Dantega:Volume 5 Chapter 9
(PART 3)
(Fight him, fight him, I have to fight him!)
These thoughts are running through Lelaine’s head as Sturgess zips down his pants and readies to force himself on her.
Her body is weak, and the will to fight takes its time to reach her body in the form of any physical movement, but when it finally does, she is able to weigh her next option.
She first considers clawing and scratching at him, she can imagine the sensation of it in her fingertips. Then it molds into plucking his eyes out with her bare hands, and the image of that in her head is enough to send an electric signal into her limbs.
With this newfound strength, her next course of action dawns on her when she remembers one of the maids putting a pencil-like metal hairpin in her hair. The maid looked at her with pleading eyes as she did so, they were the eyes of someone desperately asking for Lelaine to fight back.
The light in her golden eyes shine once more and emotion resurfaces in her previously sodden face, and right before Sturgess can get close enough to enact his desires, Lelaine grabs the sharp hairpin from her hair without him noticing, and sparing no moment of hesitation, stabs right into Sturgess’s neck.
“Hbbbgnnghhh!!??”
Sturgess slides off of Lelaine and grabs at his throat. Blood is gushing from his mouth, his tongue feels like a ball of barbed wire between his teeth as he struggles to breathe.
Lelaine gets up off the bed and covers her bare body with her loose robe. Ignoring the blood on her hand, she stands over him triumphantly as he gurgles for wet air.
“You’ll have a hard time raping me with that hole in your neck, you rat bastard.”
The first words she’s spoken in over a month came out smooth, yet simultaneously vicious.
“Nngghhckk!! Cuuaaacckk!”
By now, Sturgess’s eyes are bloodshot, looking up at her confusedly as if suddenly realizing that he’s been attacked.
With a shoddy move of his hand, he grabs at the hair pin and begins pulling; the eight inch hair pin took excruciating seconds to fully extricate, and upon doing so he desperately holds his neck as blood comes squirting out like a fountain.
“Gbbbahhhgggh!!!”
“I'm slightly offended that you’d think so little of me that you didn't see that coming.” Lelaine said, turning away from him and making her way to a dresser by the closet.
She opens a drawer and pulls out a small wooden box.
The delicate way in which she moves is not like someone who had just inflicted a fatal wound on a man, she seemingly floats effortlessly along the ground as if she were a ballerina. She opens the small box and grabs her tobacco pipe as though the sound of Sturgess’s agony were music she could dance to.
She then reaches back into the box and pulls out Zurvick’s charred flask, staring at it in remembrance, she says, “I’m pleased to see that my two most important items are here. I’m not so sure I could live without my tobacco and the dearest memento of my husband.”
She holds up the flask and looks through the hole stabbed through it during the Night of the Ball, when she was delivered the terrible news and first saw the hole, she had felt sick knowing that the blade that caused this hole had caused Zurvick’s death. Now when she looks at it after all this time, she feels as though this sharp puncture in the flask is her doorway into Zurvick’s former life.
Lelaine clutches the flask into her bosom before returning it to the wooden box.
Filling the bowl of her pipe with chopped leaves of tobacco, she manages a thin smile when she says, “I bet you’re feeling pretty cold right about now.”
Lelaine then opens the balcony door and steps outside, feeling the sun on her skin for the first time in so long revitalizes her; she can’t help but think of the contrast between her and Sturgess at this very moment. While he lays there writhing, getting colder and colder with each ounce of blood lost, she takes in the sunlight of this beautiful morning like a blooming flower.
“It’s a funny thing, the situation we’ve both found ourselves in.”
Turning back to him, she lights her pipe and casually watches as he dies.
“I’m sure at one point, you were feeling warm with the fruits of your ambition. You had what no man has ever had in the very palm of your hands. You had Troy. Your only problem was that you just couldn’t live with all that power if I wasn’t included in it.”
The once tall and proud General of the army is lying on the bed in a pool of his own blood, staring back at her like a fish plucked from the ocean.
To him, it’s a surreal moment of clarity.
“Because you didn’t kill me when you had taken Troy, you’re left lying there in a heap while I stand here in the warmth of the sun watching you freeze. Even you have to admit that the irony of it all merits at least a little laugh.”
Even though he can’t breath and the pain in his throat is unbearable, he feels as though Lelaine’s glare is the only thing killing him.
The color of the world surrounding him has begun to melt into a dark brown void, and he’s beginning to feel a weight pulling him down into this all encompassing sludge. It’s as though every paint on a color pallet were mixed together and brought to life solely to devour him.
“My country and I will forget about you, and we’ll carry on. So die here like the spineless coward you are, and know that your desire for what you could never have is what got you killed.”
The glare she looks at him with is so poignant and so familiar that it brings upon a torrent of memories swirling into his head, she had looked at him the same way when he confessed his desire to marry her when they were children, her eyes pierced him this same way when she outright rejected him upon meeting Zurvick.
Just what is this menacing beast that he put so much energy into conquering that he delved into psychosis to defeat? What has his infatuation with the queen of Troy ever brought him other than pain and misery? What is it about her that led him to this point here at death’s door?
The answer comes clear as his consciousness fades.
It was never about her.
It was always about him.
She is the living evidence of what he never deserved to have.
The glare of hers communicates what he’s always known.
It says that he has never once been good enough for the one thing he’s truly always wanted.
All of what remains of that desire will soon be his corpse at her feet.
Sturgess’s vision completely fades, and the pulling sensation he’s felt on his body has sunken him completely into the void.
He has died.
Lelaine has sensed his presence fade and the weight of his life and his control over her is lifted off her shoulders, she turns away from him and looks out to the city.
The capital of Troy is split into five boroughs by two winding rivers, and at the tip in a bend of the eastern river sits the northern borough in a land spur; this is the view Lelaine’s room looks out to from high up in the castle. The mountains shine brilliantly in the morning light, and as if serenity had conscious intentions, a gentle breeze dances through her hair.
She can’t help but take in a deep breath and allow herself to be taken away by the sight and sensations of this beautiful country she has ruled her entire adult life. In this state of mind, she begins to find the strength and will to carry on with the weight of her losses.
She can now at least entertain the thought of finding a way to live without Trojia and Zurvick so long as this country is here to take their place. As selfish as she would rather be, there’s a responsibility to protect Troy and her people that are fighting for her at this very moment. Even though she wants to give up on the world that has left her alone without her family, there is still the hope of others to live on for.
“I’ll smoke to that.” She says, bringing the pipe to her lips. “Zurvick, Trojia, you two will have to wait for me to get to you. There’s still a lot of work left to do here.”
“Was it worth it?” came Satan’s voice from within the void.
“Nothing is worth this.”
“Well, I can give you another chance.”
“Another chance?”
Satan’s voice has surrounded Sturgess just like the void has, but the voice has become the only thing alive for Sturgess to grasp onto.
“The power you let slip away because of your desire for Lelaine, I can give it back to you if you truly wish for it. Now that you see that you can’t have her, wouldn’t the next best thing be good enough? If you want to live, fulfill my contract and kill her. You still have a chance to rule this world.”
Sturgess can’t even move his face to express any form of reaction to this new opportunity. He’s simply a corpse in the dark brown void trapped from the outside looking in.
“Kill… Lelaine?”
Yet somehow, the thought of killing her sent a pulsating force beating into his chest, bringing sensation back to his limbs.
It’s at this moment, a light appears in front of him and gleams into his dead eyes. The light is the first form of warmth he’s felt since before he was stabbed in the neck, it has felt like ages since this sensation was last pulsating at his skin.
Now his entire body can move.
His shoddy hand longingly reaches out to the warmth of the light.
“Do you accept the conditions of this contract?”
“I…”
His hand is tantalizingly close to touching the light.
It’s taking everything he has inside to accept the meaning of this light.
But the thought of a life in power is just enough for him to make the choice clear.
“I accept!!”
The light is grasped, and a contract is signed.
Exhaling out a big plume of smoke that was immediately taken away by the mountain breeze, Lelaine lets herself relax. All that is left for her to do is await the arrival of the rebellion and she can begin the process of healing her country and reuniting her people; though the task sounds daunting, she finds herself feeling motivated at the prospect of coming out of this a stronger nation than before.
Each puff of her pipe is more pleasurable than the last, it could be because she has been separated from her vice for so long, or it could be the victorious nature of this moment. Whatever it is has made her appreciate the life she will be fortunate enough to live going forward despite the absence of the two people she cares about most.
“Don’t get so comfortable, Lelaine.”
The deep voice of Sturgess came from the queen’s suite like an avalanche coming off a mountain.
It was so jarring that Lelaine froze instead of becoming shocked by it.
She slowly turns around to find that a bloodied Sturgess is standing, alive and even more menacing than before. The wound on his neck is healed, and a churning black smoke is emanating from where the wound was and is orbiting around his body.
His threatening presence exudes an unbridled power that seemingly pushes an extra force of gravity on Lelaine’s shoulders, the terrific power is proof enough that the monster in front of her is untouchable.
No eight inch metal pin to the jugular can stop him, no magical weapon could she produce to fight back against such an overwhelming force. Trapped on the balcony, she quickly comes to the realization that her life is now completely in his evil hands.
But despite this, she still smiles.
“You think I’m uncomfortable now?” she asks.
“You certainly should be. As surprised as I was to find that you still had the will to fight back, in the end you’re nothing but a regular frail woman up against an unstoppable man.”
“Hah, unstoppable man. You lie to yourself with such ease that even I have a hard time not pitying you. You’re a fraud with the power of someone else that you claim to be your own.”
Sturgess scowls at her, angered at the fact that she stands there unafraid and unsurprised by his sudden leap back to life from well within death’s door. The woman in front of him can still be arrogant despite the difference in strength, and as much as he hates her for it, it has always been the driving force of his desire for her.
“Not this time.” he says with gritted teeth. “You aren’t going to defeat me with your words either. You’re going to learn here and now that I have finally won!”
“And how will you do that?” she asks, taking a puff out her pipe and leaning her backside against the stone railing of the balcony. “Will you finally have the nerve to kill me?”
Understanding the contract he had signed with Satan that brought him back to life, he knows that killing her is exactly what he must do.
“I can do it!.”
“Oh?”
“But killing you won’t be enough to have truly won. I need to take everything from you. by killing every last person still loyal to you with my own two hands, I will take your people. By adjusting the very foundation of Troy the way I see fit, I will take your country from you.”
Sturgess then spreads his arms out triumphantly, pushing out the black smoke orbiting him and making his shirtless frame bigger.
“But to take it all!” he declares. “I need to take your body from you!”
It’s at this moment, the snake’s voice comes from within the smoke.
“Why would you risk losing it all again for something as meaningless as her body?”
“Because that is the only way I’ll win!” Sturgess replies with a cockeyed smile. “You don’t think I haven’t realized that if I kill her, you’re going to be the only one who wins?? I accepted that offer knowing just that, it’s something I’m willing to sacrifice, but you can’t have your victory before I have mine damn it!”
Satan stays silent from within the smoke, his silence seemingly accepting what Sturgess has to say.
“The contract I signed says that I must kill her, but it doesn’t stipulate when that needs to happen. I can kill her, and I will! But I need to defeat her first! I need to taste victory for myself first!”
“So you’ll continue on this path… very well then. Fulfill the contract as you deem fit.”
The presence of the snake disappears, and even Lelaine can sense that what is left standing in front of her is a truly depraved shell of the person she had grown up with. He’s no different from a bloodhound now, he has the scent of Lelaine and is simply unable to follow the path towards anything else.
She has finally come to the conclusion that there is only one way to fight against a blood thirsty vampire that can only survive off the nutrients of her body.
“What a pathetic mess you are, Sturgess.” Lelaine said, lifting herself onto the stone railing and sitting completely on the edge of it. “To so casually reveal what I need to do to make sure you’ll always consider yourself the loser you and I both know you as.”
“What do you think you could possibly do to stop me now?” he asks, still smiling confidently as he inched his way towards her.
“I’ll take away your sweet victory.”
“..?”
By now, Lelaine is dangling her feet off the ground, shifting her center of gravity further back as she takes another drag from her pipe.
“You see, upon your death I had just finally found motivation to live on. As hard as it is for me to accept that Zurvick and Trojia are gone, I had come to realize that there was still something worth living for. That doesn’t mean that dying has suddenly became a less desirable option however, I’m just as comfortable with either, truly.”
Sturgess begins feeling a pressure in his chest as a new threat has presented itself in front of him.
“You wouldn’t…”
Striking a subtle pose meant to antagonize him, Lelaine reveals a weaponized smile that shines in the sunlight.
At this very moment, a breeze comes off the eastern mountains and gently tosses her golden hair to the side and wisps away the smoke from her pipe as she flicks the ashen remnants of her tobacco.
“Living and dying are my only two options left to me as I sit here now. How can I choose life when the other option means defeating you?”
“Lelaine, get off that balcony right now.” Sturgess’s voice wavered when he said that, and he doesn’t want to make any sudden moves that may push her off the edge.
In his craze, he had never thought that Lelaine would be willing to die to avoid him. It’s likely that the narcissistic lens in which his mind works within simply didn’t allow himself to think that he’d be an option worse than death. How could he have possibly thought that he was so repugnant that anyone would sooner kill themselves then allow his touch?
The sudden realization of this is a devastating blow.
“Oh, I’ll be off of this balcony soon enough.”
“W-Wait!” Sturgess pleas cautiously, “You’d really give up on yourself just like that? Just what the fuck were you staying alive this long for then!?”
“I lived because I hoped.” She smoothly answers, Lelaine doesn’t blink as she continues, “That flask, you know as well as I do how lucky Zurvick is… If that one knife wound through that flask wasn’t enough to kill him by itself, then there was hope that he’d still be alive.”
Hearing her say that is yet another blow to the deranged general, she’d live through hell just for the hope of seeing Zurvick again, but die like a dog to avoid him.
He’d be foolish not to understand that this has always been the case after spending so many years as a spectator to their love, but the further he’s gone down this path of madness with the Devil, the more the reality of it had driven him so deep into his madness that there’s nothing of a normal human remaining.
“Then don’t!”
Sturgess hesitates to continue, and grits his teeth at the thought of telling her the truth to keep her alive. If she will die to beat him and live for Zurvick, he must do what it takes to not lose the one thing he wants most.
“Zurvick is alive!”
“Oh?” Lelaine skeptically tilts her head.
“He’s fighting with the rebellion as we speak, he might even be the one to run through that door to save you!”
This sudden confession has brought upon an expression of surprise to Lelaine’s face.
Sturgess feels like he’s reaching her. If he can convince her that Zurvick is coming to her rescue, she’ll keep herself alive long enough for Sturgess to kill them both comfortably with his upgraded power.
“So get down off that ledge and wait for him.”
With these thoughts in mind, the face of a lying schemer is what is presented even though he is telling the truth.
Keen on the physical tell of these thoughts of his, Lelaine replies, “I refuse. Like I'd ever believe the sugary words of a man on the verge of losing everything.”
“I’m telling you the truth!” Sturgess gestures with his hands. “I had thought he was dead too, but I saw a picture of him in the paper alongside the rebels just this morning, and before I got to you I saw him with my own two eyes fighting at the gate!”
Her steely glare never leaving Sturgess and never once wavering upon hearing what she believes to be an attempt to trick her, she smoothly allows some devastating words to leave her lips.
“I’ve heard enough out of you, I won’t let you patronize my resolve any longer.”
“Lelaine, just listen to me!”
“The answer is no, Sturgess.” Tilting herself completely back, she still manages to look him square in the eyes with a triumphant smile when she says, “You lose yet again.”
As soon as she finished saying that, she tilted her upper body backwards and flung herself off the balcony.
“!!”
“LELAINE!”
Rushing into the room at just the right time to see the form of Lelaine falling off the balcony, Zurvick had stumbled upon a nightmare.
Without a moment’s hesitation he runs after her, quickly sprinting past a frozen in shock Sturgess and lunging his arm over the railing of the balcony in a desperate attempt to reach her.
“NOOO!!”
The attempt is futile.
He’s now watching her fall.
In her rapid descent, Lelaine had heard Zurvick calling out her name, but with heightened senses assaulting every inch of her body, his voice came to her as though it were a dream through the wind. Hearing his faint voice has reminded her that she is falling towards the place where her beloved husband is, and the thought of it allows her a smile of comfort, almost relieved that the trials she has been put under over the last year has come to an end.
(My love.) She thinks to herself, time slowing down but the wind blowing in her ears increasingly grows louder. (My daughter.)
In the waning moments of her life, the memories she’s shared with Zurvick and Trojia replay in her head in astonishing detail. From meeting Zurvick for the first time, to giving birth to Trojia, to dinners spent laughing with the two of them, it all came rushing into her mind like a waterfall of emotion.
(We’ll all be together again soon.)
Feeling grateful and prepared for what’s next, Lelaine's body twists in the air and now she finds herself looking up towards the 25th floor balcony from which she jumped from.
It’s in this very short moment that time comes to a complete stop for her.
Frozen in a waking instant, her vision is heightened to the point that she can make out the details of Zurvick’s face staring down at her.
She can see the twisted fear on his face.
Her hearing becomes so heightened that she can now hear him calling out her name as clear as it would if he were right in front of her.
She can hear the desperation and sadness in his voice as he calls out to her.
In this heightened state of awareness, she has come to realize that what she’s seeing is not an illusion and what she’s hearing is not the voice of a phantom.
Zurvick is alive.
Her eyes widen in shock, and she takes a sharp gasp of despair that ever so suddenly fills her heart with regret.
Time returns to normal and the loud noise of the wind rushes back into her ears in a gale.
SPPLLAASSHHH!!!
Her body lands in the moat surrounding the castle in a devastating impact.
From the very top floor all the way down to the ground is a fall of 250 feet, and Lelaine’s body fell in at terminal velocity.
She died instantly.
Zurvick can see her lifeless body float in the water of the moat with a circle of red around her.
Down there is the woman he vowed to spend the rest of his life with, the mother of his daughter, the person he loves most in the world. Down there is the woman that will never come back to him, he’ll never be able to touch her again and she’ll never touch him again.
They will never see each other again despite being so tantalizingly close to being reunited.
His tongue grows very dry and he has a hard time breathing as he drops to his knees and puts his head up against the smooth stone railing of the balcony.
His body begins to convulse as though he was struck by a gust of the most bitterly cold wind.
Because he didn’t make it back in time, his wife is dead.
It's likely that the two of them suffered the exact same emotion just before she landed, finally being so close to each other, but impossibly far away is the worst conceivable fate for the duo.
His body is so overcome with shock, despair, and regret that he can't even cry.
Sturgess on the other hand remains frozen in disbelief.
He had just been defeated in the most insulting way to him.
She truly meant what she said all these years, she truly rejected every last bit of him.
Now he is left with nothing, and the loss of purpose is almost enough to cripple him mentally.
In his daze he locks onto the form of Zurvick and replaces the emotions that have come with his sudden defeat with a burning rage.
He still can not come to blame himself for his loss, and quickly shifts responsibility onto Zurvick’s shoulders. After all, it was his appearance back when they were kids that spelled the end of his chances with Lelaine and the beginning of many years of torment. The person in front of him had stolen the life he had always wanted, lived as a king and had the unrivaled love of the woman he felt he had to have in order to survive.
To Sturgess, Zurvick never even had to work for it. Zurvick was just as lucky as always, constantly in the right place at the right time and reaping the benefits of such luck at the expense of those around him.
“It’s your fault!” he shouts towards Zurvick’s back. “You didn’t make it here in time to save her and now I have nothing!!”
Zurvick hasn’t even turned to acknowledge the powerful beast in his room, the menacing presence isn’t near enough to steal away his stuck gaze on Lelaine’s corpse floating in the moat below.
Sturgess points his hands at Zurvick’s back and prepares to blow Zurvick to bits, the cloud that was surrounding him swirls and forms in front of his palms.
With just one push, he will kill Zurvick and destroy the last external being left to blame for his ultimate failure.
But before he could exact his pathetic revenge, the snake exits out of the pentagram on the back of his hand.
“You will do no such thing, General.”
“Get out of my way, snake! I’m going to kill him!”
“No no, you’ve failed to understand me, your body is now forfeit.”
The next heartbeat Sturgess feels is so intense that it buckles him to his knees and he coughs out blood.
“Gbbbhhaaah!?” He holds his chest in anguish as he moans. “W-What!?”
“You shouldn’t be so surprised, this was in the contract after all.”
“Nnnggghh! I never promised you anything of the sort!”
The snake begins slithering around Sturgess’s neck as it continues to speak, “You’re wrong General, you promised me everything if I gave you everything.”
“But you haven’t given me that!”
“That’s because you didn’t fulfill your end of the bargain.”
“!?”
The pain Sturgess is feeling is almost unbearable, the bulging veins in his forehead and neck are pulsating and are taking on the appearance of squirming black worms under his skin.
“All you needed to do was kill the Queen and you would have joined me in taking over this world. Instead, you allowed her to kill herself, you broke the one very specific rule of our newly formed contract.”
“What difference does it make if she’s dead by my hands or not!? How could you betray me like this!?”
The snake’s eyes glow a bright red, and to Sturgess it looks like it is sneering at him, mocking his pain and confusion.
“The difference is that I knew you could never actually kill the one thing you needed most, and I was predicting Lelaine’s actions upon the threat of your existence. You see, she was the only one I couldn’t temp after all, she was the only one strong enough to take fate into her own hands. Just because she is that way, you ended up breaking our contract and betraying yourself.”
In the end, Satan has simply done what he has always been known to do; the master conniver has again fooled another victim. By presenting delusions of grandeur as reality and offering people their wildest dreams on a gold platter, he tempts them into signing a contract that only he can benefit from. Every man he’s made a deal with loses out in the end, Sturgess is no different.
Sturgess had no clue that if he was not personally the one to kill the Queen he’d lose his body and soul, and that is because the rewards flashed before his eyes at the time clouded his judgment. He had truly been led down a path where it seemed like he had control over the powers given to him, he had believed that he had autonomy over how the contract would be carried out and how much time was afforded to him to do it.
“Y-You double crossing bastard!”
“If only you were as smart as Lelaine, you’d have avoided this dreadful fate.”
“No... I won’t allow this!” Sturgess shouts at the snake, the reality of his situation is beginning to make him panic.
“You truly no longer have a choice.”
All of the snake’s scales fly off its skin and roam around Sturgess’ head like a swarm of bees; the body of the snake then dissolves into what looks to be a fine powder and storms into every opening in Sturgess’ face. It would seem that this is very painful for him because his screams of agony are loud enough to hurt Zurvick’s ears.
After a few agonizing moments, Sturgess’ hair turns jet black and the blackened veins bulging in his forehead and cheeks grow even larger.
Satan’s poison is eating him alive.
This is a hostile takeover of a human body; what he’s experiencing is far worse than any average possession by a demon. He’s literally having his soul ripped from his body.
“I have reserved a special spot in Hell for people consumed by Lust such as yourself.” Satan’s voice echoes around Sturgess’ screams. “You will become nothing but a statistic in the mass numbers of men who are to be swept by terrible winds to and fro without any hope of rest for all eternity. A fitting punishment for your final failure.”
When he is referring to never ending winds blowing people all about he is talking about the Second Level of Hell; the place where humans who lived their lives consumed by lust are doomed to. In the Second Level, a wind so loud and so severe blows that the constant torrent sends naked men and women bashing into each other violently, making sure that each contact with one’s skin results in nothing but the pain of broken bones instead of pleasure. This torture continues forever as they are doomed to never sleep, eat, and drink. They must endure the pain of the ear shattering noise of the wind and the horrors that go along with it for every waking moment.
“Noooo!!! This can’t be happening! This is not how it’s supposed to be!!” Sturgess shouts in denial.
“I do have to thank you for your splendid sacrifice though, I’ve been dreaming of this day for over a thousand years.”
“I am supposed to be someone that achieves greatness in life! Someone who gets everything that he’s ever wanted! It can’t end like this!!”
Sturgess’ eyes roll back in his head and his tongue seems to shrivel to the back of his throat as his humid mouth becomes as dry as a desert. With one final gasp of air, his breathing stops, and as stiff as a board he falls backwards and leans on the wall.
He twitches a couple times when seemingly out of nowhere a black tornado of wind swirls all around his body and he is engulfed.
The wind is so hard that it’s leaving gashes in the wall of the castle behind him and sending lightweight items of the room swirling all about.
After a few seconds of this the wind suddenly stops and the room is peppered with an eerie silence; only a ball of smoke surrounds his body and that slowly dissipates, finally revealing the man in the middle.
There stands Sturgess with a smile on his face.
His hair is completely black, his eyes that were rolled in the back of his head just moments earlier are now positioned forward and shine in an evil red glow.
Resting atop his forehead is a black pentagram.
Just these three things are enough to show that this is not Sturgess any longer, and that truth becomes even more evident when the man begins to speak.
“It’s done... I have returned to this world once more!” The voice of Satan exits out of Sturgess’ mouth as he spreads his arms in triumph.
Zurvick is just standing there speechless, he was told by London and the others that this is what they were fighting to avoid at all costs, but something as far-fetched as the Devil taking over Sturgess’s body and replanting himself on the face of the world was a little beyond him. Actually seeing it happen before his eyes is borderline maddening, especially when he could've stopped it if he made it to Lelaine in time.
The guilt of it all has absolutely crushed him.
“I must say King Zurvick, you’ve done nothing but help me since you’ve returned. I was worried that Sturgess would lose control and easily be defeated by you and the Knights once you gallantly returned to save your beloved. But all it did was hurry him into one bad decision after the other.” Satan walks to the frozen Zurvick and continues to speak.
“You know this whole thing, the war, the kidnappings of your daughter and the others, that was all a precursor to this moment. Everything was for me to rise once more. I’ve gambled everything on this chess game of mine, I sacrificed every piece I’ve placed a thousand years worth of my power into just to get to where I am now.”
Satan can see the dead look in Zurvick’s eyes as every word that exits his mouth stabs into the broken King like knives.
“If it weren’t for you, I’m not so sure I would have won this game.”
Zurvick’s reaction to his words feeds his pleasure.
“My final chess piece was Sturgess. And the enemy King piece was none other than Lelaine... Would you like to know why?”
“.....”
Zurvick can’t speak, he’s heard the gist of this ‘Chess Game’ between Noah and Satan but couldn’t see it as anything more than a figure of speech.
“I saw all of this coming.” Satan says with a confident smile, “I knew that this country would fight back after a hostile takeover from Sturgess, I knew that there’d be thousands of deaths in this city. In fact, I was already thinking ahead of even that when I took the General’s soul. You see, I am the Devil, but with only a fraction of my strength in this vessel I'd still be vulnerable to mass numbers. If the population of La’Juune and Eiyalazo were to attack me it's very likely that I'd be defeated eventually if I were to fight by myself. I needed a contingency plan so I figured I’d take advantage of the fact that along with your daughter, my son abducted the Angel of Death and sent them to Purgatory. Sure there are other reapers desperately trying to send souls to their proper destinations but they’re not enough to do it all. He stole the one man who could harvest the souls of all the lives lost in this world war.”
Satan can still sense that Zurvick is borderline clueless about where he’s going with this so he decides to get to the point.
“What if I told you that I have my own reapers collecting souls? Well I have many, and the majority of them are here today, around this very castle, specifically for this very rebellion.”
“You can’t mean...”
“Oh you’re starting to get it now huh? That’s good, I hope you understand that in order to win in any game, sacrifices must be made. In this case, in order to raise my army once more, a certain amount of souls must be sacrificed.”
Zurvick takes a deep gasp of air as what Satan is planning on doing finally hits him. He’s heard the stories of the Apocalypse, he’s heard that in order to raise an army from Hell, the Antichrist killed off millions of people at once and used their souls to do it. What Satan is saying is that he’s planning on doing the same thing and he’s using the deaths of this rebellion as a kick-start.
“Everyone in this castle will be used as kindling for the flame of my victory. No soul shall escape, they will all be used to bring about my full power.”
Satan takes another step towards Zurvick and puts his hand on his shoulder. The mere touch from the Devil is enough to break a man but it would seem that Zurvick has already long been in pieces.
As if pitying him, Satan reveals a smug expression. “But don’t worry my fair King. I won’t use your wife’s soul, instead I’ll send it where it belongs. I’m sure you’ve heard about the unfair fate of those who commit suicide?”
“!!”
“She’ll be in Hell for all of eternity. Far from the reach of tenderness from any man. She’ll be in a state of despair, suffering through the regrets of her past life forever.”
Zurvick’s breathing becomes shoddy and his body begins to rock back and forth.
“What do you think of that?” Satan asks as he squeezes onto his shoulder. “What do you think about that being your fault? How will you deal with that? Would it make you want to die?”
“.....”
He doesn’t answer.
“I could end it for you now. You wouldn’t have to see the world become swallowed by my darkness, you wouldn’t have to suffer with the guilt of knowing that you played a direct role in it. I can give you the easy way out if you simply say the word.”
“.....”
It’s very likely that Zurvick would rather die than live through that kind of pain, but sadly he can’t even speak. His loss is too great, not only did he lose his wife but he’s lost her in a way that she’ll be forced to spend the rest of time in Hell. The guilt he feels for that is enough to constrict his heart so badly that he has trouble breathing.
Satan releases his grip on his shoulder and says, “Killing you would only be doing you a favor, a much stiffer punishment for coming a few seconds too late is for you to remain alive.”
Satan walks to the window and peers outside.
“I think you deserve to watch your Kingdom and your people… the entire world, all succumb to me. I think that you should watch closely as they worship me and address me as God, and live with the fact that you had a chance to stop it.”
These words absolutely demolish Zurvick, he throws his face in his hands and stares at the ground with small pupils peering through the gaps between his fingers. The look in his green eyes is that of pure devastation.
“Now go.” Satan says as he gestures towards the door, “Get out of my castle, and live the rest of your pathetic life with this guilt as your burden.”
Zurvick fumbles as he takes his first few steps until he shoddily turns his head toward the dresser, seeing his charred flask. He takes it out of the box and squeezes it tightly against his chest, he then somehow steadies himself as he exits the room.
Leaving this once warm room filled with memories of many happy nights spent together with Lelaine in the hands of the Devil is a dreadful pain he’ll never forget the feeling of.
Zurvick makes his way down a flight of stairs from the top floor of the castle and ends up on the level where he last saw London. In a blank haze he is walking down the bloodstained hallways of his home, weaving his way through the bodies of his own countrymen.
These dead men, all of them, whether they fought for the Queen or for Sturgess, their efforts were all for the benefit of Satan, their souls are just going to be sacrificed for a different cause. There are still people fighting even now but their figures are all blurry to him and their screams don’t reach him, he can only hear the sound the blood makes under his feet with each step.
He’s in such a daze that even the enemy soldiers pay no mind to him as they don’t see him as a threat, to them he’s just another casualty of mental illness on the battlefield.
He takes a slight turn to the left and sees an even more gruesome sight, dozens of dead bodies tattering the area around London as he walks towards another batch of frightened enemy soldiers.
The Knight is such a force that a group of ten soldiers are scared stiff of him; the men allied with Sturgess have been trying to find a way past him this entire time and every last one of them has failed miserably.
But there is someone brave enough to stand in front of those ten frightened soldiers and confront the Knight. He is Anders Henson, one of the co-conspirators of Sturgess' coup, and the leader of the Royal Guard.
"I don't know who the hell you think you are, but you're blocking the path to my King." Anders said, he wears a bitter frown as he walks towards London.
"Captain!" One of the frightened soldiers behind him shouts in relief as though Anders' appearance is their salvation.
London simply sighs and replies, "Ah, I see. So you're the leader of the pack?"
"Step aside." Anders demands.
"Not until the true King exits that door." London said as he gestures down the hallway leading to the Queen's room.
"Fine then, it's about time I shake off some rust. I haven't fought in a while."
Anders rushes London without another word. He pulls out his sword in a full sprint and holds it up above his head for a downwards strike.
London doesn't even flinch, he smoothly takes his right leg and pivots forward. Immediately after that simple motion, a gurgled moan is heard.
"Gbbbhh!?"
"Didn't anyone ever tell you not to blindly charge an enemy? You should've taken your time to at least see what kind of weapon I have."
That weapon, the fencing sword, has been stabbed into the back of Anders' throat through his mouth.
One must wonder how this happened so fast, Anders certainly wants to know, and London answers.
"I use this sword because it causes confusion in an enemy's depth perception. The blade's thin, very thin, so if you're not careful you'd think that I was swinging it further away than it actually is."
London twists on the pointed fencing sword and blood gushes out of Anders' mouth. The pain causes the leader of the castle's guard to collapse onto his knee.
"In this case." London continues, "You couldn't judge the space between us by looking at the front of my sword. You probably thought you had plenty of room. That's why when in doubt you should always look at the arm of the man swinging the sword."
The Knight pushes the blade deeper into his throat and Anders begins to fall back.
"Auuuaaahhgghh!!"
"Too bad no one taught you that."
Without any further ado, London pushes his weight into the sword and it skewers through his throat and out the back of his neck. As if that wasn't enough, London swings his sword to the side and sends half of Anders face flying in a gale of blood.
It's definitely overkill, but he only did that because if he pulled straight back out, the blood would've sprayed on his shirt. Instead it sprayed on all the onlooking men who had thought that they were going to be saved by their captain.
London killed him so easily that it sent even more fear into them.
The Knight's glare turns to those men and with it, a few of them make nervous groans as if they've just been spotted by a bear alone in the woods. This is when London starts walking towards them. It's obvious what he intends to do once he closes the gap.
However...
Out of the corner of his eye, London catches sight of Zurvick and turns to him.
“King Zurvick? What are you doing here so soon?”
Zurvick doesn’t answer and simply walks right on past him and right on past the confused enemy soldiers. London is bewildered as well; he wonders what has put him in such a state and what could possibly be the reason for his separation from his wife at the top floor.
Then it hits him, the many different situations roll through his mind at once and his eyes instantly widen.
He makes his way past the frightened men in pursuit of Zurvick, as he leaves the enemy soldiers with some final parting words.
“The battle’s over.”
The men don’t do anything and just stand there as London runs after Zurvick.
London grits his teeth and has genuine worry in his eyes when he thinks to himself,
(I have a bad feeling about this...)
Ash is at the bottom floor of the castle, her day of fighting has ended because this certain floor, and just about the entire castle has been won over by the rebellion. The remaining enemies still fighting are completely surrounded and it is only a matter of time before they surrender.
The mass of loyal Trojans are already celebrating their hard fought victory, and Ash is no exception. For the most part, this is her first real battle. To have it happen here and for this cause, and to obtain victory is more euphoric than she could have ever imagined.
“I can’t believe we did it.” Ash says as she leans up against a staircase in somewhat of an exhausted fashion. “We won...”
She smiles wholeheartedly and takes a look around, through the carnage of this morning, happiness has broken through. A new surge of emotion brews in her chest and all she can think about is Zurvick, she figures he’s probably enjoying his reunion with the Queen at this moment, but that won’t stop her.
After taking a deep breath of determination she says to herself, “Alright! Let’s go find him!”
She begins to run up the large staircase leading to the upper levels of the castle and weaves her way through a couple people when,
Thunk!
She nails someone straight on.
She barely keeps herself from falling down the stairs and after grabbing the guardrail she instinctively shouts, “Hey watch where you're going!”
That’s when she catches a glimpse of the person her verbal assault was directed towards. She recognizes the man, and can tell right away that the life in his eyes has been dulled, it’s as though she has just run into a zombie.
“Zurvick!?” she shouts in surprise.
“Damn it all, how the hell could I lose track of him?” London says to himself while squeezing his temples in annoyance. “He’s walking a grand total of no miles per hour for Christ’s sake.”
London is up on the tenth floor of the castle and is quite angered at the fact that he lost track of Zurvick in the fray. Even though he was walking lifelessly and rather slow; he managed to blend in with the thousands of people making their way throughout the castle.
To be perfectly honest, he’s not the only one wearing that kind of face and moving around with that kind of demeanor. Nonetheless he was still careless, for one of the Knights to get distracted so easily is pretty embarrassing.
Trying to find the stairs down and pushing people out of the way in the process, he stumbles upon a few familiar faces in the crowd. Coming up the clustered stairs are Ebihara Seiri, Haas Avondale, and Lennox Applewood.
Their appearances are completely different from everyone else because they are completely unscathed and have this disinterested air about them whilst everything around them is so hectic.
Lennox shoves a guy out of the way and waves to London. “Yooo! There you are, for a second there I thought we’d never find you in this cluster-fuck of humanity.”
“Now that we have, can we go home now? We’ve won this battle already so there’s nothing keeping us here.” Seiri added.
Haas stays completely silent like usual.
London sighs and pushes up his glasses; his voice turns solemn when he replies, “Something’s telling me that we didn’t win this one...”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sure we’ll find out at any moment now.”
Zurvick ignores Ash’s presence and walks right past her as if she were a ghost. He slowly makes his way through all of the cheering Trojans and heads toward the large front door of the castle. The morning sunlight beams through that open door and it makes Ash feel as if he is going to walk into the light and never return.
She immediately pursues him and rushes to his side. “What’s wrong, Zurvick!?”
The broken Zurvick just keeps his wide eyed glare directly toward the light in which he is walking to.
With yet another snuff of a reply from him, Ash shows her frustration and kicks him about as hard as she can in the shin.
But this time he didn’t even flinch.
His reaction is completely different from normal, he should have hit the deck and shouted ridiculously.
Not seeing that reaction, her frustration is replaced by a heart pounding anxiety.
“Z-Zurvick... where’s the Queen?”
This question finally gets an answer, but not one that Ash wanted to hear.
Outside of the castle proper, a cool late morning breeze hits them as the light from the sun reflects off their bodies. The smell of fresh air replaces the smell of blood that their noses had gotten used to inside the castle.
With the breeze blowing through his hair, he slowly turns to her and answers,
“...She’s gone.”
“It’s time.” Satan said as he walked out on the balcony where Lelaine had jumped from.
About a hundred feet above him is the crow’s nest that holds the Trojan flag atop it; he simply looks up and he begins levitating towards it. Standing impossibly on the thin flag pole, he takes a deep breath and holds his finger out. From above comes a little black orb that floats down and lands on his fingertip.
“Hmmm... Not quite enough yet.” he says as he squeezes the orb in his palm.
He then drops it and it stops its fall directly below his feet. With a snap of his finger, the orb flattens and expands to form a massive pentagram that surrounds the entirety of the castle from above.
This is obviously some kind of seal, and if one looked at it closely, they could see that all the little intricate designs of it hold similarity to the seal used to bind Ubica to the eternal lake during the Apocalypse.
“But I don’t need many more souls to complete this seal. The ones left in the castle should be more than enough for now.”
With a couple hand gestures, Satan then slams his open palm down towards the pentagram seal and it turns bright purple.
It begins to spin as he says, “All men in this castle, I hereby claim you as enemies. As punishment, I demand your souls!”
The pentagram seal shoots downwards and makes its way through the castle while spinning.
This pentagram is actually a spell used to consume the souls of the living in mass numbers, once the mass of the pentagram reaches the bottom floor, everyone who survived the gruesome battle for the Queen will be wiped out.
On the tenth floor, London and the other three Knights stand cautiously as a rumbling sound from above makes its way down towards them.
The rest of the men in the hallway are clueless as to what is going on and are continuing in the reverie of their victory. Then a bang is heard so loud from above it actually stops them in their tracks, they all look up like turkeys on a rainy day and wonder what that sound was.
As if answering their worries, a man in a Cardinal's robe rushes down a flight of stairs that leads to the next floor.
The man is none other than Cardinal Luudnt and the men alongside the Knights instantly recognize him.
They figured that the Cardinal has been in hiding this entire time judging by his unscathed appearance, but the look on his face is absolute fear as he makes his way towards London and the others while shouting,
“RUN, RUN!!! IT’S COMING!!! IT’S--------“
All of the sudden, following him down the stairwell is a massive gust of wind that shatters every window of the hallway in its path. Four or five windows shatter before the wind hits Cardinal Luudnt and a purple orb of light screams out of his mouth, breaking his jaw and taking teeth along with it.
The Cardinal’s body falls lifelessly to the ground in a thud as if someone had dropped a sack of potatoes.
That purple orb then flies through the wind and makes its way back upstairs as if it was vacuumed by something.
This sight was all it took for the remainder of the men to turn away from the ensuing gust of wind and run as fast as possible to the lower floors.
London on the other hand, tries his best to remain calm and turns to the others.
He pushes up his glasses and his usual calm demeanor shatters when he shouts,
“We need to get out of the castle now!!!”
The other three don’t ask questions and quickly jump to their right and directly through the closed windows of the hallway, shattering the glass with the weight of their bodies and sending themselves flying into the open. Once outside, the rushing wind from inside the castle blows the already broken glass in their direction as they fall and they can only cover themselves as the loud sound of the passing air surrounds them.
They have narrowly avoided having their souls sucked out of them, but they are not out of danger just yet.
And Lennox points this out while the shards of glass chase them as they fall.
“HOLY SHIT THAT’S A LONG WAY DOWN!!!”
“What do you mean she’s gone..?” Ash asks in disbelief.
Zurvick’s face twitches awkwardly for a moment, he turns away from her and begins to walk across the bloodstained bridge over the moat from the battle earlier. He has no intention of going into detail about Lelaine, if possible, he’d like to block the entire thing from his mind somehow since reliving it is just too painful.
Ash doesn’t let him get off easy however, she latches onto him and again asks, “What do you mean!?!?”
Now Zurvick frowns, he turns to her, grabs her shoulders and shakes her violently. “What else could I possibly mean!? She’s dead, Captain, my wife is dead!”
Faced with his sudden outburst, Ash is left speechless. She’s never seen such pain in a person’s eyes, she’s never heard such despair in someone’s voice.
Until now.
The fact that it has come from him of all people is enough to break her heart.
Zurvick lets go of her and falls to his knees, it would seem that his own words made the reality of his wife’s death all the more realistic. His shoulders drop and his head hangs low as tears start to fall from his eyes for the first time in what seems to be years.
The sobs of the person Ash cares about the most hurts her ears, she had never thought she’d see him in such a state. This is the man that she has only seen smile for as long as she can remember, she now feels that he’ll never smile again; it will be replaced permanently by the expression he’s wearing now.
What can she do to give him back that smile?
What can she say that will help ease his pain?
Is there even anything that can do that?
Ash doesn’t know, and she doubts heavily that her words will even reach him at this moment, but she decides that this is the only thing she can do for him.
She leans down to his level and grabs onto each of his cheeks, she looks him square in the eye and says,
“Listen Zurvick... I’m so sorry, I don’t know what happened but I need you to know that all isn’t lost.“
Zurvick is sobbing uncontrollably, the heat of the falling tears on his face feels like hot lava on Ash’s hands.
“We all still need you to be strong, there are still so many people that love you. Me included.”
Her words seemed to have momentarily struck a comprehensive cord inside the beleaguered King, almost to the point where he can reply to her.
But before he had a chance to speak…
VVVOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
A thick, loud bass noise is heard from behind them as a severe concussion is felt under their feet. The water of the moat begins to wake as the suspension cable of the draw bridge begins to swing a little.
“!?”
Ash turns around and looks up to see a sight that so far outstretches her length of imagination it’s mind blowing.
Thousands of purple, blue, green, and red orbs float upwards toward the sky, followed by a massive pentagram seal. The little lights seem to scream in agony as they twirl about towards a shirtless figure at the very tip of the castle.
“Wha..?”
She doesn’t even have time to think when all the windows of the castle begin popping like balloons.
The shards from the smaller ones can’t reach them; but she is terrified when she catches sight of the largest window of the castle that stretches from the second floor all of the way to the fifth expanding from within and exploding outwards in a great torrent of wind.
The hailstorm of glass is sent on a direct collision course with her and Zurvick.
Some pieces of the falling shards are so big they easily double the size of a human body, if the small shards weren’t deadly enough, if one of these giant pieces were to hit them they’d be crushed instead of skewered..
Knowing what comes next, Ash shouts, “Zurvick get down!!!”
She immediately dives on him without even thinking.
The two lay on the wooden draw bridge as the splashes from the shards of the massive window hit the water around them. Then what follows is the sound of the wooden bridge being pelted by the razor sharp shards, it’s as though someone was playing a dart game with their position on the bridge as the board. From within the fray of all these different noises, a distinct sound is heard. It is the sound of flesh being sliced, followed by a liquid being spilled.
Zurvick knows this noise all too well and once the warmth of that liquid is felt on his chest his tongue feels like a ball of cotton.
He takes sharp, deep breaths as the glare from the shard of glass that fell atop them beams his eyes.
Ash slowly gets up and looks around; they are absolutely surrounded by glass protruding from seemingly every spot on the bridge. She then looks at Zurvick, and other than the shocked expression on his face, she can see that he is completely unscathed.
She smiles at him as the light from her eyes begins to fade.
“Thank goodness... you’re... okay...”
Her body falls limp and she collapses on top of him.
Stabbed into her back, is a foot long shard of glass from the window of the castle.
She has sacrificed her body to protect the King of Troy, and by the looks of it she has paid the ultimate price.
Zurvick can’t handle this, he can’t watch another person he cares about die right in front of him. He leans up and pulls the glass shard out of her back, and to his dismay, blood squirts everywhere and begins to puddle around their legs.
The usual tanned Ash is losing her color rapidly and becoming as pale as the moon.
She is dying in his arms.
He groans as he tries to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to the wound, but he is in such a poor mental state that he can’t even find the words to beg her to stay awake.
All he can do is hold the wound tightly and look down on her with pleading eyes.
When she doesn’t even budge, it hits him again.
This is all his fault.
His wife, his daughter, his country, and now this young girl who’d sacrifice herself to protect such a weak man like him. He can’t lose her too; he refuses to lose her too. But sadly he doesn’t know how not to lose, he has forgotten what it was like when he was able to win and protect others in the process. He is now completely useless, a helpless man who is watching everything he’s ever cared about being taken away one by one.
Once Ash is gone, everything is gone.
He’d have lost it all.
The words she had spoken to him just moments earlier were forgotten and replaced with thoughts of self destruction.
He’s only capable of squeezing her limp frame tightly within his arms and letting all of the pent up emotions of guilt, shame, regret, and despair, exit his mouth in a blood curdling cry.
“UUUUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!”
The souls of all the soldiers of the rebellion shine above Satan’s head like stars until he raises his hand and they all begin to swirl and mold into each other.
The souls mix all the way until there are only two orbs left, they have mixed in so much that the pretty colors are now gone and instead are an ugly black, the same dark color that formed the pentagram.
Satan holds the two orbs, one in each hand and smiles. He then tosses them to the side and they both float off in opposite directions until landing about a hundred meters away on each side of the castle.
After a few moments of silence, two beams of black energy shoot from the ground and tower into the sky. The two towers are so high it seemingly stands parallel with the mountains that surround the city. The two structures have got to be at least five times the size of the Trojan castle.
These two towers, formed from the two little orbs, have hundreds of windows that stretch all of the way to the top.
Satan spreads his arms and begins to speak, “To every man and every woman of the world, I speak to you in every tongue, to inform you that you are all under my rule.”
When he says he speaks to every man and woman, and in every language, he is literally doing that. The Archangels have used this very method during the Apocalypse, and in some sense, so did Ubica. Everyone in the world can hear Satan’s voice at this very moment.
“I am Satan and I am now your God! Worship me! Pray to me! And I shall give you life!”
Out of the windows of the two towers come thousands upon thousands of demons, flying, climbing, falling from the darkness and into the light of the world.
“This is my army! You can all see it can’t you?”
Satan showed visions of his army through every human’s mind as he said that, this way they can get a grasp on what is actually happening. This is more or less a way to intimidate them into believing that his words are true; no one in their right mind would be able to refuse the reality of it all after seeing it with their own eyes.
“No one can stop us now, I rule this world, I rule all worlds! So join me! Share with me the ownership of this world! All it takes is to accept me as God, and you can indulge yourselves in my spoils! You can have riches, women, fame, your wildest dreams for saying but only a word! To anyone who would still dare to oppose me, my army and I will begin a great purge of the non-believers. I give the world three months to make a decision, for those who haven’t by then, it will be death to you all!”
This has always been his main tactic. Conform or die.
With that jumble of threats, Satan’s message to the world ends and he is left laughing in pleasure as the form of his army begins to multiply in size from behind him.
This is it, this is his time, this is what he’s been waiting over a thousand years to do.
Satan once again has control of this world.
“I’ll tell you what; I’m amazed that we didn’t break any bones after that.” Lennox said while scratching his head in amazement.
The four Knights had all jumped out of a tenth story window and landed on the down-slope of a grassy hillside and slid into the water of the moat. In there they share space with a countless number of dead people as they float uninjured in the blood red water.
“You know, even I can get grossed out. I’d really like to get out of this nasty water.” Seiri said, her misery is written all over her face.
“Moats were made so people can’t get out of them, it might take a while before we find a sewage drain to swim into.” London states.
“Whatever, let’s just get going, I’m starting to get uncomfortable with all those weird looking monsters hovering around us.” Seiri responds as she points to the many demons circling the castle.
Perhaps due to them being covered in the blood of dead soldiers and blending in so well, the demons don’t seem to notice them. If they were spotted, it’s likely the demons wouldn’t hesitate to attack them, chances are they are chomping at the bit to get their hands on a human.
“...Agreed...” Haas struggled to say his first words in a while.
With that, the four of them begin swimming in order to find a way out.
Of course, that is not the only thing on their minds. One thought they are trying not to think about is the fact that they have failed their mission. Their job was to protect the Queen and kill General Sturgess, and looking at what has occurred it is quite obvious that both of those objectives went unaccomplished. It is almost a complete disgrace for them, and the feeling of actually failing has yet to fully sink in because it has never happened before.
Since this is their first time, they don’t know the protocol of what happens in the aftermath of such a failure.
This prompts Lennox to ask,
“So... What are we supposed to do once we get out of here anyways?”
“That much should be obvious.” London replies as he leads the group through the bloody water of the moat. “We return to La’Juune and prepare for war.”
Down in the most southern point of La’Juune; Celestia, Allia, Olin, and Jessiah are riding back to the Capital through the snow on a lifesaving dogsled. They had heard Satan’s message loud and clear and all stayed in silence as the dogs pulled them towards their destination.
Jessiah is the first one to break this silence and he does so in a way that makes it seem like he has no clue how dire their situation is.
“What a bunch of losers. How the frig’ did they fail? Four Knights should be more than enough to handle a stupid rebellion.”
The other three don’t respond, in hindsight, they had almost failed as well. They couldn’t count the numerous times they almost died in their battle with Captain Red.
“I hope they’re still alive.” Olin says, showing a rare expression of concern.
Allia sighs and turns to Celestia to ask, “So what do you think our next orders will be?”
“We fight, duh.” Olin answered before Celestia had a chance.
“I wasn’t asking you, idiot.”
Celestia looks very serious when she says, “I don’t know what they’ll be... but I know what I must do.”
“Oh?”
“Those weapons back at the plant, I think I know how to make them. And something’s telling me that we’re going to need them against this new enemy.”
“So you’re buying into this whole mess with the Devil? I thought you didn’t believe in that stuff.”
“I didn’t, at least not completely until now. I’d be stupid to not believe in Heaven or Hell now that all this happened; it has officially become a fact. That being said, we’re going to fight in a war on a scale this world hasn’t seen since the Antichrist’s time. We’re going to need everything we got to win this, so I’m going to make as many weapons as possible for us to fight with.”
For a non-believer, she knows about the Antichrist and the happenings foretold in the New Book of Revelations. For the most part, the entire world has heard of that story, and that was one of the reasons why there were so many people like her. The Battle of Armageddon was simply on a scale too epic and too farfetched to be considered anything more than myth.
But now, that stunning story is unfolding itself once more right before their eyes. They have no choice but to deal with it.
Their futures depend on it.
Allia smiles, looks tenderly at her tattered arm and says, “Make me the best weapon possible... With my arm the way it is, I think it’s time to graduate from a bow and arrow.”
Celestia smiles back and replies, “I already have one in mind for you. I’m going to use the same philosophy behind Jeffrey’s rings for it.”
“Something to do with magnets?”
“That’s right, except this just might even make you more of a monster than Jeffrey.”
“Well that’s going to put a fat wrench in our plans.” said Jeffrey as he and the rest await the Eiyalazonian soldiers at the top of the castle.
They were waiting anxiously as they tried to figure out a way they could talk their way out of this mess without being thrown in prison or executed on the spot.
“I can’t believe London and the others actually failed...” Elise replied, completely disappointed.
“I’m sure there were extenuating circumstances, but now’s not the time to be worrying about that. We need to figure out how to handle all this.” Jeffrey says as he glares at his unconscious King and adds under his breath, “Sorry Noah, but I won’t be leading La’Juune after all.”
He then turns to Diana and looks her square in the eye, she seems genuinely frightened just as most people should be when confronted with such a bleak future.
He sighs and folds his arms.
The rest can tell he’s in deep thought and they wait anxiously for his decision.
“Here’s the plan... Elise.”
“Yeah?”
“When you get back to La’Juune, I want you and London to rule the country.”
“Hah? But what about you? And wouldn’t it be better if I was paired with Celestia instead? I mean, London just failed in Troy, we don’t even know if he’s still alive.”
“Celestia works at her own pace, I’m guessing she has a plan to make weapons or something. She’s not going to want to lead the country. London on the other hand is the most qualified out of all of us no matter which way you look at it. He’s the only one capable of thinking many steps ahead and acting accordingly. He’s the closest thing to Noah we have so I’m sure he’s alive and going to head back to the Capital as soon as possible. As for me...”
He turns to Diana and says, “I’ll be staying here with the Queen.”
“Are you kidding? Why in the world would you do that??”
“Think about it Elise, you heard what Satan said right? It's to worship him or die. Do you honestly think that this shitty Prince could keep the country united under that kind of pressure? The people will falter and this whole country would be fucked.”
“.....”
“We need as many allies as possible in this war, and now we all have a common enemy. I’ll be damned if I leave the people of this country out to die. We’re all in this together now, so it’s about time we put past grudges in the garbage where they belong and fight for a future.”
Elise understands where he's coming from, she actually thinks that that might have been the coolest thing the normally dry Jeffrey has ever said.
She smiles and pats him on the shoulder rather hard before saying, “If you were a girl I’d totally fall for you.”
“I don’t have anything to say to that.” Jeffrey replies, completely indifferent to her words.
“What about me?” Came the soft voice of Rain from below, she has Noah’s head in her lap and is still quite distraught about everything.
“That’s a good question, I haven’t really thought about that.” Jeffrey answered while scratching his chin.
“Then have you thought about Noah yet?” she asks rather coldly.
“If you mean his funeral, I haven’t.”
“How could you be so cold to your King!?”
“He’s not the King anymore, you heard him shift his power to us before he died right? As far as I’m concerned, all three countries no longer have a single ruler.”
Rain scowls at him and hisses, “He’s still breathing you bastard, he isn’t dead.”
Jeffrey begins to laugh slightly, he throws his hands on his waist and fights back a smile when he responds to her glare.
“Alright alright, I’ve seen enough.”
“..?”
“There’s no point in continuing to give you shit when you can help me.”
“What are you getting at?”
Jeffrey walks up to her and leans to her level, with a straight face he asks, “What would you do to save Noah’s life?”
“Anything.”
“Then you are just the right girl for the job.”
He stands back up and walks away from her, he continues speaking as he begins pacing.
“Remember when I said that we’d need some kind of miracle to keep him alive? What was it again? Oh yeah, killing the one responsible for poisoning him.”
A new light begins brewing in Rain’s eyes as she starts to see where he’s going with this.
“Well that person is here, on Earth, and we are about to fight a war against him. The leader on the losing side of these kinds of wars usually ends up dying right? So what do you say we win this thing and wake Noah up?”
Determination boils in her chest when she replies, “What can I do?”
“You are going to go back to La’Juune with Noah and Elise. From my understanding you are one of, if not the best Battle Strategist in the world. We could use your talents on our side, you will be the leading Strategist for all of La’Juune.”
“Do you really have that much faith in her?” Elise asks skeptically.
“I do. You can see it in her eyes that she’ll do anything for Noah. Even more than we ever could.”
“Thank you.” Rain bows, “I promise I’ll wake him up.”
“Good... With that I think we’re ready to get the preparations underway. Diana, come with me, we have a lot of shit to talk about; it hurts my head to think about all the political nonsense we’re going to have to go through to get the other Royals of this country on board.”
“O-Okay Jeff.”
“Ahhh Jeff, I like that.” he says with a pleased smile.
He’s wanted the others to call him that all along but everyone strongly rejected it for whatever reason.
Diana follows Jeffrey but she hesitates when she looks back towards her unconscious son.
Jeffrey answers her gaze by saying, “Leave Dice here, the medics will tend to him once the soldiers get here.”
“...Right.”
She runs to his side and the two get to the door leading to the innards of the castle, he lets her in first and turns to the others to leave them with some final words.
“We only have a few months until the war of all wars starts. I’ll be doing my part here; you two make sure that La’Juune is mobilized and ready to put a serious hurting on that bastard by then.”
Both Elise and Rain salute him and reply in unison,
“Yes sir!”
In Hell, on the shore of a certain massive swirling lake, stands Damien with a confident smile on his face.
As if sensing Damien’s presence, Leviathan appears from the swirling torrent of agony that he calls home and stands atop it as if there was nothing below him.
“Judging by the look in your eyes, I can see that you are pleased about something.” Leviathan said.
“What a good eye you have... would you like to know what it is?”
“Does it involve me?”
“It involves everyone allied with me, so if you are on my side then yes it does.”
Leviathan walks onto the shore and says, “After messing around with Ubica a little, I’ve come to the realization that what’s best for us is your plan for him. If that means I’m allied with you over your father, then so be it.”
“Good, I actually came here in regards to some news about my father.”
“I’m listening.”
“You’re one of the very few people that know of my true intentions, so I’m sure I’ve told you of my prediction on what my father was going to do about a vulnerable Earth after the abductions.”
“He was going to raise a portion of Hell’s army right?”
“Yes, and he’s done that, just as I thought he would. He has half of his power in that human container up on Earth, wasting it all day by day just to stay there, it's why he'll have to raise his army to subjugate the humans. The other half of his power remains here in Hell with his real body."
Leviathan’s interest is piqued. He wants to know what is in store for the future and asks, “What are you going to do about that?”
“I’m going to continue things as originally planned. What you are going to do is what's going to matter most.”
“Oh? And what might that be?”
“Get my father to Purgatory...”
In the familiar room with the checkered floor, Satan sits on his throne with the chessboard resting in front of him. It shows that there are many white pieces left whilst there is only one black piece. But that one black piece is all that was needed to win the game.
With his bright red eyes he glares at the game and a deep chuckle forms in the back of his throat.
“Noah, you ambitious child, you were never going to win this game no matter how much you cheated with those powers of yours.”
He moves his black King piece and knocks over the white King piece, sending it off the table and bouncing onto the marble ground.
“With this, the world is now mine...”
His deep chuckle makes way for a heavy laugh as he leans back in his chair and lets the glory of his victory sink in. He’s finally accomplished something that took thousands of years to fulfill; he now has an able body on the face of Earth.
Only this time, he doesn’t have to worry about the interference of Angels, they’ve been long dead.
He doesn’t have to worry about Jesus interfering because he’s stuck in Purgatory.
He doesn’t have to worry about an armyless God up in Heaven.
But most importantly, he doesn’t have to worry about Ubica any longer, because in his mind, Ubica will be killed and Dantega will be rid of forever before he even gets a chance to see the light of the Earth again.
This is an absolute victory, and there is nothing here to hold him back any longer.
“Hehehe…. Hahahahahahaha!!!!”
His hysterical laugh is followed by a quick kick of the chessboard in front of him, the board and the pieces fly off everywhere and the clacking of the wooden bits bouncing off the ground seems to add applause to the rousing laugh of winning this game.
During this moment of bliss he realizes that he has yet to say the word used after a victorious chess battle.
His eyes shine brighter than ever before as he stands to his feet and shouts,
“CHECKMATE!!!”
Checkmate: (END)
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