Graves and I strike with a vengeance.
From either side, we ambush a crested dragon who's been launching fiery explosives like artillery towards the heart of the warzone. Her guards, a pair of hardback wyverns, intercept us with a rush of coalesced cryomancy, and I dive low underneath as Graves goes above. With the break in their visibility, I bolt forward and vanish at full speed, arcing upward and coming around for a diving lash from above them. The two are distracted, evidently focused on the biggest threat, which is exactly the mistake I was hoping they'd make.
Instead of ramming with my horns or my dorsal plating, I lead the plunge with my saber. The point stabs through one of the wyvern's hardened backplates with hardly a touch of resistance, piercing through the center of his chest and breaking free from the far side. A split second later, my electric charge ruptures, and red lightning courses down the length of my tail and erupts from within his chest cavity. The result is…
Not pretty. To say the least. Whoops.
I rip my tail free and flee the scene of such brutal murder. This catalyst spell Umbra gave me is fucking ridiculous. I'm not sure there is any way to use it that doesn't brutalize whoever's on the receiving end, but nearly getting chomped in half has put a few things in perspective. These zealots wouldn't hesitate to murder me in their own grisly, horrific, devastating ways. Why should I?
With that, I circle around, drop my horns, and blast straight through the second wyvern. He's smaller than the dragon from earlier, so his body actually splits in half from the force.
"Fuck you."
I catch up with Graves just in time to see her pierce the crested dragon's plate armor just under the left arm. My guess is that it's straight to the heart. The beast struggles for a moment but she whirls around and slings him toward the Solaris. He doesn't last much longer, going still as the sun's gravity draws him in.
The two of us meet eyes and keep moving.
"Quick question," I say as we select our next target. "You haven't used those quills of yours to fight since the Archives. Why?"
"Less effective against draconic forms. Bigger bodies take more quills. I would run out quickly. Takes time to make more. So, I save them for medicine."
"Ah. Makes sense. You really are a jack of all trades, aren't you?"
"Killing and protecting. Those are my only trades."
"I don't believe that for a moment."
"Hm. Find out later. This one. The hydra."
I see it. "That's a lot of guards."
"Quell. Ashes. Echo."
More of them. More of us. I don't get a good look at any of the other Blackthorns, only catching sight of their tails as they whip past me from behind, sprinting in for the kill. That's our cue, I think. Hurrying to catch up, I join the fight by ramming through a colossal serpent just at the base of the neck, which snaps his head clean off. With that, I join Graves in focusing on the hydra, furiously sweeping back and forth with deadly side swipes of my tailblade. Within less than a minute, the other Blackthorns swarm in, and they cut mincemeat out of the giant arcanist before scorching all the dismembered pieces with fire and scattering them with a blast of cryomancy.
The Blackthorns vanish just as quickly as they appeared.
Graves moves right along.
I hurry to catch up. "So, the other Blackth–"
"Now now. Focus."
"Um. I'm your queen?"
"Goddess's secret. And ours too. We prefer the shadows. Obscurity."
"Oh. Okay, I'll respect that."
"Thank you. That one. Kirin."
It only takes the two of us. Graves and I are an efficient team. It's like we have an understanding. Or maybe we've both trained to do the same thing, so it's second nature to intuitively know what the other is doing. When they come after me, Graves snags them unaware. When they go after her, I hunt them down. We move with each other like clockwork, systematically exterminating the arcanist forces kill by kill until there's next to no one left.
We close in on one of the last.
Primarch Serenity.
Vander has already confronted her. "Mother! Cease this obstinance! Surrender! Just fucking surrender! That's all you have to do!"
"I can't!" the pale green dracofae shrieks, flaring her glistening silvery-green butterfly wings as verdant fire of an impossible magnitude rages across the cosmos towards our forces. "You don't know what she'll do to me!"
Graves snatches me with her tail and tosses me onto her back as she evades. It takes Vander, Plutoryl, and six others just to mitigate the absurdly catalyzed magic, and another platoon of cryomancers to keep it from annihilating our central combatants. And theirs too.
"Just stop!" Vander bellows, firing right back. It's weak. Hardly his usual. He's holding back. "Stop and think! Mother! Damn it! When Umbra takes this victory, Aurora will not be able to touch you!"
"It's true, Sera!" Plutoryl adds, keeping his distance. "She will be restrained entirely! Imprisoned! Near enough to death that she'll have no further influence over this reality or any other! You will be safe!"
"You don't know that! You can't know that!" She's casting again. Green fire is building on her wings. Accumulating. Burning. Brighter, brighter. "My little Vander! My darling boy! She's taken him! Taken him from me! She'll hurt him if I don't fight!"
"Mother! I'm right here!" He moves directly in front of her, moth wings wide as they'll go. Hells, he's not casting anything. He's completely vulnerable. "Right here! It's me! I am your son! Vander!"
"No, no, no!" Her cries ring out across the void as her obscene power builds. "Vander is gone! She took him! She has him! You cannot be him! You are not my baby boy!"
"Move, boy!" Plutoryl roars from afar. "Damn it!"
Vander remains in place. "Mother, I'm right here."
Her magic begins to ignite as she shrieks. "Nooo!"
"Vanderrr!" I scream, reaching.
Graves' tail keeps hold.
Plutoryl sprints toward him.
Serenity's blessed power collapses like a dying star.
All three of them vanish in the violent green flames.
A bloodcurdling cry rings from my lungs.
I cry out their names. Vander. Plutoryl.
Graves retreats, dragging me with her.
A second sun blooms in the light of the Solaris.
I fight against the restraint around my waist, desperately thrashing in attempts to break free, as if I'm little more than a moth seeking a fiery demise by casting myself upon the blazing fires. There is no sense in my actions. I lost all of it the moment Vander chose not to move. Nothing exists besides the all-powerful need to go and rescue my friend from peril.
But he never once looked to me for saving. All he's ever done is save me. Help me. Advise me. Stand by me. Look out for me. Train me. Teach me. What have I ever done for him? I can't seem to remember a damn thing.
I can only hope and pray Plutoryl got him out of there. But with the sheer size of this catastrophic eruption, I'm not sure how anything or anyone could escape it. I can't see anything through the torpid flames, raging on and on and on. As Graves takes me farther and farther away, I lose the will to continue fighting against her, watching in horror and anguish as Primarch Serenity's magic incinerates itself. Nothing comes out of those fires. Nothing.
Slowly, they begin to burn out. First at the fringes, then the whole inferno becomes weaker, falling inward and shrinking away. When it's gone, there's nothing left. Just empty space, smoke, and a few charred pieces falling inward towards the ever looming sea of orange emulsion.
It's over. They're gone. They're all gone.
Aurora takes three more victims.
And so my heart breaks all over again.