Attack of The Infernal Guild, Pt 2: Victories & Losses!
[Celeste Luminaris]:
THWOOOM!
Ducking and rolling to the side, Celeste narrowly evaded another bolder from crushing her to paste. She turned just in time to see it crash unto the ground of the spot she just stood. 'If I didn't know any better,' she thought. 'I'd say this bitch is trying to kill me.'
Rushing forward, picking up her rapier along the way, Celeste dashed towards the bolder launcher that Terra, who stood ahead, ripping forth two more boulders from the Earth beneath her feet, primed for launching.
"Your resilience is admirable, Lady Luminaris," Terra's surprisingly loud voice rang among the trees like an echo that never dissipated. "But against my power over earth magic, it means very little."
Just then, Terra launched another bolder, followed by a second even larger one, while already creating more.
'Her Earth magic allows her to make an endless supply of boulders so long as there are some kind of earth beneath her feet,' Celeste thought, planning on how to dodge the incoming attack. 'If I want to win, I'll need to be precise — find a hole in her defense and poke it with the sharp end of my blade.'
BOOM!
'Now's my chance!' Celeste moved forward using impossibly inhuman speed granted to her by her werewolf physiology. Leaping inhumanly high, Celeste landed atop one of the launched boulders mid-air and kept on running, leaping onto the top of the 2nd bolder, seconds before the first bolder crash landed into the ground below. She kept on going, ignoring the collision's crash. 'Lunar whip!'
Suddenly, just as Celeste leaped from atop the second bolder, she was sliding down a ramp made of light, before continuing her dash forward, a whip of moonlight bundled up in her palm. And, as she dash towards Terra, her rapier already glowing in her other hand with lunar energy, she unleashed her attack.
Throwing out her whip, she wrapped it around the third bolder before it could crash into the Earth, and, with a surprising amount of super strength, she yanked on her whip, causing the bolder to pause mid-motion and launch itself forward, crashing into the ground before Terra' feet with a loud BOOOM!
Terra went flying backwards from the shockwave, colliding backwards on the ground with a loud thud. And, as the earththrower tried to get up again, Celeste already had her rapier at the Earththrower's throat, lunar spikes pointed behind and beside the earththrower awaiting Celeste's command.
"Yield," was all said with her steel cold glare.
"I yei—," but, before Terra could complete her words, Celeste's instincts screamed she was in danger. Before she could even process anything, a ginormous dome encircled her and all the students in the forest, sealing them off from the outside world instantaneously. "Wha- what's going on? What is—?"
Celeste moved before her mind could comprehend the danger. Tackling Terra to the ground, 3 narrow but sharp projectiles flew into the spots they just were at, instantly soaking up both the lifeforce of the grace, the nutrients of the earth and the energy in the air it was thrown through. The grace blackened and the earth they were impeded in became brittle like dust.
Erecting a barrier around both herself and Terra through lunar magic, a series of projectiles clashed with the energy barrier before falling harmlessly off the barrier as it hit unbending steel and onto the ground listlessly.
"Hehehehe… So…Lunar magic cast by a primordial spawn resists even my Negative Spines? That;s so interesting. I love learning new things, don't you?" a wicked sounding voice sounded from all around them. It gave even Celeste the creeps. They couldn't identify where it was coming from. "After all, you give a kid a book and you get a scholar. You give an athlete a sport and they go pro. You give a Devil Halfling a whole host of girls to experiment with, what do you get?" That same voice giggles with an evil, high-pitch female voice. "No answer? That's ok. The answer is simple, really. You get research opportunities."
Step.
Step.
Step.
Turning to the sound of approaching footsteps and the dreadful giggle of a woman half-crazed, Celeste and Terra saw the being who almost managed to kill them just moments prior.
Through the orange skies, Celeste saw a cloaked, hooded figure with an upside down demon mask and all-covering cloak. They wore glasses outside their mask and was lean and thin in terms of figure with a decent sized bum, accomplishing an hourglass physique, so Celeste thought her female. The aura around them, though, was unnatural and tricky to discern — Celeste recognized the base level to be High level Legendary rank, but that Infernal devil mana made it feel on par with Peak Legendary rank powers.
And it felt so damn wrong. Unnaturally so. It even managed to cause a shiver to run down Celeste's body, a shiver something sharp. Fear? Anticipation? Worry? Celeste couldn't distinguish at the moment, but she was certain of one thing and that is that this woman was exceptionally dangerous.
Heart racing in her chest, Celeste felt her mouth ask the question she'd been trying to ask for a minute now. "Who are you? What do you want?"
The figure just maintained their giggling before pausing to answer, looking directly at Celeste in a possessive needle-like and darting pinpricks. Celeste felt an uncomfortable shiver run down her spine, sharper this time. She instinctively knew she would not like the answer.
"Oh, sweet Daughter of Hemera, Champion to the goddesses Luna and Heemra, Princess heiress of House Luminaris…," she began with a mock curtsey. "Why, we are here for you and your soul, of course. Your lifeblood and all that comes with taking your life. Everyone else will be our — apologies, my — experiments… At least, those who've survived my initial attack anyway."
At this, the figure gestured around them, and, when both Celeste and Terra looked around them, horror gripped them in a vice-like grip. Terror overcame Celeste's calm facade as she took in what she saw…
The students of the Psychic and Mystic Faction as well as many of those from that came with Dylan and Celeste from the Shadow Faction were all either dead or dying. Many were pinned to the trees and the ground, bleeding out with the same black, narrow, sharp rod that had almost killed Celeste, sticking them to various surfaces.
It seemed the rods had a life-sucking function because those struck with it seemed to be losing vitality before their eyes. Even the Versales brothers weren't safe—two of them, Oscar and Oxen, were unconscious or dead, while the third, Dylan, was struggling to get a rod from his lungs and another in his leg as he was pinned to a tree.
And there was so much blood. Rolling off the dead and dying like rivulets of water from a stream, the metallic scent was so strong Celeste wondered how she hadn't smelt it earlier.
"YOU MONSTER!" Terra screamed, thrusting both hands forward. The Earth heeded her command; a series trail of earthen spikes, tall like missiles and narrow but thick, pinned the masked figure in place.
"Rain of Lunar Spears," Celeste muttered, still in shock at things were going, but getting on board either way.
Suddenly, white, pure lunar spears appeared in the skies, falling onto the caged masked monster, who just continued to cackle, unaffected in their glee somehow.
With a thrust of her hand, closing of her fist and punching of the ground, Terra caused the cage of earth spikes and lunar spears to sink below the Earth's surface.
Rushing out the now down lunar light forcefield, Terra and Celeste began rushing towards their comrades.
However, no sooner did they begin their sprint, then all hairs on the back of Celeste's neck rose in warning.
"Terra, wait!" she screamed, tackling the Earththrower once more, but not before one of those vile, life-sucking quills pierced her back.
THUNK!
Seeing the girl fall atop Celeste, eyes wide in shock, Celeste saw in real time as Terra's life force began ebbing away.
Looking up, Celeste saw that the quill wasn't magically thrown—It was stabbed. By Aubrey Lance, who had a look of glee present on her face.
"Why—?" was all Terra could say, before the Earth opened and the masked figure returned, unscratched somehow, still cackling.
Something in Celeste broke at that moment. The rage she had been feeling, the shock, the emotions—All of it—It bubbled over.
She saw red.
Her muscles enlarged, her palms increasing in size and gaining claws for each of her fingers. Her face extended into a maw and her eyes glowed crimson. Wings extended from her white furred back as she grew to at least twice her size. Her wings — feathers made of lunar light mixed with the solar light of the sun — was twice her size. Her clothes ripped in some places, except for her privates, somehow still being covered —
And, with a howl into the night, she appeared directly behind Aubrey Lance, ripping the bitch's heart out, devouring it whole.
Immediately, she felt an assimilation of the bitch's psychic powers, but Celeste paid it no heed. She turned her attention to the hovering, cloaked masked figure that was watching her intently.
"Oh! What a lovely surprise!" the figure said, hands wide in exclamation. "You have a werewolf Progenitor's seed! What a fun surprise!"
Celeste paid the bitch no attention.
Instead, she softly ripped the quill inside Terra out of her, using her healing powers to seal the wound.
Turning back to the masked figure, Celeste wanted blood. So much.
Death should befall this bitch! — She wanted to kill the bitch, feast on the remains and devour the soul. She wanted to rip its face apart with her own claws and play pummell with the decapitated head.
Celeste's eyes gleamed with feral hunger, her saliva dripping as she imagined the crunch of bone between her teeth. The air around her crackled with malevolent energy — both from her and from the masked figure. She envisioned the moment the head would roll, the neck a gushing fountain of crimson blood, and, as she did so, her werewolf form pulsed with anticipation, brimming with raw, bloodthirsty energy, as if ready to tear through flesh and sinew, to devour and savor the raw, warm taste of victory.
Celeste knew not where these urges originated, but she knew one thing: The masked figure would not just die; it would be obliterated, its essence absorbed into Celeste's own being, and its deeds forever devoured by a true predator and monster. It doesn't deserve a peaceful passing — It lost that right in Celeste's eyes the moment it descended to kill her classmates.
"Are you going to just stand there?" the hovering figure asked; as if in a bored tone, it sighed. "Or are we about—"
It didn't get the opportunity to finish that thought, as, with a single flap of Celeste's wings, she was before her prey, already ready to strike. Even through their mask, Celeste could see the figure's dilate, but even as it did, Celeste didn't sense fear — But, with a single discerning sniff, she realized it was interest…
'Why would one find interest in Death?' Celeste thought, but she was too bloodthirsty to actually give it much more thought.
Her right claw was already mid-swing. Victory in sight, classmates avenged, she could smell it. It was right there. Close enough to grasp.
Then…
A giggle sounded in Celeste's ears just as her claws were about to connect—
Instead of connecting, however, a sudden pain erupted within Celeste, and her vision began to swim. A sharp gasp of pain erupted from her lips, as Celeste looked down to see a large, longsword-length black quill lodged in her stomach. It immediately began draining her life force, as almost immediately, she lost the energy to maintain the shift.
Blood pooled from both the wound and down her lips and chin. Her wings vanished almost instantly, as she managed to slowly pull the rod out of herself; the only thing holding her midair was the masked figure who had an impregnable grip upon her neck.
"Hehehe! Heheheheheh!" the masked figure giggled as Celeste struggled to maintain her consciousness. "I've come to kill you, but it seems I won't have to quite yet... A species' progenitor is only as strong as their progenitors, and you harboring a seed means you shall grow stronger— And when you're good and ripe," the masked figure leaned in, breathing in Celeste's scent, as she twirled and played with Celeste's blood soaked, pale white hair. "I shall collect my prize.
"Know that I, #6 of the Infernal Guild, will return, and, when I do, your soul, your seed and your species will be forfeit."
With a second plunge of a smaller rod into the barely healed wound left by the first, the masked figure known only as #6 finally released her grip on Celeste's throat.
For a brief moment, Celeste hung suspended in the air. Then she fell.
She plummeted from the sky like a broken star and slammed into the earth below with a thunderous CRASH! The impact blasted open a massive crater, sending dirt, shattered stone, and a towering plume of dust and smoke erupting into the air. The ground trembled beneath the force of it.
The last thing Celeste saw through her fading vision was the cackling silhouette of #6. Beyond the masked woman, the infernal orange dome was beginning to unravel and collapse, while distant figures continued to clash amidst flashes of magic, steel, and death. The sounds of battle seemed strangely far away now, muffled as darkness crept into the edges of her sight. Whether it was blood loss, exhaustion, or simply the overwhelming damage her body had suffered, Celeste couldn't tell.
The battlefield blurred. The sky darkened. And then consciousness slipped from her grasp entirely.
[Marxes Ilmari]:
Summoning a nanotech shield made of highly enchanted special steel, Marxes managed to withstand the pressures of the dark water stream threatening to blast a hole through his being before the aquatic assault stopped and the masked figure in orange-red and black tilted his head in slight surprise.
"You survived that attack? Most, even at the mid-level of Chaotic rank would've been holed through the middle with that attack alone. Impressive, most impressive," a male distorted voice sounded from behind the mask. "It matters not, though. You will step aside so that I may kill the Sleeping Prince."
It didn't sound like a request. It sounded like a command. A fact. Something inevitable.
"No, I will…not!" Marxes said through gritted teeth, his nanotech shield in left hand and his Chaotic ranked Longhammer, Smither, in his right. "You won't be killing a mutual friend here this day — Or any soul on this campus any other, Devil Worshipper! I'll hold for as long as necessary until others arrive in back up. My nanotech shield is something I created to resist attacks from Mid Level Chaotic ranked attacks. It is more than enough to hold you off."
"Nano tech, huh?" the masked figure released a dark chuckle. "I take it you're from the Ilmari clan? I've heard your clan's technology is quite impressive, but, to withstand an aquatic cannon that would have blasted the chest of a Chaotic ranker? I must say, I'm jealous you aren't on our side. Your gifts would aid us most wonderfully."
Marxes said nothing, but he didn't need to. His eyes, fire and hatred, said what his lips did not. He would not be swayed.
"I will tell you one last time, technopath," the masked man sighed, sounding more annoyed than weary. "Move aside, or die with my target."
"My will is undeterred and my resolve unending," Marxes said, after looking briefly at Cimon's sleeping form, before readying his hammer and shield for the fight ahead of him. "You'll have to kill me."
The masked figure squinted their eyes behind the mask in silence. No one spoke for what felt like an eternity, but could have only been but a few seconds.
Then, he spoke. "So be it."
And, with that, the figure unleashed his full power — Low level Legendary ranked power with his infernal devil mana giving him power closer to Mid-level legendary rank power.
Water as black as darkness tendrilled around him, following the masked figure's will, and the air crackled with power. The aquatic Infernal tendrils formed octopus-like arms around the figure, both protecting him and amplifying him in both power and defense and reach.
'That doesn't look good,' Marxes tightened his grip around his hammer, using his newly broken-through to Demigod (low) rank aura to fight the pressure this guy brought down upon him. It took everything in Marxes to still stand, but he did it regardless. 'That water was already not normal — its Infernal in nature, eroding natural defenses through extended contact.
'Thankfully, my shield was self-repairing faster than it eroded away, but that was only because he wasn't taking me seriously before. Now, though, that doesn't look to be the case. He will fight to kill me. I am certain. Gods damn it! If my prototype suit was ready, I'd be able to withstand at least this from Peak Chaotic ranks — Maybe even someone at Low Legendary rank like this man here. Gods! I feel naked. Why did this idiot have to go into a coma now of all times?!'
"I will give you my name before I slay you as tribute to your willful nature. It is amongst one of the most impressive willpowers I have laid my own eyes upon. Unfortunately , it will not be enough to save you now. You may die knowing that you have been honored," the masked man said, stepping forward in Marxes' direction. "You may call me #7 when I see me in Hell."
"I don't care what your name is—" Marxes began, but, mid-sentence, the aura vanished from Marxes' sight. "What?!"
Suddenly, Marxes' instincts screamed, and his body raised his shield instinctively.
BOOM!
Almost immediately, a sudden force crashed into the shield, shattering it and continuing on to thrust through the hole and into Marxes into the wall with such force, he became stuck to it. The wave of black water was so great that the force was equivalent to a hurricane's initial impact, but localized, which only made it even more deadly.
It was far from a pleasant feeling. Imagine 1,000+ Ibs worth of water crashing into you, pinning you horrendously against the wall, unable to move and suffocating on that water. All the while your natural affinity with mana kept you alive — barely —- even as you began drowning on that water.
That was Marxes' current situation.
'I'm honestly surprised the walls of the Academy could remain standing against such force,' Marxes thought briefly in astonishment, his eyes blurry as he tried helplessly to fight against the never ending torrent. 'But, then again, it was built to adapt to physical force and a thousand pounds of aquatic force must count towards said physical force.'
His eyesight was beginning to blur as the constant full-body, forceful waterboarding succession continued on. With horror, Marxes was noticing that the water was also sapping at his strength — Not just physical strength, but also his mana pool. The siphoning of energy was so great that Marxes was already ready to black out even when the neverending wave of water calmed and he fell to his knees against the wall, weakened, drained and completely at the mercy of the cloaked hooded figure.
"It's not that you are weak. It is that I am simply stronger. Know that you fought with your all against a force you could never hope to win against yet still remained defiant — And for that, you have my respect," the figure spoke as the water assault ended, leaving Marxes crumpled weakly against the wall, completely unable to even lift a limb, let alone put up a fight. Marxes had to watch, even though blurry sight, as the hooded figure walked past the remnants of his shield, looking directly at Marxes as he spoke. "I'll return to finish you off. I trust you won't go anywhere… I've got a prince to kill."
Then, under Marxes' near unconscious gaze, the figure walked up to Cimon's sleeping form, his tendrils turning into black blades of dark water — Then he launched them forward, all 9 of the blades converging unto Corven, all at once — All while Marxes watched helplessly.
It looked definite. Cimon Morpheus, heir of House Morpeus and the son of the primordial god of slumber, Hypnos, was about to die, and there was nothing Marxes could do to stop it.