Aegis

“Creation is all around us. From the depths of the earth’s hollow to the boundless firmament above, it resides unseen from the common eye. All-knowing. All-seeing. A mysterious divinity who wholeheartedly cherishes humanity with all of its love, and so the people beseech deliverance—manifesting its boon into physical form.

“For many, such prayers are but a part of life - a natural thing with no further thought to this grand, this primeval, being. However, there exists a sect of humanity who yearn to fully explore Creation in all of its benevolence. To seek and understand the complexity of the powers it grants upon us.

“They are called Astrologians: scholars who study the astral Mother and her child that is Creation. Their life is a never-ending cycle of research, study, and experimentation. What is the limit to the aura we can draw from within? Why do some invocations come naturally to a select few while others struggle to comprehend its roots? It is truly an unfathomably puzzling pursuit, and we may never truly step foot into the true potential of Creation for as long as we live, but that is what makes our plight so fascinating. Every day is a new discovery. Every day is filled with childlike wonder.

“Inquisitiveness: that is what makes our existence worth living.”

- An Excerpt From Introduction to Astrology 101: Penned by Arch Magus Virgil, Ruler of Augurium

———

Lorelai

A mighty boom erupts from their clash, sending a shockwave all throughout the battlefield and toppling the forces of Polus and Caelum alike as sparks fly from their weapons’ struggle for dominance. The Solga and Lunas are unmatched in their ferocity, but a strange force is covering Gravitas’s mace. Draining, redirecting, as if the twin blades are being twisted into another direction. Her balance is skewed; her trajectory is slanted. If she attempts to push on here, only misfortune awaits.

Lorelai bites her tongue and vaults away, hands trembling from the impact. It is no use. She cannot win a direct contest of strength.

“Oh, little bird… struggling already?” The tyrant pounds his chest with a jubilant cry and slams his foot down. He leans forward, baring his pauldrons—ready to crush. “The fun has only just begun, Lorelai. Do not disappoint me now.”

In an instant, he charges, recklessly hurtling the full weight of his body directly at her. She only has a split second to react, twisting her waist and erecting a golden barrier before suffering a devastating blow from his wieldy bash. Lorelai grunts in pain, body sent flying high into the air. But before she can recover, the weight pushing down on her intensifies in a sudden lurch, violet energy screeching from above. She plummets. Falling. Helpless. And crashes into a spiraling plume of dust.

Her vision becomes blurry, and as she teeters herself into a resemblance of a stance, a glint of steel descends from the murk. A dreadful laugh, and a gust of approaching demise.

Now.

Her miserable demeanor disappears. Her weakness vanishes. She spins around the mace in an explosive blast of movement, body a fleeting image before Gravitas’s eyes, and slashes at his throat with every shred of her might.

“…Mmm, a paltry trick. Such deception insults my virtue, Lorelai. Only with pure strength shall you bring honor upon the sanctity of battle.”

He slams into her chest-plate with a crushing swing of his fist. Breath leaves her, air rapidly escaping from her lungs, but Lorelai redirects the force away from her body at the last moment and pirouettes back to safety.

What is going on? I saw clearly: the twins’ cleaving his head in twain. No… did I truly? There was no resistance, no contact upon flesh. It is as if I swung at mere wind. Damn this. Naught else to do but unveil the truth myself.

Lorelai bolsters her body firm and takes to the offensive, rushing headfirst into Gravitas’s range and attacks with rapid bursts, utilizing quick flurries and maneuvering around his strikes to pierce at his gaps. The tyrant is strong, every swing full of overbearing power. A single impale from his spike-wrought weapon will cripple her upon impact, but his bulk is his own nemesis. Slow. Sluggish. He rends the earth asunder and leaves behind craters of pulverized dirt, yet the mace is always one step behind the nimble Throne.

She continues her onslaught, but it is proving ineffective. No matter how many times she attempts to carve at his openings, the blades veer off at the moment of contact, leaving her side to be momentarily exposed to Gravitas’s ferocious barrage. She cannot hurt him. He cannot hurt her. The two are stuck in a perpetual whirlwind of steel, waltzing together under the diminishing light of the moon. It is fading. The blessing won’t last for much longer.

Gravity. His armor is coated in a layer of repelling force. Stars guide me… I cannot penetrate it without the full strength of the twins, but can my body withstand the strain?

No. There is no need to wither her heart here. There is still another way.

“Solga, light thy pyre ablaze!”

The sun’s sword ignites in a fiery conflagration. Arcs of ember from its edge are pulled towards the earth due to the tyrant’s pressure, but that is exactly her intention.

“A miserable kindling, little bird. Becoming desperate now, are you?”

He utters a screeching cackle and pursues after her once more. The flaming sword does little to change their endless clash, but she must not become impatient here. A moment will arise soon between the gaps and sparks. She just has to wait, to persist, until finally: It arrives.

Gravitas’s mace comes crashing down in a sudden burst of speed, the spikes only a hair’s strand away, but she twirls around the massive bludgeon and plants her feet directly on the hilt. The clipped Throne leaps as high as she can directly above his head, fighting against gravity’s duress with a streak of flame following from close behind. There is no escaping the tyrant’s retaliation when she lands, but if naught goes astray, then there shall be no need to.

Lorelai points the tip of her blade to Gravitas below and lets out a booming command.

“Solgas: Cast thine enemy into an inferno, unending!”

A surging, violent spout of wildfire descends onto the warrior of gravity, yet he moves not a single step. He merely stands still, arrogant and condescending, while opening his arms wide into a mocking embrace.

“Foolishness. Do you really expect this paltry flame to reach me? I thought you better—”

But his words soon turn into screams. The gravitational layer around his body only serves to transform the flame into a spiraling wreath of incineration. It feasts upon the flowing pockets of air, surrounding him in sizzling combustion, and roasts his mechanical suit into a charred, coarse black. He cannot breathe. He cannot escape. His own protection only serves to aid in his suffering as he flails about within the fiery blaze, wailing out in agony and clawing at every surface of his body.

There is only one thing left to do now: slay the tyrant once and for all.

Lorelai dashes forward, blades ready with razor-sharp intent. Failure must not be allowed this time, and soon, the Throne closes in on the still-thrashing wretch. With clenched hands and gritted teeth, she swings.

And is sent tumbling back from a sudden outburst of violet. The wave pulses through the earth, rippling through the sky. A low-pitched reverberation fills the expanse with its desperate shout.

The Throne quickly repositions herself onto her feet and peers back at the wave’s source. Gravitas’s armor now courses with bolts of crackling energy, the surrounding flame smothered into ash. His sockets glow with an eerie display of ecstasy, but the damage upon his being is evident, and he soon collapses onto one knee as he haggards a deep, wheezing chuckle.

“Very… good,” he hacks. “I admit, my own rapture got the better of me. Hehehe, this pain is a suitable reminder. I thank you, Lorelai. But it shall not occur again.”

He rises up, body swelling with power anew. A last attempt at resistance. His strength is nearly hollow, as is mine, but I have the upper hand. I need only to—

A scream.

Gut-wrenching.

Terrifying.

Something is wrong. Something is terribly, terribly wrong.

The world around her descends into a frightening chorus of pure, unadulterated horror. Knights, legionnaires, and even the machines appear to lose themselves to a sudden, gruesome frenzy. They collapse onto the ground and scream, beg, for mercy. They rip out their eyes and tear at their skin in a delirious haze of bloody self-mutilation. Mangled bodies slowly start to dot out the field, disfigured into shredded chunks of tears and petrified faces frozen into a sob.

This isn’t right. The battlefield is a gruesome place, but not like this. Not like this.

Lorelai is frozen. She cannot comprehend this hellish landscape full of hysteria and insanity. Everywhere she looks, a nightmare.

W-What… this can’t be… I-I—

She tries to speak, but no sound leaves her throat. She tentatively turns her head to Gravitas as if expecting for him to be responsible for this atrocity, but he is frozen as well. Stunned. For once, she sees his body tremble in fear. His taunting remarks are gone, replaced by pitiful gulps of confusion.

Suddenly, he grasps at his head and collapses fully onto the blood-stained dirt below, writhing in resistance against some unknown presence. What is happening? She doesn’t know. She has never seen anything like this in her life. Her skin crawls at the demented sight, hair raising at the back of her throat, and then it reaches.

Without any sign, without any warning, something sinister attempts to worm its way into her brain. Pain spreads to every corner of her body—

It hurts. Skin flays, eyes roll, throat burns, heart pounds and pounds and pounds—

Flee. She must flee. She has to live. Instinct. Will. Her nature. All begging to—

What is happening to her? Whispers and smiles tempting her to release herself—

She can’t respond to the voice. No. She cannot give in. No matter how much it tries to torment her, she can’t give in—

Make it stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP.

Lorelai screams with every bit of strength left within and smashes her head against the ground. Her vision is left reeling, head throbbing with pain, but at least the malignant presence disappears. She can think clearly again.

Horrible. Utterly vile. As if the darkest, most foul bits of humanity coalesce into a singular, wicked manifestation of malice. Who could possibly be responsible for this? Evil. There is no one in this world filled with such incomprehensible evil. There is no—

Gravitas roars out with a desperate shout next to her and crushes his own hand into a bloody pulp with a swing of his mace. He wheezes, exhausted and convulsing in distress, but it appears the pain has helped him get rid of the presence as well.

She looks around and attempts to find any traces of life left, but no. Thousands of lives… all slain in an instant. Without any resistance. Without even a chance to face their own end. It’s just her and Gravitas now in this sprawling graveyard. Alone.

N-No. Maybe those in the Alexandria have been spared. I need to go back. I need to find Celia—

Crunch.

A rustle. A footstep. Something is moving.

There, far in the distance, a figure emerges out of the miasma. It is a knight, the Polus knight Lorelai discovered hidden in the grotto. Rusting. Decaying. A remnant of old, originating thousands of years from the past, and yet here it is before her, lurching forward with an unnatural gait. Shuffling without any conscience. The thing is more horrifying than any she has seen before. It does not move like a human, twitching about in an irregular, erratic manner while it drags around its limbs like a newborn unable to control its own body.

It is a mockery of mankind, something only donning its appearance. But what is more unsettling than any else is the complete, utter silence. Nothing. The only sound it emits is the clanking of its rotting armor, advancing forward with a vacant gaze and an aura steeped in an unnerving abyss. There is not a shred of life in those darkened sockets. It is as if the thing is not a living being to begin with. Silent, emotionless, and filled with an encompassing emptiness.

Lorelai knows not what has just transpired. She knows not what the horror is before her, but one thought remains clear in her mind.

An atrocity is approaching.