Chapter Text
It was after the battle of Jubileus and the overthrow of the overseer that the smoking remains of a statue lay, decimated.
It was between the trees, in a cracked cesspool of its own demise that, -out of the broken head piece, a man began crawling out of the right eye, dirtying himself on the ground.
His white and gold cassock hung firmly upon him, but as he got up on his knees, the fabric bent strongly on his bruised joints.
All of a sudden, a flash of blue light, almost like electricity, came bursting out of his body into the air. He looked sternly towards the ground, clenching his fists. “-You will not escape this fate!” He grabbed a jagged golden spectacle out of his pocket and brought it to his face. “-We will perish together!”
Then, placing the receptacle on his left eye, he burst into a golden light, making his clothes appear lighter and more dignified than they had ever been. However, he then fell to the ground and collapsed across the dirt.
“-My dear, sweet child… At last, you have fulfilled your promise to me…” As he spoke, his eyes started to close, as the light around him grew slowly brighter. “-Fear not, for I am always watching over you…”
-and as he said those final words, his entire body slowly burst into tiny golden particles, with the last to do so being the small, jagged, golden spectacle…
All flowing towards the light of the sun…
-And on that day, it was said that the right eye was lost from the word forever along with its possessor… the last of the lumen sages…
But he died a long time ago from then…
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Balder looked on from the glass windows of the enlightenment tower as he watched dark storm clouds come heavy through the dying dusk.
“It will be a rough night tonight, -I’ll say.” Balder looked over his shoulder at his younger Sage brother beside him.
“-The witches will certainly have their hands full.” He replied shortly, looking back out the window.
The other sage let out a small, worried chuckle. “-actually, it seems rather the headmaster called us into action to help them as well…” He breathed sharply. “It seems they’ll be demons running amok as well…”
Balder made a slight sound of surprise. It seems even though he was one of the head mage's apprentices, he hadn't been warned of any news of change.
“-How many were warranted?” He asked.
The younger sage replied militarily. “Seven, myself, you, Richard, Elmer, Nathan, Gabriel, and Alex.”
Balder nodded assertively. “Well, at least it seems we have a good effort put together…” He then spun clockwise on his heel, completely turning around, before setting his eyes to stare intently forward. “When?”
The younger sage smiled. “-As soon as the moon decides to show.”
Balder let out a small laugh as he smirked and walked away. “-We’ll leave before midnight then…”
Meanwhile…
-On the other side of the mirror, the witches' astronomy tower was cascading black as it stood its distinguished height over Vilgrid.
Rosa was sitting on one of the outer patios, looking over the iron railing that circled the perimeter.
“You ready?” She looked over at her younger Umbran sister.
“I suppose, it’s all the same anyway…” She dismissed the idea with her hand. “-We fight, we win, and then we fight again; when will this time, something new begin?”
Her umbran sister clicked her tongue. “You look too deep into these things, my elder…”
Rosa sighed. “What’s the plan?”
The younger witch made a quick noise with her lips. “-hard to say… mostly because it was just changed…”
The older witch glanced back at her immediately. “How did that happen?”
“The lumen sages will be there!” She answered. “-Apparently, our mistress thinks we can’t handle it!” With this, she let out a few harsh laughs. “The nerve…”
Rosa contemplated this deeply, her eyes cast downward. “-if the Lumen Sages will be helping, that must mean it’s going to be just as bad as they say…” She then turned to the younger witch. “-They don’t just show up for nothing…”
The other umbran sister rolled her eyes. “-could have fooled me…” -and started to walk away from the vantage point…
-But even so, Rosa had begun to contemplate in slight fear…
The battle had already begun when the moon was finally high enough to disperse.
As the lumens sages followed the tails of their umbran counterparts. It was clear that the witches had fought bullet and knot to secure the area around the clock tower and the other sections of the city; and while the angel's forces were dying down, lurking throughout the edges, there could be seen empty shadows starting to stir along the walls.
Baldur pulled a feather from within his gown and threw it towards one of the moving shades; immediately, the creature started to writhe and twist, its form seemingly to contort itself through the ground, climbing higher towards the air.
Balder quickly jumped backwards out of the way before summoning his own help.
As he tore and threw another feather, he called forth, while speaking Enochian, and an angel with two serpent heads, wings, and a lion's face as the main body appeared through a portal in the sky.
He pointed towards the breathing ink of the demon's flesh, where immediately the angelic beast soared towards the enemy in a flash.
As the two forces began to move, Balder removed his focus to look around at the state of the fight.
Around him, the umbran witches tossed and turned against the forces of Inferno and Paridiso; their clothing reappearing and disappearing with each move, as summoned contracts appeared in their web of hair.
Then amongst them were also the lumen sages, jumping through the air as their feathers fell behind them, like great scarves of light, as their angelic counterparts flew between them.
But inclining to the opposite side, his breath stopped at the sight-
-Before the light of the moon, her pistols glistening; the black of her outfit flared around her, with the unique gold trim.
He then watched as her legs soared apart, showing off the two automated gun shoes attached at the heel.
It seemed every part of her was deadly; even her hair, he saw, that was tied neatly in a bun at the top, standing like a great tower!
-But what amazed him the most was her beautiful, butterfly eyes…
“-such a flower…” Balder whispered quietly.
However, her jump to the moon was short-lived, as gravity began to pull her down, and even with Balder, following her movements, she disappeared over the building's edge.
-Seeing her fall, as quickly as he could, Balder had started to race over to where she landed, but in the way between face and home, there was, it seemed, still a war…
-Demons began to rise through the ground all around him; hideous creatures, with scales, and fur, and claws, and maggots; others with great eyes, and tails, and ripped ligaments.
He backed away slowly, watching their steps.
However, just as he had begun to get his feathers ready, a familiar sight overtook the air in front of him.
Appearing within the circled ring, she stood proudly between them all in her midnight attire.
Balder stopped wide-eyed as he admired her from afar.
-and then, flipping her pistols around with a single matching spiral, she shot the two closest demons straight in the eyes.
Seeing this, Balder ran beside her, throwing a feather down between them, summoning his spear in a single moment. They then stood back-to-back, glancing frantically around.
“-Stay close to me…” She whispered through her mask.
Balder nodded his head in urgent accord, still eyeing the fallen beasts.
It was a moment before one jumped out at them, but when they did, the demon's face was instantly slashed with a single blow from Baldur's spear.
This sparked the beginning of the outrage, as one after another, the commanded spirits began to advance towards them.
-When the first hell spawn came tumbling forward, Balder sprinted towards it before sliding underneath the beast, slashing open its stomach, making its insides spill out on the asphalt.
As he looked back at the creature, the witch had landed heel first onto its head, where she put a bullet straight into its skull.
“-Remarkable,” He said, standing slack-jawed for a moment. However, he shook himself out of it, before looking behind him towards the oncoming horde.
He then watched as the witch rushed past him, heels clicking on the pavement as she did; turn back to him as she ran. “-Well, come on then!”
Perhaps there really are times where a plan is useless…
-Throwing down his jagged spear, he summoned two double-edged daggers from his sides; before sprinting forward to join at her side, unleashing himself into the chaos.
-Together they shot, slashed, and jumped, and twirled around the beasts, leaving bullets and broken quills in their wake, while summons and pools of tar were thrown intermittently all around the ring.
-Together, they used each other to attack, shoot, rip, and shred all the enemies that surrounded them. Twisting around each other, and matching their moves synchronously as they protected themselves, -and each other.
At one moment, even, before the light of the moon began to fall as it made way for the sun. The two seemed to shine before it, as they leapt through the air, glancing sneakily at the other, as their weapons displayed outward, one either side of the two fighters, splayed towards the rest of the oncoming horde.
Then, as Blader took the last few of the demonic entities that had been secretly worming away on the outside of the fence, he watched as a rain of bullets fell all around him, as the witch single-handedly crippled all the angels herself, before finishing them off with a last shot from her volcanic pistols.
As she fell, she landed upright directly on top of a metal lamppost, twirling her guns around fashionably, before holstering them in her gun sheaths.
She turned towards the lumen sage soldierly. “-We must adhere to our course towards the stone fortress, -I fear the demons are already running amuck the towns' mortals…”
Balder nodded esuriently. “-Of course…” He then added meekly. “I’ll, -I’ll see you there then...?”
Although the umbran witch donned a black liner beneath her nose, covering her lower face, he could still see the outline of a small but shy smile as she let out a small smirk.
She turned away suddenly, her glasses red gem holders glittering in the moonlight, as they swayed with the motion. “-We’ll see…”
-And with that, she jumped, soaring through the sky, as she landed on the opposite side of the village's outer wall.
Leaving Balder to follow after her.