-thousand years of history clearly didn’t get it right.”

Hal-Seth stared at him in shock. “Thirty-thousand… God of Wings…”

“We don’t have time for that!” spat Solholme. “Now that you’ve freed Hal-Seth, the Molting Disease will only get worse!”

Harm stabbed Timekeeper into the ground. Golden runes danced out of the blade in streams, curling around them into a large, shimmering dome. Those same runes combined together to form the hands of a clock, freezing at twelve and eight.

“There,” he announced. “I’ve slowed down time to one-eighth of its normal progression. Eight seconds for us is just one second out there so I’ve given us time.” He narrowed his gaze at Solholme. “Now, explain!”

Hal-Seth took a moment to gawk at the dome around him before regarding Harm. “Amazing… Such magic didn’t exist while I was awake. It was usually reserved for the God of Time, Haamiah.”

“Yeah, he sort of got off his ass and helped start the Chronomancer Collective which I subsequently destroyed when every Chronomancer decided to be an authoritarian tyrant.” He waved off the comment. “Back to the War of the Wings. Exactly what the fuck happened back then?”

Hal-Seth began with a quick history of the Phoenix race. The Phoenixes did indeed come first. They were born on Incendius under the shadow of the shard of Chrysalis. The light from Chrysalis provided them with safety and warmth. Under the guidance of Adramalech, the God of Fire, they prospered and learned how to master Pyromancy. Though they had yet to make contact with the other Stations at the time, they were aware of them.

“We lived in this land,” explained Hal-Seth. “But naturally, this land is immense and different areas required different forms to better suit their local needs. The Phoenixes of the Colmadiire Mountains needed thicker coats of feathers to endure the cold. Those living on the coasts required bigger beaks to naturally cut through the hard shells of the plants and wildlife in the seas. Cities near the center of our civilization didn’t need to use their wings as much so they naturally degraded over time. Eventually, we learned how to manipulate our Inner Fire.”

Since Phoenixes were so closely tied to Pyromancy, they learned how to use their Fire Magic to manipulate their bodies. As Hal-Seth explained it, it was like they were born from Pyromancy, pieces of the Illuminus Weizar tied to Fire Magic given physical form and individual thought. So, they began finding ways to use this power to manipulate their own bodies.

“Kind of like how we use magic and science to modify our own bodies,” Aria concluded. “Only yours was restricted to Pyromancy.”

“Indeed.”

A faction of the Phoenix race, however, wanted to try to live without Pyromancy. The discovery of other Stations and other forms of magic made the race realize that they were both restricted and vulnerable if they just stuck to Pyromancy. So some Phoenixes purposefully severed their links to the Fire. This faction actually came from the more central Phoenixes, those that lived in the capital and the cities around it. Because these same Phoenixes also had little use for their wings, they were also the ones that would eventually become the Avios.

This completely blew the idea that the Avios were slaves to the Phoenixes. The Avios were actually the upper-class of the Phoenixes, those that did not need their wings all the time. A look at Solholme and the defeated sigh from the wingless Phoenix confirmed this. Aria had to wonder if her lack of wings was more a sign of her elitism and not as a part of her disguise.

“These Phoenixes would become the Avios,” Hal-Seth confirmed. “They could suddenly access greater levels of magic. This was just the age where the Stations were contacting each other. Suddenly, our people had access to Geomancy, Aeromancy and Hydromancy!” He beamed brightly, pride shining through his eyes. “Our researchers found the dark lands far to the south and we sent expeditions there. It was a cold, barren, lifeless land. Filled with nothing but ice. It was decided to try and bring the Fire to those lands but we needed the cooperation of our entire race.”

As one, the entire species cast an immense spell that moved their entire continent across the ocean, away from Chrysalis’ light and closer to what would now be known as the Incendian mainland. They then started sending out expeditions that would start colonizing the new, much larger continent and using their magic to fertilize the land and melt the ice.

“It took many generations,” Hal-Seth explained. “In fact, I was born on the new continent which we called Naviirzalere or New Horizon in the common tongue. Naviirzalere was actually populated more by the winged Phoenixes because of our increased mobility and strength thanks to our ties with the Fire. By the time I became Champion, most of New Horizon had been colonized and our Fire had thawed a lot of land, turning it into a prosperous, rich, fertile country.”

“Before we continue,” Harm said, lifting a paw. “What happened to the Avios? Did they have the same resurrection mechanic as you Phoenixes when they severed their ties with the Adramalech?”

Hal-Seth regarded him sadly. “That spell was less something inherently born within us as it was the trigger for the War of the Wings.”

Another twist in history caused by those who won the war. A Phoenix’s immortality wasn’t something their species started out with. It was something they had cast upon themselves that started the War. Aria was growing increasingly sick and cynical at how easily history and indeed the foundations of their world could be twisted by lies.

“On the surface, there did not seem to be any resentment between the winged and the wingless,” Hal-Seth began. “When I took on the mantle of Champion of Adramalech, I presided over an era of prosperity where my people were still one people. But prosperity waxes and wanes, ebbs and flows like the tide. I wanted so much to bring something to our people. To contribute something.” He shook his head. “I take the blame for this. I used my expertise in Pyromancy to weave a spell that allowed those with close ties to Fire Magic to reincarnate by burning away the memories of pain and their death to form a new body, healthy as ever. There was a failing with the spell however…”

“It excluded the wingless,” sneered Solholme.

And thus began the War of the Wings. Feeling excluded, the wingless felt that they were part of some cosmic joke. Hal-Seth was the Champion of Adramalech and thus anything he did was a reflection of their God of Fire. That same God did nothing when they severed their ties with the Fire and now it seemed that their representative was granting those that chose to stay tied to the Fire practical immortality.

Hal-Seth tried to weave the same spell for the wingless but without immense ties to the Fire, it was impossible. Some Avios were compatible with the spell and could indeed reincarnate but they were few and far between. This only aggravated the animosity between the two subspecies.

Solholme lifted her beak into the air in disgust. “Then our God fell in love.”

Hal-Seth confirmed these events. Adramalech fell in love with a human woman by the name of Aurelene. She, being mortal, lived a long life but eventually died of old age. Accordingly, Adramalech first blamed Haamiah and beseeched him to turn back time and give her back to him. Haamiah remained unmoving so Adramalech tried to turn to the Mother Goddess. She pointed to what had happened with the Phoenixes and Avios of making exceptions to hard-defined rules. If she brought back Aurelene, others would expect the same of her and there would only be strife.

This, however, only fueled Adramalech further and he wove her into Hal-Seth’s spell, writing her very essence and existence into the magic. Humanity was never meant to have this level of immortality and because she lacked the same strong ties to the Fire as those that could be affected by the spell, Aurelene remembered every death and the pain she suffered upon dying. The life of a Phoenix tied to the Fire was instead extinguished in her place to fuel her reincarnation.

“I was horrified by this,” Hal-Seth admitted. “I was a friend to Aurelene while she was still mortal and seeing her return, broken and in pain, broke my heart.”

“You were more than friends,” sneered Solholme, her eyes cast to the ground. “But she was suffering greatly. All could see that.”

The Bride of Adramalech was in pain and it was a cardinal sin to bring her back when she clearly did not want to. Strange given how now, resurrection and necromancy was common practice for those that could afford it. There were even some in Haven who would grow to a ripe old age just to experience what it was like to wither away only to be reincarnated using Divine Magic into a new, healthy body or even a clone body. Few truly died in Haven. In other Stations, it was different.

“She came back,” mourned Solholme. “She came back again and again and again. Her room became so caked in blood that it was painted black after a time. There was just so much blood…”

“The guilt was too much,” agreed Hal-Seth, his hand shaking. “This was a woman whom I cared about deeply. I had come to terms with her dying due to my own immortality but I could not stand to see her die over and over again because of this corruption that my own God had caused to my work.” He locked gazes with Solholme. “She came to us with a strange weapon and together with my Custodians, we freed her from Adramalech’s clutches. When we hid amongst the people, she realized that this would not end until the last Phoenix was dead. She incited war, stoked its fires and became their champion. We joined her.”

Hal-Seth and his Custodians fought right beside Illuminadia knowing full well that every time she died, it could very well be one of them that was consumed instead. It was a cruel thing to sacrifice an entire species just for one woman but they all agreed that their god had to be punished and so long as they were all tied to the Fire, Adramalech could do something much worse to them all. They were all at his mercy.

But there was something… hidden in this story. Hal-Seth was a devoted Champion of Adramalech. Why would he suddenly turn on his god?

“You loved her,” Aria accused.

“Of course I did,” answered the Champion. “She was like my own sister.”

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. “It wasn’t that. You genuinely loved her.” She pointed between Hal-Seth and Solholme. “And you loved him. This became some sick love-square.”

“Diamond,” Harm supplied. “It sounds far more dramatic than ‘square’.”

Aria brushed him off. “Sure.” Her eyes went to Solholme. “You loved Hal-Seth to the point that you bore him an egg.” Then her eyes went to Hal-Seth. “You loved Aurelene who, in turn, loved-hated Adramalech and the God of Fire loved Aurelene in turn.”

“So you’re tell me,” began the Chronomancer, “this is all some enormous lover’s spat? An entire civilization died because these people couldn’t keep it in their pants?”

A heavy cloud of shame fell upon the two Phoenixes and they couldn’t lift their gaze to meet either Aria or Harm’s. If the stakes weren’t so high, Aria would have broken out laughing. Such stories were prominent amongst ancient tales from the Age of the Gods but she never knew just how ridiculous it would feel to be part of one.

Suddenly, Hal-Seth’s betrayal of his god and Adramalech’s insane retribution of killing every Phoenix and Avios made more sense. Hal-Seth stole Aurelene from Adramalech in more ways than one. Adramalech went down the route of ‘if I can’t have her, nobody can’ and decided to wipe the world clean.

Throughout the campaign, the Phoenixes began to die off. Perhaps the God of Fire finally grew tired of the fighting or perhaps he was just utterly furious at the people who had betrayed him Lashing out at the world, he tricked Hal-Seth with a compromise. A ritual that would grant Aurelene her final death.

“What exactly did Adramalech tell you?” Harm asked, his voice grave and his smile gone.

“The God of Fire offered me the chance to finally give Aurelene peace. I only wanted her to stop suffering even if it meant I could no longer be with her. I believed my God wanted the same. So he told me that we needed to perform a ritual. A ritual that would involve my unborn child, Aurelene… and my own life.”

The spell would have severe the Phoenixes’ immortality. Without that immortality, Illuminadia would have no way to power her own resurrection. The Phoenixes would be rendered mortal, the Avios would have no reason to be jealous and Aurelene - the standard bearer for the entire War - would finally be lain to rest. It would have been a compromise.

Hal-Seth and Aurelene accepted this.

“Adramalech is a capricious and careless god,” snapped Solholme. “An untamed fire that burned anything in his path.”

Hal-Seth shot her a fiery stare, one that literally manifested into a beam of fiery red light that shot from his pupils. She coolly tilted her head to the side, the beams cutting her cheek and searing two, burning holes right beside her head against the metal wall.

“I stood for what I believed in,” Hal-Seth replied. “The flames of immortality were cast by me. Not Adramalech. The God of Fire used Aurelene to reprimand me for my foolishness and the people suffered for it. That is my sin.”

Aria glanced over to Harm, fully aware that the Last Chronomancer bore a similar burden. Having created the Final Hour technique, Harm blamed himself for triggering the base instincts of the Chronomancers and thus causing the Purge of Time. It was this guilt that drove him to turn against his own people and exterminate them. The Champion of Adramalech had done something similar.

“I began the ritual,” Hal-Seth continued, “I took my fertilized egg and, in the company of my Custodians, I cast the spell.” His eyes never left Solholme’s. “Then, I was betrayed.”

“Because you didn’t see exactly what Adramalech had planned,” growled the professor. “It was a trick. The God of Fire didn’t need a willful Champion. He needed an obedient one. The spell you cast began tearing apart our people! Both the winged and wingless!” She pointed an accusing finger at him. “You were inadvertently manipulating your own true name and, in turn, doing what Adramalech did to Aurelene to you! You would have caused a scar on every Phoenix and Avios that would have eventually killed them!”

“And how do you know that!?” spat Hal-Seth.

“The Molting Disease,” Aria breathed.

At the same time, Solholme shouted, “Because he told me so!”

That caused everyone to freeze.

Breathing heavily, Solholme repeated her last sentence. “Adramalech told me his plan. Told me that he intended for me to replace you as his Champion. He just needed you out of the way and all thoughts of your research, thoughts about the immortality you granted, ripped from the world. Completely and utterly forgotten.”

Harm’s brow furrowed. “That sounds like Chronomancy…”

Solholme’s lips twisted into a cruel smirk. “It was Adramalech’s attempt at Chronomancy. He tried to encroach upon Haamiah’s domain and the God of Time was not too pleased with that. Haamiah warned me what such a spell would do.” She puffed out her chest, straightening. “Like I said, Adramalech is a careless god. He didn’t think or care about who he would hurt so long as he got his way. You would have been burned out of history but in doing so, there would be the unintended effect of everyone you touched or even the thought about the Phoenix immortality would be killed in holy fire.”

She shook her head in disgust. “But you were so blinded by your own faith that you didn’t see what you were doing." She waved her crimson-feathered hands in the direction of the large, gaping doors. “Do you want to know what happened to our four other companions? The four Custodians apart from me?” She beat a fist against her chest. “They died screaming as you cast your spell! Countless others died! The remaining Phoenixes perished completely! I was spared because of some divine joke by Adramalech! I was going to be your replacement and watching you, the winged and our child die in white fire was meant to be a warning to me never to disobey him ever again! The Avios would have been next! So long as any of them even considered the idea of Phoenixes, immortality and resurrection or some other divine combination, they would have instantly immolated in white fire! I had to step in and stop you as best I could! All I could do was put you in stasis!”

So that was the true cause of the Molting Disease and its trigger. Hal-Seth’s spell was incomplete when Solholme put an end to it. The partially completed spell managed to kill those directly linked to the Phoenix immortality - the Phoenixes themselves - but now, thousands of years later, when any Avios gave serious thought to the War of the Wings or the Phoenixes, they would start suffering from the disease.

Hal-Seth shook his head, rejecting her words. “That is a lie. The fault was our own. The spell was imperfect.” His eyes flicked downwards. “Even if that were true, the punishment fits the crime.”

“How is executing an entire race a fit punishment!?”

Aria glanced over to Harm who shrugged absently. It seemed that they were caught in an argument between a couple and it was growing increasing awkward.

“We not only stood up against our own people but willingly shepherded a god’s bride to suicide!” Hal-Seth exclaimed. “It was divine punishment!”

“You want to know what’s ‘divine punishment’?” bellowed Solholme, pointing an accusing finger at Hal-Seth. “Being warned beforehand by the God of Time of what Adramalech had planned and then given a dagger that would keep you contained and then being assigned as your warden!”

She turned around, pacing furiously until she came to the edge of the bubble of time Harm had erected. “Haamiah told me what Adramalech wanted to do. Told me how I would be spared. Told me that the longer I waited, the more it would affect the world. I was just like you. I was unwilling to believe our god was so cruel. But then I watched as our friends died, withering away in all-consuming, voracious, white flames.” She turned angrily back towards him. “So I did what I had to do. I stabbed you with Haamiah’s dagger. You were put into stasis alongside your weapon and our child.”

Solholme tugged at her lab coat. “But I was already too late. The winged had died. None of them remained. The Avios were next. In fact, the Molting Disease is a direct result of your blind loyalty to Adramalech. Your spell still gripped them and even now, it is constantly advancing at an exponentially accelerating rate.” She threw a withering stare at Harm. “You’ve doomed the Avios, Chronos. Now that Hal-Seth is free of the crystal, his spell will continue.”

Harm grimaced. “My bad…”

That was why Solholme wanted either Hal-Seth destroyed or to find the true name of the disease. Because Hal-Seth’s very essence was written into the Illuminus Weizar, his true name became the disease. If she could find the name, she could undo the damage she had done when she had stopped Hal-Seth’s ritual halfway through instead of ending it before it even began. Even if Hal-Seth were destroyed, now that his name was ingrained into the Illuminated Word, there was no guarantee the disease would be stopped.

“If you had just listened to me!” cried Solholme in despair. “You were meant to be my salvation! An end to my eternal damnation! A Chronomancer! The Last Chronomancer that stood up against his own people and helped drive his own race to extinction!”

At this Hal-Seth threw a surprised glance at Harm who waved at the Champion meekly.

“I had honestly believed you of all people could cut through Haamiah’s own creation and kill Hal-Seth once and for all!” Solholme howled, falling to her knees. “Then and only then could my torment have ended! Then the Avios would be free of the Molting Disease.”

A realization slowly dawned upon Aria. The Molting Disease. Wracked guilt over her hesitation to stop Hal-Seth before he enacted Adramalech’s plan, she dedicated her life to finding a way to either destroy the Champion without freeing him from the stasis crystal or ending the divine spell that Adramalech had the Champion enact. None of it panned out. Which was why she had hoped to use Harm… a Chronomancer.

“Is it too late?” Hal-Seth asked suddenly. “Can you still kill me?”

Solholme’s lips curled upwards in a snarl. “Even if we did, there are far worse things out there now.” She stared daggers at Harm. “Had you just killed Hal-Seth and not let any of this happen, Ulerian wouldn’t be using Crossfire right now and Valdin’s mutants would not have run amok.”

“What are you talking about?”

Aria quickly explained to Hal-Seth that two of the head scientists of the facility had now taken the two artifacts that Champion had been buried with and pursuing their own goals. Wyrmriders, bandits of the Sunless Lands, were invading Flareclaw and Ulerian wanted to use Crossfire to obliterate them and his rival, Valdin. At the same time, Valdin had used the Phoenix egg to mutate his people while also trying to default on his deal with the Wyrmriders.

“This is bad,” Hal-Seth groaned. “Crossfire was designed to constantly generate more power than was required at any given moment. If you were to use it to generate the heat of an inferno, it would do that and more and continue to generate that amount until such a time that it fell into my hands. Only I can contain its power. I was meant to absorb it as the Champion of Fire.”

That was why the weapon continued to generate near-infinite heat and energy and served as the power source of the entire facility.

“Uncontrolled, it would continue to burn until it destroyed everything around it,” Hal-Seth said, shaking his head. “We need to retrieve it. We need to get me to it.”

There was movement past Hal-Seth. Beyond Harm’s barrier, she could see several men and women in lab coats rushing towards them. Thanks to the distortion in time, however, they were moving much slower.

“There’s also no telling what Valdin’s genetic meddling will do,” Harm said. “With you out of your crystal stasis, those mutants might be start degrading thanks to Adramalech’s spell. He needs to be stopped as well.” He lifted his right paw, generating the blue orb of a Time Bomb there. “Help us bring Crossfire and Valdin’s mutants under control and I’ll kill you.”

“There must be another way,” Aria said, holding Gungnir in front of Harm. “Chronomancy stopped the advance of the spell. Could you not simply put him under stasis again?”

“And risk someone else coming along and doing the same thing sometime down the line?” Harm asked. “I hate to say it but Solholme had a point in all this. She knew someone would find Hal-Seth eventually and some idiot was bound to free him. I just proved her point. Only way to end it is to kill him and end the spell.”

“What about reaching back in time and undoing the spell?” she suggested. “You’ve done something like that before. You’ve healed people’s injuries. Couldn’t you heal the damage done to his true name?”

He gave her a sour look. “Aria, you know better than that. Time is not included in the Illuminus Weizar. That’s why a lot of people argue that it’s a mortal concept. Chronomancy can’t mess with the Weizar. Also a reason why I can’t use any standard magic. The only possible way I could think of doing that is if somehow I reached back and started hand-crafting Hal-Seth from birth so that I knew exactly what his true name was. That’d take far too much Time. It takes thirteen fully-fledged Chronomancers to Time Lock one person. What you’re asking is impossible. I don’t think even Haamiah could do it.”

Aria lowered her spear and regarded Hal-Seth apologetically. “There must be another way…”

The rainbow-feathered Phoenix gave her a sad smile. “I wish it were so, Daughter of Athena, but I am willing to make that sacrifice. Every Phoenix dies eventually and even though they come back, they are never the same. They give way to their next reincarnation. This is simply me reaching my death so that the rest of the world could live.”

“There is something I can do… Hold our your arm.” Harm said. He waved his free paw through the air. The golden rings that made the dome compressed together into five, shimmering bands that curled around Hal-Seth’s offered arm. “I’ve slowed down all magical effects emanating from you to about one-fortieth of the time it’d take. That means, for every second that Adramalech’s spell ticks away, it’ll take forty seconds in real-time to actually take effect. It’ll slow down your spells as well but I think this is a decent compromise.”

“So you’re not completely useless,” sneered Solholme, finally getting to her feet.

A shout came from behind them and the scientists stopped a short distance away. They began shouting into communicators that Hal-Seth was awake.

Solholme sighed and turned to them, holding up her hands.

“Listen to me,” she said, “we need to work together to end this madness. I’ll surrender myself and -”

“Kill them all!” cried one of the scientists.

Aria’s eyes widened. “What…?”

One of the front most scientists made intricate motions in the air with his hands, twisting his fingers in arcane motions. Flames traced the lines his fingers made through the air and with a roar, he flung a storm of bullet-like fireballs straight at the group.

Too shocked to react otherwise, Aria dove to the ground. Harm did the same and Hal-Seth dove at Solholme, pushing her to the ground as the streaks of fire launched over their heads. Solholme shoved the Champion away shouting something about not needing his help.

“You are attacking a Templar of the Church!” Aria shouted. “This is a capital offense! You could all face life in prison for this on Haven and death here on Incendius!”

Harm jumped to his feet, swinging Timekeeper through the air in his left paw and slicing through the storm of fireballs, sending embers dancing around him. “Yeah, I don’t think they care about any of that, Aria.”

“This is insane!” she shouted at the researchers. They were lining up and started hurling spells. Lightning, molten earth, sharp ice crystals and even compressed balls of water were flying at them. “You are all faithful members of the Church! You know better than this!”

“Doctor Ulerian has shown us a different path!” cried one of the traitorous researchers. “You are nothing but snakes seeking to undermine our great work! False Templars that cohort with the hated Chronomancers! False! Liar! Heretic!”

Harm grimaced. “Yeah… that’s my bad.”

Hal-Seth suddenly rose from where he was crouched. “Never apologize for being yourself.” He lifted his feathered hand in the direction of the attackers. For a moment, the scientists hesitated then one of them shouted something in the Illuminus Weizar. A strangely bubbling but also seething ball of crimson flames erupted from his fist.

“Fire cannot harm me!” Hal-Seth shouted. “I am the Chosen of the Fire! I am the Champion of Adramalech! I am! -”

WHAM!

The ball slammed right into Hal-Seth’s outstretched with enough force that his entire forearm seemed to collapse on itself while the flesh and feathers burned away. Aria grabbed his shoulder in time and pulled him back before the spell could do more damage.

Hal-Seth winced, clutching his arm which had been reduced to a stump to everything below the elbow. “What was that!?” he screamed through clenched beak.

“Plasma,” Aria replied, holding her hand over his wound. Soothing, white light danced from her fingertips, mending the wound. Harm was suddenly there beside her, golden rings of light dancing around Hal-Seth’s wound and accelerating her healing magic. Within seconds, the entire arm had been repaired.

“Plasma?” Hal-Seth croaked.

Harm patted the back of his hand once it fully repaired. “Part Pyromancy, Aeromancy, Geomancy and Hydromancy. Magic and science have come a long way since you were asleep. Hybrid spells are a thing and I’m guessing you’re not immune to anything else apart from Pyromancy.”

Solholme straightened and flicked her wrists, her whips of sapphire flames shooting from her palms. “Fool. Always so confident in your own abilities and never open to other possibilities. You’re as stubborn as ever.”

“He was literally asleep for thirty-thousand years!” Aria shouted back. “How do you expect him to change when he was unconscious?”

Ignoring the comment, Solholme began spinning her whips out in front of her, forming two propellers of blue flames. The projectiles the scientists hurled at her all burned against the flames, all of them simply fizzling away in azure sparks. As she drew closer, Ulerian’s traitors began to retreat, fear in their eyes. Solholme opened her mouth, blue flames charging on her tongue. A torrent of fire burst from between her beak, flooding towards the rebels.

Two of the scientists were instantly consumed, their screams causing the others to retreat. Curiously, the flames didn’t seem to actually burn them. Aria could still see their bodies were fully intact and yet they were clearly in pain. Within moments, one of them dropped to the ground, the flames quickly being extinguished and leaving the woman’s frame unburnt.

“What kind of flames are those…?” she asked.

“The flames of hatred,” breathed Hal-Seth, wearily getting to his feet. “She has channeled all her resentment into her Fire. It does not cause physical harm but inflicts such excruciating pain that it renders the victim unconscious.” The Champion shook his head sadly. “Oh, Jubifyre. What has become of you?”

So that was her name.

The remaining traitors suddenly stopped their retreat. One of them screamed a spell in the Illuminus Weizar. Wires and steel plates sprang up from around him, conjured by the spell and assembling themselves into a large, triple-barreled cannon that he had to crouch to hoist on his shoulders. Solholme froze as the other two scientists pressed their hands against the side of the cannon, arcane, cyan circles dancing from their palms. Before she could react, three high-pressured beams of water exploded from the barrels. It broke through the barrier of her whips and slammed right into her, sending her crashing all the way back past Aria and into the far wall where Hal-Seth’s crystal had once rested.

“Ferromancy and Hydromancy?” asked Hal-Seth.

“Technomancy,” corrected Aria. “An offshoot of combining Ferromancy and Electromancy. They channeled Hydromancy to create a high-pressured water cannon. On anyone else, it would have cleaved their torso right off their legs. Solholme is more resilient than others.”

“It must still have hurt…”

Harm stepped forward just as the beam of water came rushing towards them. Golden rings of light encased the beam, causing the torrent to stop in space just a few feet from his upraised palm.

“The bitch deserved it.”

The white Wulfun turned his upheld palm into a simple snap of his finger. The water and its connecting cannot transformed into a storm of rust-red dust, blown away in some unseen wind that danced towards his palm. He pulled his paw back and thrust it forward. The entire hallway was filled with the roar of compressed air-pressure. Entire slabs of metal were torn right off the walls and lights shattered. The remaining scientists were flung off their feet and crashed to the ground, struggling to breathe.

“So here’s the plan,” Harm declared. “We stop Ulerian, smack Valdin and kick some Wyrmrider ass. Then, when all is said and done, I’ll destroy Hal-Seth and prevent the damn Molting Disease from advancing further. Agreed?”

“There has to be another way!” pleaded Aria, using Gungnir to prop herself up. “Harm, you’re killing one man to save everyone else. This is exactly what’s been happening in this cruel cycle. Adramalech prioritized the life of his Bride over the life of everyone else and that led to a blood war. Solholme constantly led people here and ruined their lives to keep Hal-Seth from making up and damning the Avios. There must be some way we can resolve all of this without having to sacrifice anyone.”

“I’m sure there is, Aria, but we don’t have the time to find it.”

She swung Gungnir at his neck, stopping just short of piercing it. Her amethyst eyes locked with his golden eyes. “Then find the time.”

They stared at one another for a good, long minute. Then Harm chuckled and pushed the speartip of her Valor away.

“You have a funny way of motivating me, Lady Valkyrie.” He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll try to think of a way to get the super-secret-happy-ending where everyone is happy while we get the multi-stage, branching main quest out of the way. Happy?”

“It’ll do,” she responded, lowering her weapon. “What’s first?”

“Ulerian,” Hal-Seth supplied, approaching them both. “Crossfire has the potential to obliterate this place if it is not used properly. Besides, I will only be able to fight at my best once I have it.”

A short, static buzz erupted from the ground beside them. It came from the communicator that Harm had dropped while freeing Hal-Seth.

“Hey, I hate ta sound like a damsel in distress,” Kaiver said. “But cud one o’ ya super-powered soldiers o’ righteousness ‘n justice please come and rescue me and my team? I’ve gotta bunch o’ really pissed off scientists beatin’ down my door like its the fucking Sunrise Festival and we’ve gonne and run out of Firbar Skewers!”

Harm swept the communicator off the ground and answered. “Kaiver? You’re the security officer. Don’t you have guns and magic? Why do you need us?”

“Because something is seriously wrong with these people! They’re stronger than usual and whatever we throw at them just seems to make them stronger! I shot one right in the chest and she just shrugged it off like a blotched boob job!”

Fear crept through Aria’s veins like cold ice freezing her blood. Slowly, she and the others turned towards the five scientists that they had downed. Despite the injuries sustained, the men and women in labcoats slowly rose to their feet, eyes blazing with an unnatural orange glow.

“It is Crossfire,” breathed Hal-Seth. “This Ulerian of yours cannot control all of its power so he’s siphoning it into his followers to distribute the energy output.”

One of the scientists suddenly hunched over and screamed. The Bovios’ horns erupted into flames, transforming into terrifying spikes of pure fire. Two, flaming wings exploded from the base of his back, lifting him off the air while flames engulfed the extremities of his body, burning the flesh slowly and leaving it charred while his veins glowed with an unnatural crimson flame.

“That’s new…” Harm whimpered.

A soft grunt came from behind them. Solholme stepped out from the ruins of Hal-Seth’s crystal, discarding her torn labcoat and tossing it aside.

“On some level, I feel like I should be proud,” she sneered. Bright blue and white flames wrapped around her body, burning away the remnants of her clothes and replacing it with tight-fitting, leather-like armor. “If Chronos hadn’t arrived or Hal-Seth remained asleep, Ulerian’s madness would have been more than enough to level the facility. But seeing that Hal-Seth is now awake, I’m compelled to help you all stop my own plans just so that he can be killed.”

“And we’re supposed to trust you?” Aria sneered.

“No,” came the cold reply. “But you’ll find that I will be helping regardless.”

Harm shrugged and turned towards Ulerian’s disciples as they all immolated in some way and gained those fiery wings. “Hey, maybe one of the options here is to transfer the spell that cursed Hal-Seth onto you, Solholme. Maybe I’ll get to kill you instead.”

He grinned viciously as he swung Timekeeper through the air.

“I know that’ll make me happy.”

Horizon of Madness

One would think that against the might of a Angel Templar, the Champion of Adramalech, an ancient Phoenix and a Chronomancer, five Flame-charged scientists would not be match. Yet Harm found himself retreating back into Hal-Seth’s chamber as the winged abominations that Ulerian’s disciples had become flew in and began hurling spells rapidly. They weren’t particularly strong spells but it was their sheer volume that had them on the back foot.

Two of them hovered high above the rest, spewing a curtain of fire down from above without any signs of stopping. These flames severely limited movement. With the remaining three completely immune to the fire, it was very easy to be cornered. Those not in the air flooding the arena with flesh-burning fire were on the ground, zooming through the conflagration, swinging weapons made of molten earth or searing-hot-red metal. Even Hal-Seth’s mastery over Pyromancy couldn’t protect him from that barrage.

One of the scientist, a Green Draconian, rushed him. Six-inch claws made of what looked like solidified fire raked through the air. Harm danced backwards, swatting at the scratching blades at him with Timekeeper. Where the weapons clashed, sparks flew alongside small ephemeral, golden cogs. A short distance away, Aria was pressed up against a wall as a torrent of fire came cascading down upon her. She crossed her arms in time, a dome of crystal energies appearing around her and barely protecting her in time before she was consumed. Not too far away, Hal-Seth was seized the wrists of a female Avios. Despite his superior size, he was being pushed back by her lithe form as she leaped into the air and unleashed a flurry of kicks into his chest. Solholme swung her whips through the air, just barely blocking molten steel spears being hurled at her.

This is bad. If Kaiver is facing the same thing, he’ll get burnt to a crisp before long!

… I can’t believe I’m actually worried about that pervert…

“Aria!” he barked. “Dragon Storm!” As he said this, he lowered his shoulder and charged forward, moving forward in time and slamming right into the Draconian in front of him. The force of the blow should have been enough to shatter a man’s ribs and liquefy their organs but this abomination was just pushed back a few feet.

What he needed, however, was distance. He slipped backwards in time to where he had been standing just a few seconds later, ghostly images of his form appearing as he repositioned. Aria charged out of her crystal shield and jumped onto Gungnir. The spear sprouted ethereal wings just beneath his spear tip and launched into the air, taking her right above the battlefield. She plucked the spear from underneath her and spun it once through the air. Her Divine magic poured out of her in ethereal, white wisps, twisting and curling through the air to form the dazzling image of a tremendous beast with a wingspan as wide as the entire chamber.

The titanic dragon slammed into the ground with enough force to unbalance the grounded disciples. It reared its head back, blue lightning crackling between its fangs. As it did this, golden rings of Chronomancy appeared around its jaws. The disciples noticed too late that Harm was now right beneath the dragon, channeling his Chronomancy through it.

The Storm Dragon flung its head forward. Normally, a true dragon’s breath would spread out with like a fan of energy, even a Storm Dragon’s. The electrical breath of a Storm Dragon came from the saliva it generated which emitted strong electrical charges when it came in contact with air. In that sense, it was like it was spitting out electrified water.

But when controlled with Chronomancy…

The electrical breath came churning out in a single, focused beam. It cleaved through curtain of flame, washing over the two airborne disciples and sending them hurtling into the hallway. Hal-Seth saw his opportunity and mustered his strength to hurl his opponent into the tunnel of blue-white electricity. Solholme’s opponent was distracted by the display, allowing her to snap her wrists and wrap the man’s ankles with her whips. She swung her arms through the air, lifting the disciple into the air and flinging him into the path of the Storm Dragon’s breath.

That’s four down…

The lone Draconian hissed at Harm, lunging at him with claws out stretched. Harm seized the man’s wrist and slowly turned his golden gaze from Aria’s summoned beast to the disciple.

“No one escapes time. Not even you.”

Where his paw touched, the green scales of the dragon-like sentient began to lose its luster. The flames that encircled his limbs spluttered out and the burnt flesh of his wrists withered until it looked like it had been desiccated in the desert sun. Muscles shrank away, bones weakened and what hair the man had on his mane quickly lost its natural color and turned gray. The Draconian took all of ten seconds to realize what was happening and tried to break free. He lifted his free arm to swat at Harm’s grip but by then, his limb had withered to a stick and his attack seemed little more than a light breeze. The man’s flesh around his cheeks sunk, his draconic features withering away as age took its toll. The fiery wings on his back spluttered out and his own knees gave out from beneath him. Glassy eyes looked up at Harm in horror as he fell to his knees, unable to pry his arm away from Harm’s iron grip.

In the span of thirty seconds, the man had aged eighty years.

Only then did Harm release his grip.

The Draconian’s arm fell limply by his side, the man was still alive but so weak that each raspy breath was met with the dread of wondering if it would be his last.

Aria’s Storm Dragon dissolved into little, tiny crystals but not before she slid down the side of its head and gave it a gentle pat on the cheek. In the hallway, the four remaining disciples convulsed and twisted as the electrical sludge clung to their bodies and continued to electrocute them.

“You two make for a terrifying team,” Hal-Seth said with a grin as he strode over. “Reminds me of when I was Champion and I fought Adramalech’s enemies alongside my Custodians.”

Solholme audibly spat at that comment.

Hal-Seth ignored it and looked to the withered man. “Chronomancy is truly a terrifying practice. Can you return his youth to him?”

“I could,” Harm responded, striding past the withered man who didn’t even had the strength to turn to follow him. “But each passing second makes it more difficult. Time is a constantly flowing river. It’s easier to rush down its path than go against its current.”

Thwack!

Harm went rigid and spun around. The Draconian’s head was split open. There was no blood. Just the smell of seared flesh and liquefied brain matter. Solholme flicked her wrist, her whip curling back into a circle around her wrists.

“Better to let the man die quickly than to have him suffer on some distant hope that you’ll save him,” she snarled.

“Like I ever intended to restore him,” Harm answered.

Solholme strode past him, bumping his shoulder as she passed. “So which of us is crueler? The tormentor or the executioner?”

“Depends. Which one do you consider yourself after all these years of stringing people along only to sabotage them?”

She didn’t even pause as she strode down the hallway, cracking her whip and piercing the skulls of the spasming disciples and ending their misery.

Hal-Seth shook his head at her. “I don’t understand what happened to her. Jubifyre used to be so mirthful, warm and even motherly. It is what attracted me to her.”

“Thirty-thousand years of being forced to live with your guilt and failures can do that to you. Not to mention bearing the child of the man you loved only for that man to choose the bride of a fire god.” Harm let out a soft hum and turned to Aria. “Promise me if I ever become that much of a sulky bitch you’ll just put me out of my misery and kill me.”

Aria smirked at him and offered him a balled first. “Promise.”

He bumped knuckles with her and rushed after Solholme.

“We split up into two groups,” Solholme announced as they caught up. “One group will head up to the security office. The other will go straight to the Nebula cannon and stop Ulerian before he destroys the entire facility. Needless to say, one of those going to the cannon needs to be Hal-Seth.”

Harm smirked at her. “Why Professor, I didn’t think you cared about the poor security staff you deceived.”

They reached the main laboratory. Many of Ulerian’s disciples fluttered around the area, hurrying to channel their energies into the machinery around them to accelerate their research. Some were even funneling their flames into the central chamber trying to ignite the flames again. Beside them were those worshiping the pillar like it was a holy idol.

“I don’t,” Solholme answered darkly. “The security office has access to the automated defenses of the facility including the override to the the Nebula cannon’s doors. We’ll need someone to open it for us as I’m assuming Ulerian has locked it down.”

Of course it’s not about the people…

“Then I’ll go and rescue Kaiver,” Harm said, striding forward. “You’ll come with me, Solholme. Aria, take Hal-Seth and stop Ulerian.”

“Don’t trust me, Chronos?”

He shot her a piercing look. “No. If there’s anyone else’s authority that will likely be able to bypass Ulerian’s, it’s yours. Kaiver might but that’s not guaranteed.” Golden rings appeared around his wrists and he turned just as three of the disciples came flying in from above. He hurled his fist at them. The rings encased their bodies and they were suddenly pulled to the ground, screaming as an invisible force crushed them against the catwalk. “That and there’s a lot I want to ask you.”

“I’m an open book.”

He shot her a fiery look.

“Books can lie,” she clarified with a smirk. “But in return, you tell me about yourself.”

“Fine.”

The security office was on the 8th floor so, for a time, all four of them rushed upwards. Aria and Hal-Seth took the air. The Templar jumped off the railings, summoning a brilliant Storm Griffin that immediately let out a screech as it caught her and helped carry her into the air. Hal-Seth merely spread his wings and followed her, a trail of embers following his flight. Disciples immediately rushed after them, engaging them in aerial dogfights.

The catwalk creaked beneath them as the three disciples pinned to the ground were suddenly pushed so far against the steel that they were hurled right through it and crashed down four whole floors until they slammed into the ground floor.

“What kind of spell was that?” Solholme asked, leaping easily over the broken catwalk. The shards of broken steel flung back up from where they had fallen and repaired themselves at Harm’s command.

“Gravity manipulation,” answered the Chronomancer, striding over the repaired path casually. “Gravity is calculated as force is equal to the gravitational constant multiplied by the mass of objects over the distance between the centers of masses squared. The formula for force is mass of an object multiplied acceleration. Acceleration is calculated by delta of velocity over delta of time. I simply manipulated that time variable and therefore increased the pull of gravity.”

She regarded him curiously. “So you can’t traditionally use magic but instead use a pseudo-magic to simulate the same effects of magic?”

“You’ve asked your question. My turn.”

She huffed at him as a disciple came rushing up the steps. This disciple, a female Vulpunus screamed and breathed fire straight at them. Solholme kept her back turned to the attacker, the flames having no effect against her even as it bathed her. After a few moments, she grew tired of the flame and lifted her hand, making a crushing motion. The fire immediately died out and the disciple choked, clutching her throat as if something was strangling her. Solholme spun around, snapping her blue-fire whips. The Vulpunus’ head was sheared clear off her shoulders.

“Ask your question then,” she demanded. “And be quick about it. I have no patience for dawdlers.” To emphasize this, she rushed forward, bolting towards the stairs that would take them to the next floor. Just as they reached the base of the steps, several disciples were waiting for them at the top. They gripped the railings and the stairs immediately turned bright red, melting right before their eyes. Solholme had to stop as she had no defense against molten metal.

The winged disciples flung their hands forward. Their fiery wings angled towards the two and began shooting fiery feathers down. Harm stepped in front of Solholme, holding his paw in front of him. The projectiles stopped where they were. He flung his paw off to the right, immediately changing the direction of the feathers and sending them sailing away. Then he twisted his wrist and those feathers came shooting back at the disciples. They screamed as the sharpened, fiery projectiles cut their flesh and sent them scampering back.

They’re not immune to the same flames that they send out…

That makes sense. Solholme’s whips would have no effect if that were not the case.

“You toed the line between Haamiah and Adramalech,” he said, gripping the melted railings. Immediately, the metal twisted and repaired itself automatically. Solholme was rushing up the steps before they had fully finished returning to their original state. “Adramalech promised you the role of Champion and Haamiah warned you that Hal-Seth’s spell would go haywire and kill every Phoenix and Avios out there. Why did you even side with Haamiah? Why not let Hal-Seth complete his spell if he was going to die himself?”

A short, barking laugh left her lips as they reached the next floor, the sixth floor. “Don’t you ever get lonely, Chronos? You are the only living Chronomancer left. When you stood on the precipice of causing your entire species to grow extinct, why did you choose to be the last one standing knowing full well that you would not die and live forever in solitude?”

“That’s what it was?” Harm asked, just a step behind her. “Loneliness?”

Two disciples landed on the catwalk, catching them in a pincer maneuver. Both of the maddened scientists threw their hands forward. Fiery tendrils lashed forward, grazing the metal walls and leaving burning scars as they groped for the two. Harm spun, pressing his back against Solholme’s as he swung Timekeeper through the air and sliced through the fiery tentacles. Behind him, Solholme swung her own blue-fire whips and deflected the tendrils aimed at them.

“I would live an eternity without anyone by my side,” she responded. “No one would know my pain. No one would know what I had gone through. What I had sacrificed. I would be the last of my kind. Best case, I would be kept in some laboratory treated like a precious specimen that was given the delusion of freedom but constantly monitored. Worst case, I slowly go mad as a hermit.”

“I don’t know about that. I seem to have made it out okay. Might have something to do with the fact that I made great friends and I could obliterate my so called ‘handlers’ if I wanted. You’d be Adramalech’s Champion. You’d have just as much power as Hal-Seth. The Church would’ve treated you like a demigod.”

Again, Solholme laughed bitterly. Her whips suddenly split down the middle; two spear-like fingers that pierced the disciple’s eyes and brain, instantly killing him. “A demigod with no purpose. I would have gone mad long ago if I did not continue to made Hal-Seth’s destruction my purpose.”

“Then what do you plan to do after all this?”

She lifted a finger. “That’s another question. It’s my turn. Duck.”

Harm did as he was told and Solholme turned, her whips swinging around and slapping away the tendrils of the remaining disciple. The stunned scientist could do nothing to defend himself as she brutally seized him with her whips, taking the time to rip out the fiery wings that had grown out of his back before ripping off his head and sending the pieces hurtling down to the ground.

“For someone who has been around for three thousand years, you’re rather poor with your sword,” she said. “I’ve seen better swordsmanship from teenage fencers.”

Harm grinned at her. “That’s because I’m actually right-handed.” That caused her to cock an eyebrow at him. Golden fire danced between his fingertips which he showed her. “I’m the spellcaster. The mage. My focus right now is to cast big, devastating spells and provide support. Timekeeper is my melee defense if I never need it. If I were ever to use it in my right hand… well… Then you know I’m serious.”

She huffed at him and stormed towards the next flight of stairs. “Noted. Your turn.”

Harm slipped forward in time, sliding past her and beating her to the steps. He turned around, facing her as he jogged backwards up the steps. “Assuming we find a happy ending where everyone gets to live, what will you do?”

“That will never happen. I will kill Hal-Seth.”

“Just theorize with me. You like theories. You’re a scientist.”

She sighed for a moment before her eyes flashed. Harm immediately jammed Timekeeper into the underside of the catwalk above him. He pulled his entire weight upwards, pressing himself against the metal as Solholme swung her whips at the lone disciple that had appeared at the top of the steps. She tore off the man’s legs in one sweep and then bisected his torso with the second swing. Harm dropped down a second later and raced up the steps.

Seventh floor.

“If you must know,” Solholme said, “I grew rather fond of Diatollian hot springs. I used to love them even before the War. If I were to pursue some frivolous dream of peace and tranquility, I’d like to perhaps open a day spa. Somewhere quiet and secluded.”

“That’s a nice dream.”

“And you? What will you do were you ever to find some reprieve from all this?”

“Never going to happen.”

She grabbed his wrist tightly. “Theorize with me.”

Harm pulled his arm from her, giving her an enigmatic smirk. “Again. It will never happen. I don’t fight for some vendetta or cause. I fight for all of Tower Thirteen. Any threat to its survival, to the order of this world be it from my own kind or even my closest friends, I will combat with all my strength.”

That caused a glint to enter her eyes. “So if the Church were ever to do something you don’t approve of, you will turn on them?”

“That’s another question.” He turned away from her. “But I’ll give you this one for free. The answer is ‘yes’. And the Church knows that too. It’s what keeps them afraid and cooperative. If I can help facilitate the downfall of one civilization, why can’t I do it again with them?”

He bolted towards the next flight of steps. High above him, Aria and Hal-Seth had reached the tenth floor, battering and fighting through groups of disciples to get to the large doors leading to the exterior of the facility. It seemed all of Ulerian’s forces were focusing on holding those two back.

Only a few remained in front of him and they were blocking the barricaded doors to Kaiver’s security office.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Solholme warned, striding up beside him. “Thousands of years ago, I thought I could hold this solitary vigil as well. When the loneliness crushed my spirit, I sought companionship. Found colleagues. Shared with them my objectives and watched them die while I remained eternal. Eventually, bitterness took hold of me and here I am.” She eyed him with a dark smirk. “You’re progressing much farther than I am. Three thousand years old and already contemplating betrayal.”

He returned the smirk at her. “How naive of you to think I’m only three-thousand years old.”

Her eyes rolled. “What is a few hundred years to long-lived like us?”

Shaking his head, and stomped forward. “Such a child.”

Harm stepped forward in time, sliding forward as golden blurs. The disciples flung their spells at his shimmering images. Some even tried to attack where they though he was going but to him, time moved at a crawl. He saw where they were attacking and merely sidestepped each projectile. As he approached the first disciple, he swung Timekeeper at her legs, taking out everything below the kneecaps. For the second, he grabbed his head with his free paw and gave it one twist, immediately snapping it around at a 180-degree angle. The last, he grabbed the disciple’s shirt and lifted him into the air. The man’s body gave off a golden glow before shooting straight upwards as a powerful projectile, flying upwards at relativistic speeds and crashing into the upper floors.

That should hopefully give Aria and Hal-Seth a bit of an advantage.

Time resumed its normal pace. He lifted his fist at the door in front of him. Solholme’s red hand gripped his wrist.

“Last chance,” she told him. “Anything you want to ask me?”

He regarded her features for a whole minute even with the flames and explosions crashing around them.

“Nah, I’m good.”

She threw his fist down. “Seriously? After all this. You ask me two questions? You have no burning questions?”

“Oh I have plenty. I’m just enjoying the fact that you have far more pressing questions you want me to answer and I have the right to stonewall you.” He bashed the door with his fist. “Kaiver! It’s me! Open up!”

The Viperion replied from the other side. “I don’t know any ‘me’!”

Harm groaned and pinched the bridge of his muzzle right between his eyes.

I forgot how infuriating he is.

“Really?” he snarled. “You’re spewing dad jokes right now? Open up or I’m going to go back in time and make you a fucking eunuch_!_”

“Alright! Alright! Give us a minute! We barricaded th’ door ‘n it’s taking time to pull it all down. Just trying to fill the void of silence!”

“You could’ve just said that!” he barked back.

“All I’m hearing is, ‘I’m glad you’re safe, Kaiver, and the minute this door is open, Imma ravage yer sexy muzzle n’ we’re gonna befoul this office ta the point we’ll make the whole world blush.’”

Harm loudly slapped his forehead with his palm.

“For future reference,” snickered Solholme. “I hired Kaiver precisely because of his personality and not his qualifications. If there was anyone that could help stoke the fires of frustration and dissent, it would be him. Not to mention because of his incompetence, he would be easy to manipulate.”

“Hey!” shouted Kaiver from the other side of the door. “Is that bitch with you?”

“Unfortunately,” Harm responded.

The door slid open a second later. Relieved security personnel stood aside and even bowed in respect to Harm, making the sign of Incendius - dominant hand against their heart, a short bow followed by kissing three fingers and then lifting the index finger into the air beside their heads - as he passed. Their features turned to scowls the moment they saw Solholme and many of them lifted their guns at her. She didn’t give them any more than a brief glance.

Kaiver, the big, green Viperion, gave him a bright grin and spread his arms wide. “Where’s my kiss, handsome?”

“Not in this time line,” Harm answered shortly, stepping past him. With a wave of his paw, the barricade which had consisted of desks and cabinets, moved back into place, stunning the staff. “Ulerian is taking Crossfire, the Champion’s weapon, to the Nebula cannon. If he uses it, it’ll blast everything and everyone outside the main gates. That’ll include Valdin and the Wyrmriders, yes, but also any non-combatants hiding in the external facilities. He needs to be stopped.”

“What can we do from here?” Kaiver asked.

“He’s probably locked the doors to the tenth floor. See if you can get them open.”

“On it!” barked one of the security staff.

“Someone give me a status report on Ulerian’s disciples,” Solholme shouted. “Where are they? What’s their movements? How many? Where is Ulerian right now?”

No one moved.

That’s got to sting.

“We’ve got non-combatants down at the hanger,” Harm said, as if Solholme had never made her order. “What’s their status?”

“Safe, Lord Chronos,” answered another staff member. “Ulerian locked down both the external and internal facing doors when he performed the lockdown so anyone in the hanger is still stuck there. There’s a big hole in the ceiling from when Lady Valkyrie came to you but otherwise, they’re not in any danger.”

Kaiver growled and gestured that they join him at a nearby console. “Ulerian’s winged freaks are focusing their attack on Aria and the Champion. Most of ‘em ‘ave left the lower floors alone. They’ve even abandoned their research for this.” He eyed Harm, measuring his reaction. “If ya want to do something to save those civilians, now is our only chance.”

Aria has the brunt of their forces distracted.

On one of the screens, he could see the two or three dozen scared scientists trapped in the hanger. Scared, huddled together and mostly in the dark save of the red emergency lights, they were defenseless.

His golden eyes drifted to one of the other monitors.

“That’s not good…” he growled.

The feed showed the exterior of the main laboratory. The Wyrmriders in their primitive, skull-adorned armor were approaching the blast doors. They had several large siege weapons with them. The automated turrets tried to hold them back but the Wyrmriders threw compressed balls of black sand at them, shattering them moments later.

Solholme stepped up beside him, slamming her fists into the console beside him. “We can’t have those savages in the lab. If they get inside, they’ll just further complicate matters.”

“Nothing to say about the thirty-or-so civilians trapped between them and us, huh?” Harm asked bitterly.

Her eyes glinted with the fire of a predator catching her prey. “They will slow them down if anything. And that is your question.”

“Seriously?” he sighed. “I thought that game was over.”

“What game?” asked Kaiver.

“We were trading questions. I ask her something, she answers then it’s her turn to ask. I brought us to a stalemate when I had nothing else to ask.”

“Apparently not,” she smirked. “Now answer my question.” Her features darkened. “What did you mean when you called me a child?”

He turned his gaze back to the monitors. “Maturity is not a measure of age or years lived. From where I’m standing, your willingness to sacrifice people and ruin their lives because you had given up on finding other solutions is the splitting reflection of a child who ran into a problem that was too difficult and is throwing a tantrum.”

Her feathers fluffed out in agitation. “I have been looking for a solution for thirty-thousand years! You were my latest attempt! I had hoped a Chronomancer would have had the common sense to see danger and eliminate it!” Her mood returned to the cold air that she often exuded. “Besides, you were willing to kill Hal-Seth the moment you realized the truth. What’s that say about your willingness to sacrifice others?”

He began pressing buttons on the console, switching through the different feeds. The Wyrmriders were rapidly approaching but there were no traces of Valdin or any of his so-called mutants.

“It says that I’m willing to take advantage of the opportunities in front of me and am willing to listen to compromises or alternatives.” He shot her a fierce look. “I did slow down Hal-Seth’s curse and even relented to Aria on finding a solution where everyone lives. I doubt you’d be willing to do the same.”

He turned towards the screen. “Is there a way I can send broader communications throughout the facility from here?”

Kaiver typed a few commands and then pressed a button. “There. You’re live.”

Harm leaned towards the console. “Aria, Hal-Seth, the Wyrmriders are on their way to the blast doors. I’m getting the door to the Nebula cannon opened for you but it’ll take a minute. There are civilians still trapped in the hanger. I need to go down there and get them to safety. Turn one of Ulerian’s disciples into a bloody smear against the central column if you think I should do something else and two if you approve.”

Moment later, two of the winged disciples were thrown from the tenth floor and slammed against the central pillar. They weren’t dead but he got the message.

“Great.”

Another voice suddenly cut through the communications.

“Uhm… Lord Chronos? Lady Valykire?”

“Rachel?” Harm asked.

“I - I’m sorry t-t-to interrupt but I’m here in the comms tower.”

What!?

“What’s she doing there?” Kaiver barked. “I ordered a full evacuation down into the lower levels when the Wyrmriders started coming!” He wrapped a burly arm around Harm’s shoulders and leaned down to the point where their cheeks were nearly pressed against one another. “Rachel! What’re ya doin’ up there!? Ya should be bunkered in yer quarters an hour ago!”

“S - S - Sorry sir! But I thought I should keep an eye out for the sandstorms and any communications. The storm will hit us in a few minutes and we won’t be able to contact the outside world… at least, ordinarily.”

“What do you mean ‘ordinarily?’” Harm asked.

“W - W - Well, there’s this emergency protocol. It sends out a distress beacon on a powerful signal in short bursts. It’s only active when emergency power is active because it’s really intensive. But I spoke to the captain of the HHD Sophisticated Sunlight and the HHD Enduring Divinity_. They_’re both on their way here right now. ETA is about two hours. We just need to keep sending the signal so that they can spot us through the storm and not crash into the mountains.”

Harm grinned brightly. “Lumire…” He shook his head. “Alright, Rachel. Keep the signal on. We’ll come rescue you.”

“I… I can’t leave, sir. The signal needs to be manually activated. Again, it’s really power intensive and needs to be manually sent so that we preserve power. I need to send it every fifteen minutes.”

“Yer in danger, girl!” Kaiver shouted. “There’s goddamn fiery crazies out in the facility and Wyrmriders at our door!”

“I- I- I know. But I’ll stay and do my best! I can barricade the door and… and… I’ll stay!”

She’s so brave…

Suddenly, Aria’s voice exploded out of Harm’s communicator.

“We will go out there,” said the Templar with a grunt. Coinciding with the grunt, another of the disciples flew out and crashed into the central pillar. “The doors are taking too long. We can circle outside of the facility, grab Rachel and attack the Nebula cannon from outside.”

“You sure?” Harm asked, plucking the communicator from where it hung on his chest. “We can make the detour.”

“I’m sure. Go down to the hanger. Hold of the Wyrmriders. We’ll rescue her. This place is getting too cramped anyway.”

There was a sudden crash and the entire facility shook.

“That’d be her smashing through the walls,” Harm said.

“My facility…” sighed Solholme miserably. “I wanted this place destroyed but not like this.”

Ignoring her, Harm leaned towards the console again. “Listen to me, Rachel. Aria is coming to rescue you. If you can somehow package the signal into a portable device or something, do it. Otherwise, hunker down. She won’t be long.”

“O… Oh… Okay! Thank you!”

He beamed with pride. “No, thank you.” He straightened and only then was he made fully aware that Kaiver’s arm was still around his shoulder. The warmth it gave was comforting but he still shrugged it off.

“Grab your weapons,” he announced to the security staff. “Get the internal-facing blast doors open. We’re going to get those civilians out of there and keep the Wyrmriders out!”

Kaiver grunted and reached down to a large shotgun that he had set beside the desk. “Hoo aaah!”

The security staff hollered and Harm moved the barricade back out of the way. The staff charged out, rushing down the steps towards the ground floor. With the disciples distracted by Aria and Hal-Seth, the path was clear.

“Hey,” Kaiver began, clapping his shoulder. “Got a question to ask ya.”

“Make it quick,” Harm responded, storming forward with Solholme by his side.

“Can I play?”

That made him stop in his tracks and turn towards the Viperion in confusion. “Huh?”

“Your game. You know. Asking questions and shit. Can I play?” The big, scaly reptile grinned at him. “Ya can ask me questions too if ya like. Though I’m an open book.”

Harm grimaced. “There’s really nothing I want to know about you.”

Kaiver’s grin turned lewd. “Really? Not even how big my dick is?”

With an even louder groan, Harm turned around and stormed away.

“I think you should play,” Solholme responded. “In fact, let me ask the first question.” She threw Harm a mischievous grin. “So Kaiver. Just how big is your dick?”

The Viperion smirked at her. “Hold out your hands about an inch apart and start pulling them away from each other. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Harm turned to them both and stamped a foot.

“You’re both children!”

?

*******

?

The smell of a charred battlefield filled the air. Smoke and embers filled the air, nearly invisible in the darkness of the Sunless Lands. Aria looked down at the external facilities of Flareclaw below her, lamenting how decades of work were now ablaze thanks to the invasion of the Wyrmriders. As had been expected, with an opening now created on the eastern walls, the Wyrmriders had flooded in from that direction. The four Slaughterships had pierced the shattered wall and the slavers were storming the streets, setting everything ablaze. The enormous Wyrmroost ship was perched a short distance away from the wall itself but still in range of the Nebula cannon.

Sand Dragons and their handlers crawled on their flippers through the streets of the facility. The ferocious reptiles breathed highly-corrosive, bright green acid on anything that got in their way, clearing a path for the rest of the Wyrmriders to the gates of the main laboratory. Even the blast doors would not last against acid but hopefully Harm and his group could keep it sealed for a little while longer.

“We must hurry,” Hal-Seth said. The Champion was hovering right beside her, the magic in his multi-colored wings enough to suspend him in midair. “That Rachel girl will not last long against the disciples. Where is she?”

Aria turned to look at the enormous Havenese antenna and pointed at its base. “There.” She gently patted the flanks of the Storm Griffin she rode upon. “Come, Ghermine.” The beast squawked in approval and dove towards the control center.

Even before arriving, she already knew something was incredibly off.

She launched off Ghermine, landing deftly on her feet and drawing Gungnir in one, smooth movement. Ghermine vanished into a flurry of crystals. Crimson flames engulfed the interior of the control center, acrid smoke pumping out past the melted door. Aria covered her nose and lips with her forearm and stormed straight in, Hal-Seth right behind her.

At the center of the room stood Ulerian.

The Cervitian was just like his disciples. Flaming, crimson wings had erupted from the base of his back. His antlers had turned into spires of pure fire. Both his feet and hands were now charred black with seething red veins visible across them, engulfed in perpetual flames. In his hands was a crimson and silver device. They appeared like large crossbows but instead of bolts mounted across the arc, there appeared to be large, crimson chakrams.

The doctor turned to look over his shoulder at her. The sclera of his eyes had blackened, leaving his irises blazing red. Those same, crimson veins erupted from the corners of his eyes, crawling over his cervine features, only enhanced by the glasses he still somehow wore.

“You are much too late,” he said in a low, ominous voice.

Looking past him, Aria let out a soft gasp, inhaling smoke in the process. Though she had never met Rachel directly, she guessed that the penguin Avios slumped in her chair, eyes looking up at the ceiling lifelessly with most of her body burned was the communications expert.

“For future reference,” chuckled Ulerian. “If you plan to mount a rescue mission, don’t announce it over the loud speakers.”

Hal-Seth said something that Aria couldn’t understand. From the venom in his voice, it was likely a curse. The flames and smoke around them suddenly dissipated. Ulerian threw his head back and let out a laugh.

“So you are the great and powerful Champion of Adramalech! The Champion of Fire! The one whose name has be twisted into the very Molting Disease that we have committed eight years of our lives to deciphering!”

Hal-Seth sneered at him. “And you are the psychotic scientist who took my weapon and believe you could control it.” The Champion sliced his hands through the air. “You don’t understand the Fire! All you see is destruction! You just think the Fire burns! But it can do so much more than that! Fire provides heat, smoke, light!”

Ulerian rolled his eyes, spreading the fiery wings sprouting from his back. “Your archaic views are just that. Archaic. Old. Dated. I am bringing a new understanding to the Fire. You Avios and Phoenixes hogged Pyromancy to yourselves and even you, Champion, have limited your perspective to just flames. You deem fire magic to be the sole dominion of the God of Fire but all things belong to the Mother Goddess. To give credit to a traitor like Adramalech to the exclusion of the Mother Goddess is outright heretical!”

Blistering flames exploded around Ulerian, forming orbs over his shoulder. As those flames dissipated, the orbs shot forward at Aria and Hal-Seth. The Templar swung Gungnir through the air, slashing away at the orbs only to hear them shatter like… Glass.

Ulerian was using Pyromancy and Geomancy together to form glass projectiles. Hal-Seth wouldn’t be able to protect himself from those. As predicted, Hal-Seth tried to block the orbs with his forearms but grunted in pain as the smashed against his flesh and forced him back.

“I will bring Pyromnacy back to it’s true roots!” bellowed Ulerian, raising Crossfire into the air. “With all this power and my knowledge of the Illuminus Weizar, I will burn away the Molting Disease! I’ll burn away your very cursed name! But first…”

He pulled the triggers of the weapon. The two chakrams launched from the crossbow, slamming into the ceiling above him and moving of their own accord to slice and melt right through the concrete. Blistering flames just burned away the stone, leaving nothing but ash descending upon him.

“… I will burn away that jealous fucker, Valdin and his dirty Wyrmriders!”

Ulerian launched into the hole he just made, the chakrams flying after him.

“Stop!” Hal-Seth roared, gripping his forearms in pain. “Crossfire will consume you!”

“It’s too late,” Aria breathed, referring both to the escaping Ulerian and the corpse in front of her.

“No, it is not,” said the Champion storming past her. “Even when the Fire appeared to have been extinguished, there is always a faint ember, always a spark that can start a new blaze.” He knelt in front of the dead, stout Rachel and gently pressed his palm against her forehead. “Awaken, child. The Fire needs you.”

Brilliant white flames flared out from his fingers, spreading out from the point of contact and washing over Rachel’s body. The burn wounds immediately healed over. Even her charred clothing was miraculously repaired. Every singed feather, every burned muscle and ashen bone was repaired in the warm light of the alabaster flames.

Resurrection.

Few forms of magic could perform true resurrection with Divine Magic being the most dominant. She had never seen Pyromancy be used in such a way. It was both enlightening and miraculous. However, there was always a caveat to such spells. The person being resurrected had to want to come back. Without a spirit to fill the husk, it would remain little more than a -

Rachel gasped, her eyes fluttering open.

Aria breathed a sigh of relief and immediately rushed to her. “Rachel. How are you feeling?”

She blinked a few times, glancing at the two faces in front of her. “I… I… I’m alive…?” she asked softly. “I remember… I remember Doctor Ulerian bursting in here. He… He told me that I needed to stop. That I needed to tell the destroyers to turn around. He said he’ll give me wings if I followed his instructions. I told him I wouldn’t let that happen. Then… Then there was…” Her eyes filled with tears.

“Hush,” Hal-Seth soothed gently, the white flames still engulfing his hand as he gently rubbed her chubby cheeks. Her expression softened as the fire provided some sort of comfort. “It’s over now. You’re back with us.”

Rachel nodded slowly, shutting her eyes. “I… I felt warm. I felt happy… I don’t remember where I was. I just… I just remember this knight standing in front of me telling me that I had a choice. It was like… like…”

“You were standing right in the middle of where a plane of light and darkness met?” Aria asked, smiling gently. “Yes. That is the common perception of those coming back from death.”

Her eyes sprang open. “I died!?”

She offered a mild chuckle. “Yes, dear. You died. But Hal-Seth brought you back with his magic.” The Templar knelt beside Rachel and gently rested a hand on her knee. “What you experienced is what we commonly call the ‘Inbetween’. The knight you saw is the Herald of the Goddess. Usually, he guides you on your choices. On one side is the white light of the Goddess’ paradise after death. The other is the darkness of our grim reality. I’m guessing you looked into the darkness and saw… something?”

Rachel nodded. “A light. I saw a white light.”

Aria glanced over at Hal-Seth who offered a small smile.

“Yes. Usually those that choose to come back describe seeing something in the darkness that pulls them back.”

Rachel shook her head grimly. “I… I couldn’t just leave. There’s still so much to do.” She looked down and shuffled to the edge of her seat. There, she reached beneath her wheeled chair and retrieved a small, squat box. It was relatively unharmed. “I managed to create this little remote that’ll allow us to send the signal to the destroyers to help them find us in the storm.”

“You are a spectacular child,” Hal-Seth commented. “Keep it safe.” He gently scooped her up in his arms. “And come, we must go get you to safety!”

“Wait!” Rachel exclaimed suddenly, causing Hal-Seth to hesitated. “Can… Can we bring my chair?”

Aria and even the Champion stared at her and then at the charred and burn chair that she had been perched on.

“I… guess…?” answered Aria, plucking the chair easily off the ground. “We’ll bring you down to the others and then go after Ulerian.”

A loud rumbling could be heard from somewhere beneath them. Exchanging glances, the three of them rushed outside of the communications center and gazed over the railings and down to their left. They could just barely see the Nebula cannon there and Ulerian channeling the power of Crossfire into it.

“There’s no time!” Rachel cried. “Just bring me down there with you! I’ll hide! You have to stop him before he fires that cannon!”

With no time to argue, Aria - complete with the chair in her hands - leapt over the edge of the railings and scrambled down the side of the mountain towards the cannon. Halfway down, she leapt off the craggy, black rock and onto the back of Ghermine, the Storm Griffin appearing in a burst of brilliant light. She landed a short distance away from Ulerian on the Nebula cannon weapons platform. Hal-Seth and Rachel landed a short while later. The Champion set Rachel down on her chair and she wheeled herself away behind some crates while clutching the makeshift signal device.

Ulerian’s shoulders lifted dramatically and he sighed. “So stubborn! Both of you are so stubborn!” He turned to face them, ending the charging sequence of the Nebula cannon. “Can’t you see I’m trying to do what’s right? I’m trying to end all of this! I’m trying to save us!”

“You’re going to kill us!” Aria shouted back. “You can’t handle Crossfire! The moment you unleash it’s power, it is going to output even more and it’ll burn you!”

“And what makes you think I can’t handle it?” he barked back. “Just because you are an Angel and he is a Phoenix that automatically makes you superior to me? A Templar and a Champion? Why can’t I be a Champion? Why can’t I be superior due to all the hard work I’ve done!?”

Aria inclined her head slightly. “Is that why you’re doing this? No one ever acknowledged your contributions so now you’re lashing out? Solholme did nothing but praise your achievements! You’ve scanned the Illuminus Weizar for eight years and found fragments of Hal-Seth’s true name! That’s an amazing accomplishment.”

“And yet it is never enough, is it?” Ulerian demanded, eyes mad and wide. “I always have to keep searching. You said it yourself, Lady Valkyrie. I am one who needs a purpose. What better purpose is there than to constantly contain a weapon that will always keep fighting me for control?” He lifted his head, gazing up into the darkness of the black sky. “I see it so clearly now! This is my destiny! This is my calling! I shall be the keeper of this divine weapon and bring holy justice down upon all of the Mother Goddess’ enemies!”

“Starting with that bastard Valdin!” He turned, pointing one of Crossfire’s crossbows off into the distance. “Well what do you think of this, you squawking parrot!?”

Hal-Seth’s cry for him to stop fell on deaf ears and the Cervitian pulled the trigger. The chakram shot forward about a foot away from the crossbow itself before propping itself in the air vertically almost like a targeting reticle. Then, a bolt of searing red energy exploded from the crossbow, arcing through the air and disappearing into the distance. There was a moment of silence before -

BOOM!

An explosion erupted from one of the buildings, sending it into the sky as shards of concrete and wood that were afire.

That was a lot of power for a single shot.

Ulerian turned to the two divine warriors, a mad grin on his face. “You doubt I can do this. You doubt I can save us all. What? I’m not quick enough? I’m not strong enough?” Again, he spread his wings, the power of the magic stored in those appendages lifting him up into the air. “Then how about this? How about I kill you both to prove that I am worthy! Right here before the eyes of the gods! The Champion of Adramalech and a child of the Mother Goddess! My triumph over you both will prove to the world that I should be the chosen one!”

Aria had to question exactly what that would prove but she had encountered enough megalomaniacs to accept that sometimes, they just wanted to flex. The Chronomancers were proof of that and sometimes, even Harm could become a little overly competitive. Though she had to admit, everything he did rarely was just a what it seemed on the surface. He always had an ulterior motive. She was reminded of the encounter on the Slaughtership. He had allowed them to get captured so he could free the slaves inside knowing full well that the captain and likely Aria would protest.

It brought to question if anything else he had done so far had been with an ulterior motive.

“He’s coming, Child of Athena!” shouted Hal-Seth.

Ulerian slammed both halves of Crossfire above his head, fiery balls appearing against the arc of the crossbows. He spread them out in a wide arc, leaving flaming balls hovering over his head. Hal-Seth gathered searing balls of white fire in his palms and took to the air, flinging them at the Cervitian. The winged stag strafed through the air, the ominous balls of fire following him as he easily glided away from Hal-Seth’s projectiles. Those same spheres slowly lurched forward, splitting into two groups and seeking out Hal-Seth or Aria.

Aria easily batted the balls away, striding forward closer to Ulerian. Despite all his posturing, Ulerian was still getting used to the power of Crossfire… or he was testing their defenses. Many times, she had fought such battles where the overconfident tyrant toyed with them.

She was not going to play that game.

Aria leapt into the air as a wisps of light gathered beneath her. A brilliant, white stallion sprang up from the ground beneath her. She easily sat upon its armored saddle and spurred the steed forward. Crystal arrows sprang up behind her shoulders and immediately shot towards Ulerian in rapid, endless succession. A look of irritation crossed the stag’s features as he quickened his strafing, sliding left and right to dodge the barrage from both Aria and Hal-Seth. When Aria drew close enough, she swiped at him with her spear but he merely increased his altitude and lifted higher out of reach.

Hal-Seth pounced at the opportunity, lunging at him and trying to make a grab for Crossfire. The Champion managed to grab Ulerian’s right wrist but, a panicked doctor spun and slammed the other half of Crossfire against Hal-Seth’s face, sending the Champion crashing to the ground.

That was an act of desperation. There was no flair or style in the attack. He was not a fighter.

Aria could use that to her advantage.

She swung her spear through the air. Stylized and well-built pillars sprang up from the ground forming a makeshift staircase that her steed easily trotted upwards towards Ulerian. The maddened doctor turned and scowled. He fired Crossfire at the pillars. The chakrams launched from the weapons, slicing through the marble pillars with ease.

Exactly as Aria had expected.

As one of the pillars gave way beneath her, she reached down with Gungnir and swiped it at the slabs of pillars that were falling around her. The crumbling marble launched at the winged stag who quickly dodged to the right. He could not dodge the next slab, however. It crashed into his chest, sending him back several feet and down about half of that. Dazed, he shook his head only to be slammed with another shard and another and another after that. He dropped to the ground, his fiery wings wrapping around his body defensively.

Perfect.

More pillars easily led her horse back to the ground where she put some distance between herself and the recoiling Ulerian. She parked herself beside a recovering Hal-Seth, offering her hand as she dismounted. Her horse vanished in a swirl of light.

“Stay back,” she advised.

“Why?” Hal-Seth responded, two fiery swords made completely out of white fire appearing in his hands. “He is downed. We should press our advantage.”

“No. As Harm would say, we’re entering phase two.”

“Phase…?”

Before Hal-Seth could finish, Ulerian let out a loud roar and flung his wings back. A searing heat exploded from his body as he lifted off the ground again. The fiery antlers on his head grew even bigger and his eyes were seething with crimson fire to the point where it was visibly burning out of his eye sockets.

“Father Fire…” whispered Hal-Seth. “He’s pushing for more of Crossfire’s power! He will overload!”

“Like I said,” she said, flicking her free hand. A crystal mimicry of Gungnir appeared in her free hand. “Phase two. He’ll be faster and stronger. Be careful.”

“We need to get the weapon away from him!”

She charged forward, a path of crystal appearing in front of her. Her boots glided easily along the surface, propelling her forward. “Way ahead of you!”

Ulerian screeched at her, no longer one for words. He aimed Crossfire at her and pulled the triggers. The chakrams returned to hover vertically in front of each crossbow. Twin beams of angry, red flames burst from the weapon, following closely behind her as he tried to pivot in place and keep her back. Aria skated easily around the madman. She did one full revolution before pulling her arm back and flinging the crystal version of Gungnir at him. Ulerian had to stop firing his beams just to deflect the attack. He swung Crossfire at the crystal spear, shattering it into pieces.

A bad move.

Those pieces, still under Aria’s control, suddenly jerked in the air and stabbed his face. Ulerian screamed, clawing at his eyes. Hal-Seth pounced. He swung his blades of white fire at the Cervitian, the blades biting into Ulerian’s wrists but not quite with enough force to cut through them cleanly. Again, Ulerian screeched and flew higher into the air.

“I will show you how hot my fire can be!”

The doctor lifted his hands into the air, burning flames gathering above his head in a massive sphere. Aria summoned another crystal spear and pulled her hand back.

WHACK!

Only for Ulerian to suddenly freeze as a… half-burned wheeled chair slammed into his flanks. Stunned and surprised, he lowered his hands, staring at the little, black piece of furniture that crashed to the ground beneath him and idly began rolling away.

“What…?”

Blades of crescent-shaped, compressed wind suddenly slammed into Ulerian’s flanks, causing him to stumble and cutting into his fiery wings, enough that he was actually forced to drop a few feet.

“That’s for my chair you bastard!” Rachel screamed, her hands in front of her. “Crescens venuts ferrum!

Bright, green, arcane runes sprung up around her palms. Those same blades of wind exploded from her hands and slammed into Ulerian. They weren’t particularly strong but they were powerful enough to knock the confused doctor down a few more feet.

Better… they provided ample distraction.

Hal-Seth lunged again, this time, he swung his fiery blades right at Ulerian’s wings. The Cervitian let out an unnatural squawk as one of his wings was severed at the joint. As he passed behind the doctor, the Champion swung his swords at the doctor’s spine, causing a howl of pain to erupt from the stag.

Again, Ulerian crashed to the ground. His one, remaining good wing wrapped around him defensively.

Hal-Seth retreated to stand beside Aria. “Phase three?” he asked.

“You’re learning.”

Harm’s voice suddenly erupted from the communicator Aria had pilfered from one of Ulerian’s disciples earlier.

“Uhm… Hey Aria? You mind picking up the pace in defeating the crazy fire-totting scientist up there? We’ve got a bit of a situation.”

Aria plucked the device from her hip, lifting it to her lips. “Something you can’t handle, Harm?”

“Oh, I’m sure I’d survive this pincer maneuverer between the horde of scorned Wyrmriders and Ulerian’s fire-infused, fanatical scientists but I’m not sure if the three dozen non-combatants would too. I mean, Solholme might and Kaiver but everyone else…?”

Hal-Seth grabbed the device from her wrist, pulling the communicator to his beak. “Worry not, Hound of Haamiah. We shall defeat the usurper and be there to provide aid. We have already reached his phase three.”

“Hound of Haamiah…? Is that a thing? Also, how many phases does he have!?”

Aria lifted her gaze past the currently hibernating Ulerian. “You’re asking the wrong question,” she responded, once again summoning a silvery, crystal spear in her free hand. “It isn’t about how many phases he has. It’s about how we can win.” She nodded at Hal-Seth. “Cover me!”

Hal-Seth nodded, white flames engulfing his arms. “Come to me, young one!” he shouted towards Rachel. “I need your assistance!”

A flustered Avios stumbled forward and just as Hal-Seth wove his arms through the air and sent out a stream of white flames towards Ulerian, Aria shot forward, rushing past the slumbering Cervatian on a surface of crystal. Hal-Seth’s flames slid across the ground like twin, white, fiery snakes, curling around Ulerian and encircling him.

“What do I do?” Rachel stammered.

“Weave your wind! Encircle him!”

Rachel nodded, taking a moment to search her knowledge of the Illuminus Weizar before throwing her hands forward. “Coniunge cum igne et telas in turbinem!”

The lengthy spell and one that required clear directions spoke of her inexperience with magic but casting verbal spells was just as much about intention as the exact words used. Wailing winds swooped out of her fingertips, catching Hal-Seth’s ivory flames and spinning them into a howling whirlwind around Ulerian. Aria sped past the Cervitian just as the firestorm reached about eight feet tall.

“Your tricks will do nothing to stop me!”

She had just passed him when Ulerian erupted from the firestorm, spreading his much bigger wings and banishing Hal-Seth’s fire in all directions. Now, his horns had grown even longer, nearly becoming half his size. The flames had consumed all of his arms from fingertip to shoulder, leaving the rest charred and blackened. His legs had been scorched up to his knees. Even parts of his face had been burned away around his eyes, leaving only blackened bone exposed even though his eyes continued to burn.

“Burn in my Fire!”

Ulerian swung Crossfire at the two. Flames encircled both of them. Hal-Seth flung himself over Rachel, covering her with his body as the flames erupted towards the sky, bursting forth in a raging, red, flaming pillar. Aria prayed the young penguin Avios was alright as she reached her goal.

She didn’t bother to call out to her opponent. If she had learned anything from Harm it was to avoid the common tropes. Pulling her hands back, ghostly spears ten times the size of Gungnir and her crystal spear appeared over her shoulders. Holding back her the instinctive cry that would have come with such a powerful blow, she thrust her spears forward, the ethereal spears following suit.

The Nebula cannon_’s_ metal frame screamed in protest as all four speartips bit into its delicate circuitry and pulled it right off its platform.

Ulerian finally noticed her.

“What? What have you done!?”

Aria swung her spears out wide in opposite directions. Impaled as they were in the metal of the frame of the cannon, the moment she pulled the spears out, huge chunks of the artillery device were ripped right out. Wires and delicate machinery flew to her left and right. The long nozzle of the cannon creaked and toppled to the ground, rolling off the platform and falling down to the ground where the Wyrmriders were assaulting the front blast doors.

“No!”

On instinct, Aria spun, lifting her spears across her body to block the oncoming attack. Ulerian charged at her, body consumed by flames save for his head which had his fur and flesh slowly burning away to reveal more bone. Hal-Seth’s vibrant form appeared in front of her -

Fwoosh!

The flames around Ulerian dissipated as Hal-Seth clung onto the Cervitian’s wrist, white flames engulfing his own wrists.

“My flames are the flames of purity!” shouted Hal-Seth. “I will purify anything from the most twisted corrupted demon to even a maddened power-hungry fool like yourself! I will even purify you from death if need be!”

With these words, Aria looked past the winged Cervitian to where Rachel sat, stunned but otherwise unharmed. Were his words true? Did his white flames actually purify someone of the inevitable condition of death?

“My Fire will burn away yours!” Ulerian screamed. He threw his head back, letting out an ear-splitting, unholy scream. Another pair of wings exploded from his back just between his shoulder blades. Those wings flapped, sending a gust of wind that caused Hal-Seth to stumble.

It was time to end this.

“Enough!” Aria shouted. On her command, the two ghostly spears over her shoulders shot forward. They speared the fiery wings, causing Ulerian visible pain. Just as she did with the Nebula cannon_,_ she swung her arms wide and the spears shot off to opposite sides. There was some resistance but they still ripped through Ulerian’s wings, tearing through fiery flesh and rendering them useless. Liquid fire that must have been whatever replaced Ulerian’s blood dripped to the ground.

Aria then flung her crystal spear at the doctor. The pain was not enough to fully distract Ulerian and he was forced to lift Crossfire to block the incoming projectile. This, however, freed Hal-Seth from where he was gripping the winged demon’s wrists. As the spear was deflected and spun off to the right, the Champion seized it from midair, spun it once for momentum and then brought it crashing down on Ulerian’s right wrist. Already damaged from his earlier swipe, the spear now cut right through charred flesh and burnt bone.

One half of Crossfire dropped from Ulerian’s grip.

Hal-Seth saw the Cervitian lunge for it and immediately jabbed the borrowed crystal spear into Ulerian’s chest, impaling him and stopping the doctor from catching the weapon. The Phoenix claimed his rightful weapon and immediately turned it to Ulerian’s other wrist.

“Return what was stolen.”

He pulled the trigger and one, highly compressed beam of fire shot forward, piercing Ulerian’s shoulder and severing it from the rest of his body. Ulerian screamed, falling back as he was disarmed, literally.

Aria was not going to let the stag escape. With a cry, she flung her arms back. Six, individual, arms just about as big as she was tall and twice as thick sprung up from the air around her, holding a tight formation over her shoulders. Each arm was black in color with fiery red veins coursing through them. Golden manacles hung on their wrists.

“Fire Giants…” whispered Hal-Seth in awe.

Aria lunged forward, the arms following her as she collided with Ulerian. She swung Gungnir upwards, catching the stag’s flanks and sending him sailing twenty-feet into the air. The lower pair of arms slammed themselves into the ground and threw her into the air, following close to her prey. Ulerian’s eyes were unreadable as they were still consumed with tongues of flame. She pulled her arm back and the middle pair of arms mirrored her movement.

She had to take a second to think of a particularly witty line to say at this moment. Harm would never let it down if she didn’t say anything.

“You’ve burned out!” she screamed and brought her fist forward. The two arms flung forward one after the other in quick succession.

BAM! BAM!

Then she thrust Gungnir forward, impaling Ulerian. As she did so, the upper pair of arms came thrusting forward.

BOOM! BOOM!

She pulled Gungnir back, pulling the stag to her and seized the crystal spear already impaled into him. The lower pair of arms grabbed the stag. She yanked the two spears out of him just as the arms flung Ulerian to the ground.

CRASH!

The fiery stag, broken and beaten, made a sizable crater in the rooftop platform.

But she wasn’t done.

Aria shot downwards, crashing into Ulerian as her disembodied arms pulled back.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Blow after blow descended, smashing into Ulerian’s body with enough force that the crater around them grew deeper and deeper.

BOOM! BOOM! CRASH!

The roof collapsed and they came crashing down onto the ninth floor. Ulerian raised the stump of his arm towards her, flames spurting from the charred edge.

BAM! BAM CRRRRUNCH!

The flames were immediately died as the force of each blow pressed him against the floor until -

CRASH!

They fell down another floor onto the eighth floor. Aria’s blows only grew more and more powerful with each blow.

CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!

Seventh floor. Sixth. Fifth.

The fiery glow from Ulerian’s wings died and what sounds he could make were akin to a spluttering fire.

CRASH!

Fourth.

BOOM!

Third floor.

BAM!

Second.

Finally, Aria pulled back all six of her her summoned arms and lifted them above her head.

BOOM!

In one, final blow, she sent Ulerian crashing through the second floor and right into the first, right into the midst of the firefight between Harm’s group, the Wyrmriders and the remaining disciples. There was a second of silence as everyone stared at the angelic Templar that had just send a beaten and bloodied corpse through all floors of the facility into the battle.

Aria glared at the disciples, swinging her two spears on either side of her, the six summoned arms cracking their knuckles ominously.

“What line did you use!?” Harm shouted out from somewhere behind her.

She smiled absently and shouted over her shoulder. “I told him he had burned out!”

“Nice!”

Despite Ulerian being dead and Hal-Seth regaining Crossfire, the disciples were still imbued with the power of the weapon. They regarded Aria with fury, red flames surging from their hands.

“Worry not, Angel of Athena and Hound of Haamiah. The Flames of Purity are here to save you. Be not afraid.”

Without warning, alabaster flames came pouring down from the hole Aria had just made like it was water. The fire blasted into the hanger, washing over the entire area within seconds. Wyrmriders and disciples all screamed from intense heat while Aria felt nothing save for the need to shield her eyes from the bright flames. The non-combatants and Kaiver’s team all stood in awe as the flames passed over them and surged into the attackers.

Wyrmriders screamed, their flesh burned from their bones and those bones turned to ash within moments. The hole they had made in the blast gates served to only funnel the flame over their siege troops. The fire almost acted like a living thing as it curled and swooped over Sand Dragons and coursed over Ulerian’s disciples. Those screams were replaced with shouts for retreat but there was no escape from the flames. Hal-Seth hunted them down and by the time the fire eased away from the hanger, there was nothing left of the Wyrmriders save for those too far from the gates and were now retreating back to their ships. The disciples remained, however. They were on the ground, unconscious, smoldering and mostly naked.

Aria glanced towards the hole in the ceiling. Hal-Seth descended like an angel, fiery wings spread and with Crossfire clutched in his feathered hands. His descent was slow on the account that Rachel was clinging to his back for dear life. The moment he touched down, she stumbled off, seemingly having an asthma attack. Beyond the Avios, Aria noticed that the other non-combatants no longer had a scratch on them. Aria hadn’t noticed that her own injuries had been healed in the process.

“You left them alive?” she asked, nodding towards the disciples.

“They were misled by a deceiver.” Hal-Seth turned towards the retreating Wyrmriders. “I merely took away their Fire. Burned it away and cauterized the wound so they may never use Pyromancy again. But those slavers…” He shook his head in disgust. “Regardless of the era, I cannot condone such activities. They deserved to burn. The world is purer for it.”

Solholme, Harm and Kaiver approached. Though without injury, all three of them looked mentally tired. Harm, more than any of them. She could tell that whatever Hal-Seth had done did not affect him. It was in his eyes. The less Time he had, the more his golden eyes faded to their natural green color. At the moment, his eyes looked a bit more hazel than true green or pure gold. He was recovering, however.

“So you retrieved Crossfire,” huffed Solholme. “If you had any decency, you’ll use them to kill yourself.”

Kaiver nudged her. “Apollia’s fiery tits, Professor. Ease up! He saved us!”

“We would have been fine.”

“I know I would have,” Harm commented. “The rest of you though? Not sure.” He smiled at Hal-Seth. “Thanks for the save, Hal.” He hiked his thumb over his shoulder. “Now we’ve just got one more loose end to take care of before we go to your problem.”

The Champion nodded.

“Yes, this Valdin of yours. Then we can get to the matter of the Molting Disease.”

Crossfire

The Wyrmriders were in full retreat. Hal-Seth’s display had been more than enough to scare them off. Severe losses and the unknown ‘purifying flames’ would scare anyone away. None of their ships were destroyed so they had plenty of opportunity to pack up and leave. Hal-Seth was itching to chase them down but Solholme argued against it. Antagonizing them further especially with his powers would paint him as a superweapon and this could cause all the Wyrmriders clans to start considering an all out war - an Ahl’Zhamiids. Loss of four Slaughterships and a Wyrmroost would not go unnoticed. Considering how Hal-Seth intended to sacrifice himself to prevent the Molting Disease from claiming the Avios, the Champion relented and decided not to give chase.

Aria turned her attention to arresting and restraining the disciples alongside Kaiver. Harm had to take a few minutes to rest to allow his Time to recover. He sat perched on a stack of crates, watching as the non-combatants started packing their belongings. Evacuation was the only option left. Rachel reported the two destroyers would be with them soon. A sandstorm had blown in, obscuring vision from anything beyond the lights of the front gates. Stacks of crates had to be moved in front of devastated blast doors to prevent any of the sand from coming in. They couldn’t be stacked all the way up so a constant howling could be heard as the storm seemed through a small opening near the top of the doors.

Harm’s keen ears picked up movement near him and he glanced over to find Solholme approaching. Her eyes were stern but her posture was far more relaxed as she leaned against the crate he sat upon, her arms folded.

“Valdin is unlikely to just wait until the destroyers come to evacuate us,” she said. “If I were to guess, he will use the cover of the sandstorm to make a retreat into the sands. Once out there, he will be impossible to track. Him and whatever he is doing.”

“You mean he’ll run away with the Phoenix egg that you gave him and the genetic experiments he’s conducted.” He glanced over to her briefly. “We should head out to his position the moment everyone is ready.”

“I am ready.” Solholme threw her chin over her shoulder to indicate the packing civilians. “Lady Valkyrie is just preparing everyone for evacuation. Rachel found a brief opening in the storm to arrange with the ships on how and when they will pick us up. Kaiver has seen to the arrest of Ulerian’s followers and Hal-Seth is currently being worshiped by anyone that’s too scared or already half-brain dead. We’re just waiting on you.”

Harm lifted a paw to eye level and slowly closed his fingers into a fist. “Give me a few more minutes then I’ll be ready.”

A soft chuckle left her beak. “Are you sure you’ll be ready? After we defeat Valdin, you will have to make the choice of whether or not to kill Hal-Seth or come up with some miraculous solution to end the Molting Disease and somehow keep everyone happy.”

He glanced at her. “Still doubting my ability to find a compromise?”

“More curious as to whether or not you found a solution.”

“I might have but I do wonder if you have any suggestions.”

She huffed and turned her gaze away. “You know my stance. Kill Hal-Seth. His naiveté is far too dangerous to be left unchecked especially with his power. His spell to grant the Phoenixes immortality was ultimately the catalyst that stirred the misgivings that led to the War of the Wings even if it was Aurelene’s fury that was the spark that finally ignited it. His trust in Adramalech and compassion of Aurelene’s fate ultimately led to the Molting Disease and the death of every remaining Phoenix. If you let that sort of power run unchecked, you will only have disaster after disaster on your hands.”

Her eyes finally turned to him, locking gazes. “You have lived for thousands of years. I have lived for tens of thousands of years. I can tell you now, the world is not ready for someone like Hal-Seth to just be wandering around free. Even if the Church were to collar him like they shackled you, his very presence would be controversial.”

“People will eventually put two and two together and realize who and what he is,” Harm conceded. “If its not the fact that he’s a Phoenix then it’s his role as Champion of Adramalech. That alone will throw the Church and its devotees into a frenzy. The Cult of Adramalech alone will seek him out and we could have a war of theology on our hands as the Cult tries to liberate him. Not to mention what the general population will think when it’s confirmed that there are other ‘gods’ apart from the Mother Goddess.”

“The general population still tries to explain away Haamiah’s existence,” she chuckled. “Despite facts to the contrary that he exists and not some subservient demigod to the Athena. Many still blame him for the Purge of Time and no one is willing to forget that.”

Kaiver suddenly leapt down from one of the crates above Harm and parked himself beside the Chronomancer. “Ya dun give people enough credit!” the burly Viperion explained. “Most will either not give a fuck or brush it off as fake news. I mean, who even has heard of a ‘Champion’ these days?”

Harm inclined his head in agreement with the security officer. “He has a point.”

Annoyance flashing in her eyes, Solholme said, “That doesn’t resolve the fact that Hal-Seth’s continued existence means that the Molting Disease will only accelerate.”

If only I could accelerate Ulerian’s research… but with the lead of that project dead and most of his colleagues currently under arrest and probably crazy from that nutjob’s corruption…

“Ulerian’s research was never going to work, was it?” he asked.

Solholme shook her head. “It would have only been one part of the puzzle.” She let out a heavy sigh. “The Disease is an act of a god. On a whim, Adramalech could simply change it. He is now part of the Illuminus Weizar and everything that is happening to him is changing the Disease, altering it. Whatever research I had done previously is now negated. Thanks to you, by the way.”

“So what was the plan?” Harm asked, ignoring the jab. “Cure the disease and keep him asleep?”

She gave him a coy smile. “Not quite. Find the true name as much as possible and then sabotage the research just short of Valdin writing the spell into people’s genetics. I would have killed myself and returned with a new team. Using Ulerian’s research, I would have found a way to use it to ‘accidentally’ leak that it is tied to Hal-Seth. I’d lead two branches of research - one that would use the true name to destroy Hal-Seth and the other to use it to cure the disease. As we drew close to one or the other, I’d again sabotage the research by pitching the two forces against one another. Eventually, we’d use the spell to destroy Hal-Seth and end the Disease in one final iteration.”

“You conniving bitch,” Kaiver scowled. “That’s people’s lives you’re talking about. Their livelihoods and careers.”

“In the grand scheme of things a few lives is worth the sacrifice of undoing a god’s malice and divine retribution.”

“Is it though?” Harm asked, leaping off the crate. “I honestly think the greatest ‘fuck you’ to any malicious divine edict would be to prove them wrong. To tell Adramalech that he fucked up and that we mortals found a far better solution.” He turned to face Solholme, with a faint smile. “Who knows? Maybe if we had been there, we could have actually saved Aurelene and reconciled them.”

Solholme rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just needlessly extrapolating.”

“Think about it.” Harm gestured at himself. “Hal-Seth is basically Aurelene. His entire existence is an anathema to the world. You could represent Adramalech; the force that wants to destroy everything out of spite. Aria is representative of the Mother Goddess and I could represent Haamiah.”

“What role do I play?” Kaiver asked eagerly.

Harm shot him an annoyed stare. “You can be Hal-Seth. The guy that just sits there and does what he’s told.” He then turned back to Solholme. “If all of us can come up with a solution to make everyone happy, why couldn’t the much greater gods?”

The wingless Phoenix scoffed and turned away just as Aria and Hal-Seth approached them. “Wishful thinking.” Her arms slowly unfolded. “Not a bad wish but still wishful thinking.”

As Aria arrived, she regarded them with one eyebrow raised. “What were you all talking about?”

“What-ifs,” Harm responded calmly. “Ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yes. Let’s end this.”

?

*******

?

Valdin had made his base of operations in a facility one of the walls. It had been left untouched by the Wyrmriders offensive and it was strange that there were no guards posted anywhere near the building. To the casual observer, it just looked like a simple warehouse.

“You sure this is the place?” Harm asked.

“Positive,” Kaiver responded, hefting his shotgun. “Huge amounts of power were being drained here when the shit hit the fan. The drain to emergency power is still there after Ulerian took Crossfire. Valdin is doing something here.”

Hal-Seth strode forward, flicking his crimson crossbows to face the enormous, steel doors in front of them. “Then let us not waste time! Doctor Valdin! Your reckoning has come! Surrender the Egg!”

Without waiting for a response, he fired and beams of fire blasted out of the weapon and shattered the doors in a flurry of melted metal and flame. Harm drew Timekeeper, expecting automated defenses or anything to start attacking. Instead, he was met with an eerie, green glow and the sound of bubbles echoing against vast warehouse walls.

As the smoke cleared, he was met with a disturbing sight.

Large tubes lined sat in clean rows up and down the warehouse. Each one was filled with a bubbling, green liquid, faintly illuminated by light. Within each tube had single, naked creature inside. Most all possessed some form of winged appendage jutting out from some part of their body where wings should not be. There was a human whose face was twisted into a grimace while a wing was growing out of his left eyebrow, seemingly consuming his entire left eye in the process. Another was an Avios whose entire right arm had become a wing. There was another Bovios that had a single wing spurting out from the middle of his spine.

“What happened here?” breathed Aria.

A voice suddenly exploded from somewhere around them. Valdin’s voice.

“I see you’ve finally reached this place. I am afraid you are too late.”

Harm, instantly on edge, bared his fangs, hackles raised and Timekeeper at the ready.

“What you see before you is a testament to my failure. A graveyard of failed hopes and dreams. Consider this my last will and testament. All this I bequeath unto you.”

“He is no longer alive,” Hal-Seth concluded.

“Valdin…” whispered Solholme with a hint of malice. “Your ambition and impatience finally got the better of you.”

“I do not know how much you know,” continued the recording, “but in the years that I have been involved in this project, I constantly felt sidelined as priority was given to Ulerian’s research. I had long perfected the art of scribing spells into genetics and even ran tests on the inheritance of this procedure. All within my first year. In my second, I had perfected the procedure to the point that it would be cheap, efficient and easily performed. A mere thirty minute procedure. In my third, I had designed the spell to be easily executable by anyone who has a basic knowledge of the Molting Disease and the Illuminus Weizar_._”

Harm began striding down the alleyways of test subject, feeling only pity for the poor individuals that were hovering in the tubes. Each tube had life-sign readings and even a brief history of the subject including their initial health upon being experimented upon. So far, none of them were alive.

“But when just two characters of the name of the Disease had been discovered by my fourth year, I realized that I had quickly run out of things to do.” Valdin let out an exhausted sigh. “I grew impatient. I took it out on Ulerian. If, by some miracle, you survived, I apologize. I was needlessly antagonistic towards you despite the fact that it was by my own doing that I had burnt out.”

“He seems genuinely apologetic…” Kaiver observed. “That’s… refreshing.”

“I sought out other forms of stimulation. I wanted to push the limits of my research. When I was given the Phoenix Egg, I began thinking of ways to emulate the Phoenix’s immortality with the spell I had created. A sort of… self-replicating, self-refreshing spell that would constantly keep the Molting Disease at bay. It was ambitious, it was new and I honestly believed that it would benefit the world. I was given funding and I began my research. Then I hit a roadblock.”

Harm looked up towards the ceiling as if he was looking directly at Valdin. “You found that Phoenixes and Avios were already genetically the same… didn’t you?”

“I compared the genetics from this infant Phoenix with an Avios and… I discovered something startling. We are not so different. In fact, the fundamental building blocks, when you look at the number of chromosomes, are exactly the same! This _… this did not make sense to me. I had always thought that the Phoenix and Avios race were two entirely different branches of evolution. But this was not the case. We are the same. Not just cousins that share an ancestor. No. We are_ exactly the same_. The only difference between us is__ … is this connection to a power source. To the Fire. To Adramalech.”_

That kind of discovery would still have been incredible. It would have rewritten very history of the Phoenix and Avios race.

If only he had been satisfied with that…

“This brought up so many questions,” lamented Valdin. “I am a member of the Cult of Adramalech. I suspect this is one of the reasons that Solholme chose me.”

“It was,” chuckled the facility lead darkly. “I knew that his obsession with Adramalech and connection to the Cult would be his undoing.”

“Bitch,” Kaiver muttered.

“I felt… personally betrayed when I discovered that the Phoenix race was connected to Adramalech to the point that they were given immortality and we, the successors to the Phoenixes, who were genetically the same were abandoned not only with inevitable mortality but this _… this_ cruel disease that didn_ ’t even have the decency to kill us! I was angry, frustrated and hurt.”_

“Anyone would be,” sighed Aria as he came up to the same tube Harm was examining. “Valdin had faith in Adramalech… and it turns out that Adramalech abandoned him.”

“I tried to rationalize it as my god giving me this opportunity to correct the mistakes of the past. Maybe I was put on this planet, on this project to give the Avios that immortality. To inherit the Fire. So I began to experiment. I didn’t just seek to write the spell into the genetics of the Avios to make them immune to the Molting Disease. I wanted to change the Molting Disease into something else. The next stage of Avios evolution.”

Harm whirled around, exchanging glances with Aria. She shared the same worried look at him.

“Oh that’s not a good sign,” he mumbled.

She agreed. “No it is not.”

“I began to think; what if the Molting Disease is not a curse. What if it is an unfinished blessing? What if I could finish that spell and give the Fire to the Avios? What if I could make them better? And this egg was the catalyst?”

“Madness…” Solholme whispered. “The Disease is Adramalech’s attempt to kill all is creations and wipe us from Tower Thirteen!”

“My experiments bore fruit! I was still missing the Molting Disease’s true name but I found a way to use the common ancestry that we shared with the Phoenixes to construct a spell that could modify our genetics to make it more compatible with the Fire. But I needed test subjects.”

“And that’s when you started consorting with the slavers,” concluded Hal-Seth. “A noble cause tainted by ignoble methods.”

Does the end justify the means…?

Harm moved on to the next row of test subjects. His skin crawled at the sight of so many corpses preserved in what he could only assume was some form of nutrient bath to keep them somewhat ‘fresh’. There were so many of them. Hundreds. Maybe even bordering upon a thousand. As he went from row to row, the subjects deviated further and further from their original forms, becoming more and more twisted with more and more wings sprouting on each one. Some of the wings even sprouted from other wings.

“Naturally I started with simulations and when those came up positive, I eventually moved to live subjects. Testing with animals was basic enough but this wasn’t the process of trying to just manipulate genes! This was weaving a magical spell into the very essence of an entire race! An entire species_! I was altering them in the very face of the_ Illuminus Weizar!”

Valdin let out a dejected sigh.

“I was arrogant. I considered myself superior to Ulerian and even Solholme. While they twiddled their thumbs waiting for results, I was producing tangible results. Admittedly there were results I kept to myself. I siphoned power from the main lab to this little facility. I consorted with the Wyrmriders to get me live test subjects. I tried to be as… humane as possible but even I could start feeling my frustration boiling into my work. I grew careless. My work slipped and then the Wyrmriders started being bolder. They wantonly sailed to our borders instead of sneaking around the usual routes. Naturally, Kaiver and Solholme took this as an attack and fired back. My relationship with them soured.”

Again, Harm glanced over to Solholme who merely gave him a helpless, careless shrug.

“I knew my time was quickly running out. I pushed for evacuation. I had all my data. I could start again somewhere else. But things spiraled out of control when an Angel and a Chronomancer came to us instead of starships. Perhaps if I had waited, my work would have remained undiscovered but then the Wyrmriders attacked in full force. There was no time left. I had to end this.”

Harm noticed that he was approaching the end of the warehouse and stopped. His eyes drifted along the rows of tubes. He froze, muzzle slowly dropping open as he spied the one, large chamber sitting at the far end of the chamber.

“I took what few followers I had left and made one last ditch attempt to complete my experiment. I knew it was far from complete and there was not enough data to back up my hypothesis but what else could I do? If the Wyrmriders conquered this place, they would hunt me down. If the Church’s cronies won out, there would be an official investigation on why the Wyrmriders attacked in the first place. Regardless of what manipulations Solholme may be accused of, I knew my days were numbered.

“So, I fired off a rapid series of tests and destroyed the eastern wall to let the Wyrmriders provide a distraction for me while I completed my magnum opus…”

“Holy shit…” Kaiver breathed, coming up right beside Harm. “Is that…”

“Valdin…” confirmed Harm.

Suspended in a tube at least five times the size of the others was a large, featherless Avios, quietly slumbering away. Two, enormous wings jutted out from its back, wrapping around it almost in a fetal position. Its flesh was wrinkled, pink and exposed. Horrible red pustules like pimples the size of basketballs covered its body in an almost armor-like crust. Valdin’s parrot-shaped features were barely visible in the face of the creature. Worst of all had to be the multitude of smaller, more normal-sized limbs that were sticking out of various body parts. Small arms jutted out of its flanks, legs curled absently around each toe and there were even some malformed faces partially consumed by the boils on its frame.

In front of the creature, sitting atop an enormous console, was the sole Phoenix Egg.

“What the fuck did he do to them all…?” Kaiver asked, shaking his head.

“He tried to ignite the Fire within himself,” Hal-Seth replied, sad tone in his voice. “Eons ago, my fellow Phoenixes sacrificed their connection to Pyromancy and Adramalech to be able to use other forms of magic. This was an incredible feat in and of itself and has been cemented into the Avios race for countless generations. Reestablishing that connection cannot be achieved by just one person. He had hoped that by joining himself with others, they could create a flame big enough to burn away generations of severance and rejoin the Fire.”

I guess it’s something similar to Time Locking. It takes thirteen Chronomancers to fully Time Lock one individual, to go against the flow of Time and subvert natural laws.

After thirty thousand years, Avios’ ability to cast all forms of magic and be exiled from Adramalech’s Fire had become the new natural law.

“You can’t undo all of that in one sitting and with just a few dozen like-minded individuals,” Harm sighed. “Even Chronomancers needed to go through several generations before they eventually found the secret of Time Locking.”

“And yet it just took one generation to undo it all,” Solholme said snidely. “Or perhaps just one particularly spiteful traitor.”

Harm chose to ignore that statement.

“Using the Phoenix Egg as a template, I hoped to reforge the composition of my own Soul to try and reforge the connection with Adramalech. My colleagues and I fully understand that this will irrevocably damage my own Spirit. However, I must be the catalyst for this change and I need them to offer their strength to stabilize what I know would be a crumbling body.”

Aria shook her head in utter disbelief, staring up at the creature in front of her. “He sacrificed himself, his very essence, everything he was, in a desperate attempt to prove himself right. Or perhaps he was trying to be altruistic but ultimately, it comes off as someone trying to prove that all his heinous acts were worth it.”

“But they weren’t worth it,” Kaiver added. “He failed.”

“In a few moments, I will execute the spell and myself and my colleagues will throw ourselves into the stasis vat. If we succeed in this spell, we would have merged into a single entity that would help facilitate the evolution of Avios all over Tower Thirteen. If we have failed, we will remain in stasis until the end of this message.”

Harm froze.

“Wait…”

“If you are hearing this message, then we have failed. In a few moments, I… or whatever I and my colleagues have become, will awaken. Our corrupted Fire will spread to each corpse in this warehouse and we will have only one goal in mind: destroy everything_. We cannot let our research, this abomination that we have become, be replicated anywhere. We will destroy it all. We will destroy_ Flareclaw_. Then we will go off into the sands to die. That is the last instinct we have programmed into ourselves._

“I do not expect nor ask for your forgiveness. I only hope that you have the sense to not gather my research and save it. If, that is, you escape. Goodbye and may Adramalech’s Flame burn eternal.”

The moment the message ended with a click, a loud, draining noise started emanating from all around them. Harm spun, heart freezing up in terror as the green nutrient solution from all around them began sapping out from each of the tubes, even the enormous one in front of them. The creature that Valdin had become stirred. Green flames danced from beneath its shut eyelids. As they fluttered open, that same green fire seemed to shoot through a multitude of tubes connected to the beast and siphon off into capillaries. Those flames shot into each of the hundreds of other pods around them. The beeping of heart rate monitors filled his ears, growing louder and louder with each passing second.

“Okay, this is one I didn’t count on,” Harm mumbled. “Zombie apocalypse.”

“Harm…” Aria warned.

The white-Wulfun immediately dashed towards the console and grabbed the Phoenix Egg. “Here!” he shouted, throwing it to Hal-Seth. He then turned back to the consoles in front of him, scrambling to find some way - any way - to shut off the procedure.

Everything was locked down. The groans of waking mutants began to fill the warehouse.

“Aria, Kaiver!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I can’t stop this!”

“There’s still people at the lab!” Kaiver exclaimed. “If these bastards get out…”

“Go!” he barked. “Get them to barricade the lab as much as possible. Get defenses set up! Solholme, Hal-Seth and I will stay here and hold them back as much as we can! Right?” He turned towards the two Phoenixes. Solholme was looking worriedly at Hal-Seth while the Champion regarded the Phoenix Egg in his hands with a look of confusion. “Hal-Seth?”

“He… He was right,” whispered the Champion.

“What?”

“I was looking at this all wrong,” continued Hal-Seth, his voice rising. “I was starting to believe that what Jubifyre said was true. That I had been abandoned by Adramalech that it was my destiny to die. But my intention to end the War of the Wings was to bring equality to a fractured civilization. To once again unite everyone under the warmth of Adramalech’s wings. But I failed. I was to naive.” He lifted his head, staring at Harm directly. “What if I was put into stasis on purpose.”

“Of course it was on purpose!” barked Solholme. “I stabbed you with a dagger from Haamiah to put you in that crystal!”

“Who are we to know or even understand the will of the gods?” answered Hal-Seth with a shake of his head. “What if that was all part of their plan. What if they knew you would hesitate and in your guilt over the Molting Disease, would commit your life to eventually destroying me and, in a way, waking me? What if they knew that the technology or abilities of the Avios were not ready yet to inherit the Fire? What if they were waiting for someone like Valdin to come along and help me understand that I shouldn’t just give the Avios the Fire… I should use everything here to change them for the future. To be true inheritors of the Fire. To make them in the image of our god.”

Harm groaned loudly.

Oh boy… Here we go.

“Is it at all possible that you can shelf this conclusion until we destroy the bloodthirsty mutants that are about to wake up and maul us to death with their eerie green fire?” he asked. “Then we can all come together and have a rational discussion about the future and your very valid perspective?”

Hal-Seth shook his head. “Every second we waste, the Molting Disease is eating away at my people.” He suddenly spread his wings, a blast of hot air erupting from him with enough force to knock Harm back against the console. Solholme, who stood closest to him, was flung towards a nearby tube, immediately shattering it. The remaining nutrient fluid washed over her and the mutant contained within slumped on top of her. She gave a started cry when the creature’s one eye opened and immediately seized her, letting out an unholy screech. Aria and Kaiver were pushed back further down towards the exit.

“Thank you Doctor Valdin,” Hal-Seth said, looking up at the waking beast. “You have shown me the path I must take.”

“Hal-Seth!” Aria cried. “Don’t!”

“Fear not, Angel of Athena! My sacrifice will bring a new era to the Avios!” He lifted into the air, hovering close to the ceiling of the facility. “I truly enjoyed our brief time together. Death, however, comes for everyone. Even we immortals and I would rather my death have meaning.”

Hal-Seth’s whole body became engulfed in flames and he shot right through the ceiling, burning the metal and speeding off in the direction of the main lab.

“No!” Solholme cried. “That idiot is going to cause more damage than he already has! Does he even know what Valdin did!?” Blue flames consumed her body, burning away the mutant clinging to her. “I have to stop him!”

“Wait!” Harm cried.

Then the wingless Phoenix was launching into the air after Hal-Seth.

“Fuck!” Kaiver cried. His shotgun went off, blowing back one of the nearby mutants.

Harm dashed towards him and Aria, pressing his back against the two as the creatures around them began to wake. The monstrous Valdin mutant roused fully and smashed through its enormous tank. It let out a tremendous roar, green flames erupting from within its beak.

“We need to get those civilians out of the main lab,” Aria said. “Between whatever Hal-Seth is planning, these mutants and the sandstorm, there’s no place safe for them.”

“But you can make a safe place,” Kaiver growled, baring his fangs. “Evacuate them to one of the auxiliary facilities. Set up defenses. Use your Deomancy to erect a goddamn wall.”

“Shouldn’t you be able to do that?” Harm retorted. He swung Timekeeper, a golden beam of horizontal light slicing through the faces of a few of the mutants. Even with half their brains gone, the creatures kept approaching. “You’ve got your Ferromancy. You can do that too.”

“But I don’t have a spear I can ride on and fly straight to the lab quickly,” replied Kaiver. “I’ll stay here and hold these bastards off. You two go save the civilians and stop Hal-Seth!”

Both Harm and Aria turned towards him.

“That’s suicide,” exclaimed the Angel. “There are hundreds here and Valdin! You will be crushed!”

“I can at least buy you time,” hissed Kaiver. “Go!”

Aria shut her eyes briefly, pursing her lips. “May the Mother Goddess look kindly upon your soul, Kaiver Warson.” Then she threw Gungnir into the air and leapt upon it. The Valor sprouted glorious, white wings and took her speeding out of the hole that Hal-Seth had made.

“Well?” Kaiver snapped at Harm. “What are you waiting for?”