Fandom Final Fantasy: The Age of Ophiuchus [Closed]

[Arcanist]

Lixue had meant it. Every word. Loyalty came at a great price, and sometimes, to maintain it, even the staunchest of rules had to be bent. If it meant he had to cow Didymus into submission, if he had to make the very real threat of making him his little test subject, he would. He thought he scared Didymus, which was what he wanted, what he liked to see.

And yet he still bit back. His smile fell into a sneer, eyes sharp and cold.

“I don’t need such warnings from you,” Lixue dismissed them. It would take years to undo such hard work they had put in. They kept enough secrets, weaved enough lies and tied up loose ends. There was difficulty with this one, but they could uphold it. They had to.

As Didymus stepped forward to retrieve the bombs, Lixue wondered just how easily he would take an icicle to his back. The thought tempted him more than he liked to admit, and he despised it. He was not supposed to be fuelled by anger as the fire signs were. He was air. He was logical, individual, detached.

Lixue did not bother to bid Didymus farewell, letting him leave the room without fuss. But that bitter coldness remained, and a dawning realisation that…

No. The Empire would stand as long as Zariel did. They were in control of this. They were the ones to gather and arrange this whole debacle for the sake of this twisted world.

You’ll help me with what I want.

Lixue’s hand tightened into a fist.

Let me help you with what you want.

He promised her. He swore to her that day he was carted off to the palace to meet her that he would help her.

And if he had to carry on the lie, as much as it unravelled, he would.

For her.

~***~

Their airship was soon upon the island, tensions still lingering from discussions on their way to it. Though one could also see the temple’s entrance perched upon a hill on the island, Phoenix’s bones overshadowed it. A fallen skeleton outside of its closet for all to see, surrounded by charred earth and ash of that once were trees.

It would not be so easy to dismiss questions about the bones scattered. They would find some way to explain it. They didn’t have any other choice but to.

The speculation would start far beyond when they would reach it. Lixue could almost hear the questioning in their heads, and Zariel’s own of how to explain it, if at all.

He did not look at her.

As soon as the airship landed, and the necessary checks were made to allow them to depart, Jagger was the first to run off it, less green than she was hanging over the edge of the ship earlier. The gangplank banged underneath Jagger’s boots before she landed in the sand, kicking it up behind her as she sprinted towards Phoenix’s bones. It was the fastest Lixue had seen her move that whole morning.

How very Aries of her. Act now, think later. He shouldn’t have been surprised by that.

Jagger halted in front of the ribcage, bouncing on her feet. She had enough sense not to lay her hands all over the skeleton, but she flicked them out, temptation playing at the edge of her fingertips. She looked at the skull in a strange kind of awe at first, before she started to ruminate. She’d seen corpses and skeletons before, especially beasts, so she was no stranger to what this was. She recognised the skull for what it was.

“That’s one big fucking bird.” A big fucking bird…on Phoenix’s island, with Phoenix’s temple. The irony of it was hilarious in her head. She laughed, scratching her head. “At least it’s not gonna rise up with the other corpses and kill us all, right?”

How close she was, in a sense, and yet, she was so far from it. Lixue wondered if Jagger was so obtuse as she made herself out to be. He knew she was slow, less likely to pick up on the smaller details, given her nature to butt into things headfirst. But surely, she was not so stupid?

Oh, he was sure Didymus was relishing in this.

And equally, Lixue relished in her just missing the mark.

“I’d like to think not. And I hope that isn’t the case before we even get inside the temple,” Lixue murmured, looking towards the hill that contained the entrance. “It took some time to clear the entrance and secure it, given the time it’s been left alone. Regardless, we must be on our guard from here on in. There are enough perils in the temple, never mind on the island we stand upon.”

Skirting past Phoenix's bones was not ideal. But there were creatures and birds as big as Phoenix in times gone by. Let Jagger stare at it and wonder whether it made for a pretty wall mount, if it meant she did not put the pieces together.

 

[Lucyfer]

Zariel was the last off the airship, following behind Oleander as the others made their hurried way off, every eye taken by the skeleton. Not even Zariel could take her eyes off of it, though for very different reasons than everyone else. She knew Phoenix was dead, but seeing it seemed to bring the memories of his death to the surface. She’d felt it, sensed it, before, as she found the memories of what waited after life inescapable.

It kept her from sleeping.

Now she felt Phoenix’s moment as if it were her own – the terrible surprise, the venom of the snake that made it impossible to heal and stole away all his usual regenerative abilities, the blow of the atmosphere. The attempt to shift from incorporeal aether to corporeal form, the hope for a change, before hitting the ground.

Before the poison obliterated everything except bones, and Phoenix did the last thing he could do – he threw himself into Leander.

Again, that desire to fade into it arose in her as she heard Jagger wonder at the corpse, and Lixue spoke to cover. She allowed herself to look at Anissa from the corner of her eyes, and she saw the confusion and trepidation, but no question arose from Anissa. Zariel forced her gaze away from Phoenix’s corpse, “If it rises, we’ll deal with it,” she said.

“But what is it?” Oleander asked, because of course, it would be him that asked.

There was a lie on the tip of her tongue – an old story about a foe of Bahamut’s, Garuda, but Zariel just shook her head, “I don’t know.”

“Phoenix doesn’t know?” Didymus was just doing that on purpose. “Seems pretty intentional decoration, draped over the temple like that.” The temptation to light Didymus on fire was high, but that was unsurprising.

Zariel shrugged, “He hasn’t been able to watch his temple for a while, Didymus. He does not know all that has happened around it,” she walked towards the entrance, “Let’s go, we should get this over with soon.”

“Right,” Oleander agreed, holding back to let the others pass ahead, Didymus included.



Didymus took his position near the front to throw the healing bombs. He wanted to ask if Zariel was sure about this. ‘What happens if you die again?’ Did Leander die again? Something told Didymus he did. His second death was what brought him here. His second death took his mind. ‘But he was tied to Phoenix…can he still call out to Phoenix?’

Didymus was a ball of fear, and jumped when Zariel created flaming orbs to move with the party, lightning the way ahead and around.

The temple must have been beautiful, once. There was a ruined mosaic on the floor, the pieces of it so chipped he couldn’t make out what it may have depicted. There were no pillars to hold up the ceiling, but then again, it was built into a cave – that wasn’t necessary.

Places for candles were obvious, and candles were askew.

They went beyond the main room, following the path that led behind a fountain. Within that fountain was a strange, milky substance that reminded him of Mist – but he couldn’t place why, except that he felt Garuda’s nerves at the sight of it.

It was something terrible.

“This must have been one of the fountains of lava,” he heard Anissa murmur, “Phoenix’s temple in Ibec can’t do that, though we’ve tried….”

“The true temples of the Twelve were made in these places for many reasons, their ability to channel the nature of the Twelve one of them. It never should have all come together in Ibec.”

Didymus wondered if it was Zariel speaking, or Phoenix.

“The Twelve have never smote the temples in Ibec.”

Didymus saw a shadow touch Zariel’s expression, and he knew that one of them was going to. Very soon. Hiding the priestess had been a step too far. ‘RIP the holy place, I guess.’ Not that it was…well, a true holy place, apparently.

“Are we going into the catacombs?” Oleander asked as the path took a tilt downwards.

“Yes,” Zariel answered.

“Why is it never in the open, behind glass, in a nice altar? Why is it never easy?” Oleander groaned, and Didymus honestly wondered the same thing often enough when he stole things. Why, oh why, was it never easy?

“It shouldn’t be too bad,” Anissa tried to say, “most of those devoted to Phoenix choose to be cremat…oh….”



Anissa’s breath caught as she realized exactly how bad it could be by the first shambling figure of something undead. Only, it wasn’t a rotting corpse. It was a creature of ash and fire, embers of life burning underneath the ashes and bone shards it was composed of. It turned to them, and Anissa couldn’t help the gasp as she saw—nothing.

Its eyes were sockets, of course, but there was a flame there. A terrible, blackened flame, that spoke of something incomprehensible. For a moment, she was frozen.

The people ahead were not. Didymus lobbed one of his healing bombs immediately and Zariel struck it with a whip glowing with holy energy channeled by her, tearing the ashen figure in twain.

The ashes fell, the flames died.

“It will recover,” Zariel said, striding ahead quickly through the healing mist, “as soon as the healing dissipates, it will begin to recover itself.”

“That quickly?” Anissa breathed, moving hurriedly after to stay close to the group, “All of them? Undead don’t usually recover when slain when holy weapons.”

“This isn’t a normal situation,” Didymus said, and Anissa saw how tense he seemed, “These are undead in a holy temple, I don’t think holy bothers them as much as it should.”

“We’ll just keep taking them down,” Oleander said from behind, “easy-peasy. Not like they have any weapons.”

He would regret those words as they did, indeed, find undead with weapons, those they’d been buried with. They also found plenty that had not been cremated, as well, as they ventured through the catacombs that led ever further into the volcano – though it never got hotter. It seemed to get colder.

 

[Arcanist]

It was wise not to linger so long, Zariel knew that. But even then, the others’ horror and confusion as to what made this skeleton meet its end here.

Lixue resisted throwing a glare at Didymus. If he showed too much animosity, then it would just further fuel the feeling something was not quite right.

As Zariel gave their marching orders, he looked at Jagger, her look lingering longer on Phoenix’s skeleton than he would have liked, until she peeled herself away. She took front without protest. He took centre with Anissa as planned, remaining watchful.

Jagger tried to remember when she last saw Didymus being so jittery. She tried to empathise with him. Things like this weren’t exactly jobs he’d normally take. She was used to being hired to investigate dark hovels and to dirty her hands with secrets and horrors that cowardly men were unwilling to. She was braver than most and being braver paid well.

So why could she not shake that same weird gut feeling she ignored the night they took that warehouse job?

When Didymus jumped at the light of the flaming orbs, Jagger did not, but her breath hitched at the sudden ignition.

‘You’re not there, Jagger. You’re here. You’re here.’

“At least we can see…” Jagger meant to murmur it to Didymus, to quell his nerves or hers, she wasn’t sure. It dragged off when she realised how breathless she sounded.

She did not take in much of the forgotten temple. What glory it had was once gone, and it wasn’t as if inspecting it or cleaning it up was their job here. Though, she did turn her attention to the fountain, the weird substance in it, and the conversation around it that followed.

Ibec was not so holy. Its temples and its religious practices, maybe, but no place was truly scrubbed of sin and greed. She knew that anyway.

Jagger, for once, was silent. She pondered Zariel’s words. Did she always sound like that, so vaguely…threatening? Even for an Empress infringing on other nations, Jagger had been surprised that she wasn’t the tyrant everyone painted her as. That much had been said in her treatment of Ucantis and the dead Queen.

Phoenix’s Temple was not the place for thinking. The not-so-alive occupants of these crumbling holy grounds happened upon them quickly, and Jagger wasn’t sure what she was so surprised at. It was meant to be dead, though, it didn’t look like the flaking flesh-ridden corpse she expected to see.

Diddy and Zariel handled it quicker than she did, and it easily fell away to the ground. She did not look back as they moved forward, with Zariel warning it would not stay down.

“Sure,” Jagger agreed with Oleander, twisting the handle of her hammer in anticipation, “we just got to make sure they stay down.”

Of course, things were not so simple. Twice now someone in this group jinxed something, and both times, it ended up with some undead bastard struggling towards them.

“Everyone’s gotta start keeping their mouths shut,” Jagger reprimanded, before she swung her hammer straight into the crumbling ashen corpse.

Even with the constant swing of her hammer to keep her muscles fired up, she felt her arm hairs shoot up as they descended into the volcano. It was not fear that made her body tingle, but a cold, and not even a chill at that.

“The hell is it so cold down here for? Aren’t volcanoes supposed to be blisteringly hot? I haven’t even broken out into a sweat yet!”

Lixue had not felt the full effects of this cold, but he felt a twinge of it in the air, even if his body did not. “It is rather strange.”

“How can you tell?” Jagger asked, the continuing to brush over her arms, “you’re used to the cold with having Shiva. If anything, this is a perfect temperature for you.”

“That’s why I can tell. I can tell the difference elsewhere, but here, I don’t feel quite at odds with the temperature. Another consequence of this temple being abandoned.” It was only further confirmation of something deeply unsettling, even if Lixue was aware there was much more than what the others would expect waiting them further in.

Jagger hummed, rolling her shoulders as if it would shake off the cold, or the discomfort of the darkness around them.

The cold continued to gnaw at them even as the dead encroached upon them through another room.

Jagger was quicker on the next assault, smashing through a couple skulls easily. Faces ended up more mangled and sunken than they had, and a head ended up rolling on the ground. Even then, the body it belonged to staggered toward her when it regained its senses, what remained of its face still reacting in conjunction to the body’s movements.

“Ugly bastard…!” Jagger locked her weapon against the undead’s axe, before managing to shove it off and taking another swing at its chest. “Just stay fucking dead!” Dead weight gained a new meaning; even if the flesh rotted and fell away, they had an unholy strength to them.

Lixue’s icy projectiles were strong enough and quick enough to sever limbs from their hosts and gusts to force other undead off their feet. Endless studying in his magical pursuits had paid off, and he knew Shiva’s boon gave him a further edge to keeping away the horde. He was unfortunate enough to be pursued by a severed arm, desperate to latch onto his ankle. Lixue was lucky enough to catch it in time and stomp on it, feeling bone shatter and split under him.

He could not remark on the morbid fascination of how these bodies, who were once alive and human, struggle on like this in undeath.

 

[Lucyfer]

There was no denying that Zariel ran a well-oiled machine. The disparate characters that made up the party seemed to understand their roles, with Oleander taking down anything that arose from behind them. Anissa found herself turning to help him more than focusing on the front. Zariel, Lixue, Didymus, and Jagger seemed to have that path covered, clearly entrusting Oleander on his own to handle the back.

He did – effectively, with that holy sword – but Anissa still thought she was helping as she blasted approaching foes to dust, or took out one that got close enough to grab the Imperator. He even shot her back a few grins and thumbs up, clearly encouraging with positive reinforcement for her to find her place in all of this.

It was new to her.

She wasn’t usually thrown into combat this often. She learned to protect herself on the road, but it wasn’t how she preferred to do things. She guessed Lixue didn’t, either, but he was also quite efficient at it.

Despite words against talking, though – they talked. They talked about the chill, which was indeed odd. Even if the temple wasn’t being tended to, the volcano shouldn’t have just stopped being a volcano. ‘Then again, when the gods are cast down, who knows what happened to their holy places. Phoenix may have controlled this volcano….’ Yet it felt off to Anissa.

And Zariel didn’t add any thoughts from Phoenix, although to be fair, she seemed to be taking the brunt of injuries. Despite Didymus’s healing bombs, one wound must have been fairly severe, Anissa could see blood dripping, though she didn’t know from where, exactly. There didn’t appear to be any damage to Zariel’s blackened armor, or even her golden cape.

Still, she moved as if she wasn’t hurt, so Anissa didn’t speak up. It was something that could likely be tended to afterwards, right now, they had to keep moving to avoid wasting time and being swarmed from both sides.



Which was absolutely Didymus’s concern as he kept glancing anxiously back when they proceeded, but he kept moving forward and letting Jagger and Zariel take the brunt of the fighting. He flinched when he heard Oleander grunt or curse, always concerned something was about to get at them, but the Imperator held his ground.

The air continued to chill.

‘Dead. Because of death. Because it’s all dead, the volcano, everything.’ It was unnatural, it was eerie, and he wanted to run, even though he knew he’d be dodging zombies. He wanted to run and never return. Fuck Zariel, fuck everyone – except, of course, Jagger was there.

And Jagger was trying to reassure him.

And Jagger didn’t know what was really going on.

Maybe if he let a zombie rip out Lixue’s throat….

But he cast that thought aside as he instead cut a zombie’s head off before it stumbled into the scientist, though he did let it fall on the scientist, struggling to get its bearings without a head.

Lixue could have a little chaos. As a treat. As a treat from Diddy.

But they reached the center of the volcano, where a pool of lava should have been. The area had all the makings of it, even old railing that would have protected people from going into the pool, which Zariel hopped right over.

“Uh, Zari? Are you sure—”

“Phoenix’s marked would walk through the lava down to the cavern below. There is no lava, so you all may join.” Zariel answered, indeed, going down the path that seemed purposefully made.

“You’re sure there isn’t lava at the bottom?” Diddy asked, but Oleander had already butted ahead, apparently deciding the order didn’t matter anymore, “Hey—!”

“Stay up here if you like, thief,” Oleander stated, because of course, Oleander wasn’t abandoning Zariel now. Of course he wasn’t concerned about lava even if it was there. Didymus groaned and palmed his face, hearing the others starting to move ahead.

He’d follow.

At the rear.

Maybe the zombies would get stuck on the railing.



There were at least no zombies on this path. Oleander was relieved and he stretched a bit, but didn’t put the sword back as he stayed now at Zariel’s side until they reached a wall, which bore the same markings as Phoenix’s constellation – as Zariel’s mark.

The mark upon her cheek suddenly flamed to life, lighting up, and Phoenix manifested from her chest, pushing out and flying into the wall, which melted away as if it had just been lava. Thankfully, it didn’t stay on the ground like lava, nor did Phoenix remain to blaze into the room, which should have had an easy-to-grab crown in it.

The room was ornately decorated, of course.

And wrecked.

Burned in some sort of rage, few furnishings remained. The tile was broken into sharp shards, talon-markings mauled the walls, and sitting in a corner was an old man in a crown and Amarum’s royal stitchings. When his eyes met Oleander’s, black pupils bleeding into gold like a broken egg, Oleander felt an immediate chill run through him, and a fear he hadn’t even known when Leviathan manifested.

For once in his life, he froze.


‘I cannot manifest further. Do what you must with my knowledge.’

Zariel did not outwardly acknowledge what Phoenix spoke in her mind as the wall melted away. She did not outwardly acknowledge the pain of recognition as she saw the gaunt figure with the missing cheek and broken eyes. ‘Be quick, and it won’t matter.’ It was her single thought as she moved ahead of Oleander with the speed Phoenix could give, intending to swipe the crown from the man’s head before he could even rise with her whip.

Unfortunately, it was not to be that easy.

Leander was on his feet as if he hadn’t aged a day since twenty five, and black-flame manifested in talons upon his hands, upon his feet, and bled out of his back into wings. He caught the whip on his talons, the holy and unholy crackling in immediate conflict as he pulled.

Zariel hadn’t time to let go of the whip so she was pulled forward, but she had enough control of herself to pull her body to the side, so the talons he had prepared on his other hand didn’t impale her through the stomach, they just cut across the armor, leaving terrible black scorch marks.

She could feel the cold fire even though it never touched her flesh.

“Give…give it…back,” his voice was a terrible, rasping sound, as Zariel relinquished her whip and prepared several orbs of holy energy as she stepped out of his immediate range. “I’m…not done….”

 

[Arcanist]

Zariel's confidence was always something Lixue was a little jealous of. The effortlessness she showed even in her command to continue through the lava-less pool still bled through between Phoenix’s occasional stilted input. They were not feats that easily came to him, though, he knew he wasn’t destined for such a position. He was happy to be in Zariel’s shadow.

“Last one in the pool is a goopey flan!” Jagger grinned before vaulting over the railing after Oleander. She had no qualms about jumping into lava, or perhaps, didn’t want to be the first one the zombies caught up to.

Neither did Lixue. That zombie’s head that Didymus gifted him was as close as he wanted to be to them. He grimaced at how suddenly squeamish he was with it, and he did shoot Didymus a foul look when he was reminded of that. Not for too long though, before he too followed the others, taking less of a run and jump, and more of a precarious slide down the other side.

They reached their destination, Phoenix wasting no time to destroy the wall between them and their goal. Even though the next room was grander than the rest of the temple, and its neglected state to be expected, the damage done was extensive.

Everyone stopped when they saw Leander sitting in the corner of the room. Lixue was warned of him, of course, but no amount of warning could prepare him for what he would see. He swallowed back the dread that crept up to him and overtook the grotesque interest that he should have had. It was a sight that even forced Oleander to a standstill, and that worried Lixue more than he wanted to admit.

You couldn’t explain this.

Not even Jagger could pass comment. The disgust in her was evident, but she wrung the handle of her weapon with unease. He was dead like all the rest of them. But she knew the figure was more important than the rest of them. Different, somehow, in that he was not just a bag of walking bones.

Zariel did not hesitate. She moved forward swiftly, knowing why she came here, and intending to see things through.

Lixue’s eyes widened as realisation dropped. The room was not a case of wear and tear or natural erosion, but an act of defilement and rage. The kind of reaction a dying, rotting man would have in being led here, being abandoned by Phoenix when he became an unsuitable vessel.

Lixue made to step forward upon realisation. “Zariel, wait-!”

The warning came too late. Zariel was swift, but Leander was swifter, talons and wings sprouting from him faster than one could blink and grabbed her whip. Even if she was lucky to be out of his range, the black scorch marks tearing across her armour was unnatural.

The rasping from Leander unsettled Lixue more, and he brought his hands together, feeling the searing heat and spark between his palms.

Leander could not be allowed to stay on his feet.

Jagger thought the same. She shoved Oleander and shouted, “Get it together, Oleander!” The mercenary mustered up that blind, brave stupidity and launched herself at Leander. She buried what fear and hesitation deep in her and took a swing toward Leander’s back. He proved far more observant, his wings carrying him to the side of her swing.

Before Jagger could recover, she felt Leander’s talons slash past her leg, and she howled.

Jagger knew the unfortunate fury of fire. It was searing and unrelenting, a sensation she thought melted flesh. This was cold, and she felt like her flesh was pulling apart, and it was foreign and unnatural and fuck! It felt like poison crawled under her very skin, and she couldn’t even bear to touch it, never mind try to move it.

Jagger’s howl caused Lixue’s magic to spark unnaturally, only briefly, in his concentration. He never heard her express such a visceral cry of pain, and he caught a glance at how the burn seemed to eat at her. Lixue shared Zariel’s eagerness to finish things quickly, and so urged his charge along before launching two jolts of lightning toward Leander.

 

[Lucyfer]

‘This is fucked, we’re fucked.’ Didymus wanted to throw one of the healing mists as Jagger rushed in, but that visceral scream made him pause. There was something wrong, and even if he couldn’t place it, instinct told him the healing mists weren’t going to help. This was an undead, fighting with undeath – and a very powerful one, if the stories of Leander were true.

Lixue’s lightning sparked and flew, just as nine orbs of holy twirled in the air and followed Leander. The first two struck, the lightning doing its job in effectively immobilizing Leander for a moment, but then he found that flinch-instinct and moved, the rest of the orbs colliding with the wall, as Leander made his path Lixue.

‘Ah fuck.’

Hate the scientist as he may, he couldn’t let Lixue get wrecked. Besides, they had to turn this up a notch.

He screamed the name in his head and watched Garuda manifest, flying faster than Leander to get in the way of him and Lixue, catching one of Leander’s wrists and hurling him up towards the ceiling, before rushing right at him, her own talons and claws ready to tear him to shreds, as Didymus ran across the room to get at Jagger’s side and drop down.

“C’mon – let me get you back out into the hall,” so she wasn’t in immediate danger, assuming they could keep Leander contained in the room.

Then there was another shriek, and this one hurt. Didymus had to cover his ears, even as he tipped his head up towards the sound of Garuda. She was doubly impaled on both of Leander’s hands, green veins turning black as she pushed against his arms to try and escape, each scream sending out powerful gusts that threatened to flatten all of them.

Even Oleander was bending against the screams, crouching lower.

Spells were launched up – Lixue, Anissa, Zariel, Didymus wasn’t sure – but it wasn’t enough.

Leander tore Garuda in twain, her body vanishing into the aether, her work not done at all. Didymus felt the pain roll through his own body, as if his own guts had just been shredded, and keeled forward, putting a hand against his mouth both at the terrible phantom sensation, and the sight. He fought back vomit, and did not realize he was the next target until a barrage of lightning struck all around him and Jagger, but never touched them.



Anissa was in a panic.

She didn’t quite know what to do, watching Garuda be torn in two, but she knew she had to do something to keep the man who summoned her from being torn in two as well. So, she picked lightning, holding up her chimes and channeling that chaotic power through them to strike, again and again, wherever she saw the flesh of Leander’s arms. She didn’t try to target anything else, just those deadly arms. It was enough to disrupt his flight pattern, and he rounded on her, taking a few shocks without much of a reaction at all.

‘If it isn’t…if it isn’t doing anything…then why….’

When his eyes met hers, she felt a terrible helplessness – and it was barely remedied when the holy whip wrapped around the man’s neck, and pulled him to the ground, only for him to be launched right back up to the ceiling by a pillar of white energy.

Relief flooded her, and she shook off her fear by running over to Jagger, “You need a potion,” she had some, of course, and fumbled to pull one and offer it, hoping they had enough time, hoping they would be given enough time by the others to help Jagger.



Oleander was able to take himself out of his reverie, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to deal with the flying asshole. He needed the asshole to come down, so he could fight him – thankfully, Zariel brought him down with that pillar of light. Well – after knocking his brains against the ceiling.

Oleander followed it up as the fiend hit the ground and went to severe his head with the sword while he was down. He saw the markings holy left on his neck and so his target was obvious, easy.

Until the fiend just blasted his face with fire. Oleander staggered back, crying out as the flames licked his eyes before he was able to shut them, and was then slammed into the wall. It barely registered that the flame of the claws wasn’t hot, as he grit against the pain and forced his eyes open to see the claws digging into both shoulders.

And so, he did the only sane thing an Arkidos boy would do in this situation.

He headbutted the zombie, as lightning crackled from his body as further deterrent to holding on.

The zombie did pull backwards, rending flesh on the way from Oleander’s arms – only to be slammed right back into Oleander by a beam of holy energy.



“Hold him.”

Zariel’s voice was deathly angry. It brokered no argument from Oleander, who wrapped his arms around the zombie despite his injuries. Zariel felt bad for it – but it was needed.

Or so she thought.

As she rushed forward on flame-lighted feet, Leander exploded with magical energy, a nova of unholy flame pushing out from him. Those on the ground – Didymus and Anissa still at Jagger’s side – were relatively unaffected, but Zariel was knocked off balance, and poor Oleander now had his abdomen burnt through with that atrocious flame, and he dropped to the ground when Leander let him go.

Leander didn’t stay on the ground, but flew back up to take advantage of his ability to fly, and he began to form several orbs of that black flame to rain down upon the group.

Zariel, in turn, formed several orbs of holy to counteract them, but she was starting to feel the strain. ‘An ether, if I can get a second….’

She could not get a second.

Leander didn’t wait for all the orbs to fall and collide with targets, he flew through his own minefield of magic to Zariel, the one keeping Phoenix from him. He flew through a blast of straight holy energy as it was targeted at him, as it peeled flesh from his face and his arms. The flames just wrapped around any removed flesh, any removed bone or muscle, extending him into an avatar of unholy flame as he grasped Zariel’s extended arm and sunk the claws in deep as he pulled her up to impale her on the other hand.



A hand that was cut off by Phoenix’s sword, wielded in Oleander’s hands.

Even with necrotizing wounds to his shoulders and abdomen, shaking with lightning, the tattoos gave him the strength to move, and catch Leander by surprise when he’d been momentarily blinded by all the holy.

Leander recoiled immediately, prepared to spring a new hand to life with the magic, but Oleander didn’t let him get far, or let him get high into the air.

He tackled Leander out of the sky.

He was kicked off almost immediately, talons raking his armor and rolling him towards Lixue, but Oleander was still calling it a win.

 

[Arcanist]

Leander brushed off their magic as if they chucked mere dirt in his direction. Even if it forced him still, not all the orbs met their mark as they collided with the wall. The dead man was unforgiving, moving toward Lixue who backed off, to enact vengeance for his magical transgressions.

Lixue braced himself for the impact, knowing he wouldn’t be able to bear the pain if Jagger suffered with it. He felt Garuda sweep in before Leander could, dragging him up to the ceiling.

He was thankful for Didymus and Garuda’s intervention, but fuck, he owed that thief now. And he equally owed him for reminding him of who he had. His call for Shiva came in a frantic whisper, and she appeared with no usual, lax greeting, but prepared with a barrage of ice for Leander.



Jagger didn’t know what to do. She felt the leg wound writhe and sear right past her flesh, and she feared moving it in case she made it worse. She was trying to muster up adrenaline, the fight in her when Didymus came to her aid, insisting that he help her fall back. All the times she was told to fall back, stay back, and she never listened, and she ruined it all.

“No. No, no, no…!” Jagger shook her head, perhaps from that worry of pain and fire spreading through her, her stubborn refusal to abandon the fight, whatever memories tried to claw their way back from the pit she forced them down into. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t.

Garuda’s shriek did them no favours. She caught glimpses of her caught in Leander’s hands and being ripped apart, all the while trying not to stay steady to avoid being caught in the whirlwind gusts. Didymus fell forward, and now Jagger was trying to keep him from collapsing.

“Shit, Diddy!” Jagger forced herself to focus on him, realising the toll of Garuda’s return to the aether. She caught the flash of black heading toward him and she readied herself to shove him out of the way and take the brunt for him, even if she were to suffer the same fate as Garuda. She didn’t need to with the barrier of lightning placed between them and Leander.

Jagger couldn’t remember how long it had been before Anissa had reached them, having been so focused on shielding Didymus from the worst. She heard ‘potion’ and grabbed it, chugging at it like a nomad finally reaching an oasis. The liquid slid down her throat, and rather than feeling that cool relief, she felt nausea overtake her, and she started to hackle. She smelled burning, heard a hissing, and found smoke rising from her leg as it just seemed to erode more.

She smashed the bottle at her feet, and shrieked, “Fuck this fucking temple, and every fucking dead bastard in it!!”

The fury in her lasted even as she grabbed both Didymus and Anissa to find some kind of cover – furniture, anything – to avoid the rain of black orbs upon them.



Shiva could not put so much as a dent in Leander. She tried to save Garuda with as much ice as she could cast, only for Lixue to feel that overwhelming anguish and fury at a sister of the wind being pulled apart. But she could not spend her time throwing meaningless attacks at Phoenix’s previous chosen, not with the Arkidos siblings handling him first.

She could only do her best to protect her chosen in the ensuing aftermath of black flame and holy and unholy destruction, conjuring blasts, or walls of ice to shield him, them both if she could manage it. She took the brunt of the black flames, smooth iced skin charred and blackened and fizzling. Shiva tried to avoid attacks as much as she could, because she knew but the way Lixue grit his teeth and hissed that he felt everything.

Lixue watched as his friends suffered burns, mutilation, every horrible thing that could happen to him, before at least some progress was made. A hand cut off from Oleander, and soon, with some more bashing around, Leander landed at Lixue’s feet. He hadn’t expected him to land so close, and instinctively, backed off.

Shiva had other ideas. She conjured a shard of ice, much larger than her person and threw it down at Leander. Ice, even as mountainous as Shiva’s, could not withstand even cold flame as it melted and split either side of him. He launched off the ground, and before Shiva could react, ran his remaining hand through her chest. She slid easily from his hand as she landed on the ground.

Lixue coughed up blood, tarred black with its unholy properties and sunk to his knees. He wheezed, feeling like his chest was almost collapsing that he couldn’t even manage a scream of pain.

As if the pain was bad enough, Leander decided he wasn’t finished with Shiva yet. He landed on top of her, the black talons from his feet hooking into her head and lifting her into the air once more. He drove down into the tiles, lifted her, drove her down, again, and again, and again until the tiles were shattered with what Lixue was sure was something golden.

But he could not tell as he simultaneously felt his connection to Shiva fray and what felt like glass lodge through his skull. One hand gripped it, jerking at each collision Shiva’s head made with the ground, the other hand pulsing with the faintest dance of cold mist. He barely made a tangible icicle that by the time it reached Leander, he was flicked with water.

Leander piled Shiva’s head into the tiles for the final time before gliding to the moaning Lixue and lifting him by his neck. It would have been so easy for him to crush Lixue’s windpipe, snap his neck then and there, but he paused, tilting his head.

“Jianyu...”

Lixue’s eyes widened, even with the blinding pain of that flesh eating flame chewing past his neck.

“...how...?”

Lixue trembled at the rasping sound of recognition, even with Leander’s flesh and muscle disintegrating. His eyes watered under the continuing tightening grip of Leander.

“My...Emp...” Lixue choked in some twisted idea to appeal to him. He thought if he just played along as who Leander believed he held, he would let him go. No such luck as he struggled to think clear and pragmatically, that lifting his hand to bat at Leander grew so very heavy...

 

[Lucyfer]

Oleander struggled to get up. Sure, he managed to kick Leander off of him, but the talons had gotten through his armor. His chest was raked and burned from multiple wounds, and trying to rise hurt. The tattoos writhed upon him, but he got to his knees to see, of all people, Lixue facing the zombie on his own.

Didymus, Jagger, and Anissa had found a corner away from it, which, Oleander would credit, was the smart idea. He was a touch annoyed with Jagger giving in so early, but she didn’t have his strength, and her screams were probably going to haunt him for a while.

So was the image of Shiva being wrecked against the floor. He struggled to stand, knowing he had to get there before the zombie remembered the frail scientist who was choking on blood. ‘Is Didymus?’ he glanced at the thief, and didn’t notice any black blood, but the thief was pale, and definitely out of it, ‘Goddamnit, and these zodiacs are our saviors?’ Fuck that.

Oleander could save himself.

He could save everyone. He had to, because he saw Zariel had gotten up. They shared twin wounds from the nova, but her shoulder and arm were still fucked up – he didn’t know where the one wound through her chest came from, but he couldn’t deny the sight of blood, and her arm looked ruined.

Nope, this was on him.

He barely took notice of the name the fiend said, as he used that lightning speed to move ahead, and attempt to remove yet another hand, the one that now held Lixue. He was successful, though he knew not why when he saw the fiend’s gaze flick towards him in surprise. He had every opportunity to let go, but he didn’t, so off went his hand!

And Oleander bashed his shoulder into the fiend once that was done to create distance, and then held his stance in front of Lixue, “Get out, everyone out, I’ll handle this.”

“The fuck you will,” Didymus cried from his corner, but Oleander couldn’t focus on that as the fiery fiend came right at him, hands rejuvenated with that twisting black magic. Oleander dodged between the blows, drawing the fiend away and back into the room, back from the others, looking for any opening he could find.



“Gods!” Didymus cried in frustration, and forced himself to his feet. Oh, he still felt sick – but he had to work through this. “Anissa, protect Jagger.”

Anissa wasn’t well. She’d been stricken by some of those black orbs, and while she clearly wasn’t out from the count, she had wounds that were festering. Jagger had already proven how useless a potion would be, so she didn’t dare to grasp one.

Didymus was unharmed. The only one, so far as he could tell, and he had a duty.

They weren’t escaping alive. It was win or die. Retreat wasn’t an option, and Oleander, of course, had to try and be the big hero – which was fine by Didymus.

All he had to do was grab the crown, and he was a thief. He could do that.

His plan was hindered a moment when he saw Zariel enter the fray, adding to the confusion of combat by trying to snap openings for Oleander with the whip – and Oleander kept turning Leander back his way by making attempts to get them.

Of course, this only caused Leander to fly up, and out of range of Oleander, leaving Zariel to try using magic and bring him down.

Didymus waited until the inevitable plunge of Leander, steeling himself as he bolted forward just as Zariel feinted out of the way, and reached for the crown to pull it off the king’s head. He did grasp it – but that terrible flaming hand found his wrist, and pulled him down and over the king’s shoulder, sans crown.

“You idiot!” he heard Oleander shout – and was more than grateful with the stupid oaf threw himself into Leander to keep Didymus from being skewered.

The pain from his wrist and fingers was bad enough.

Lightning danced in the air, and Didymus was somewhat certain that not all of it was Oleander just sparking – Anissa was still trying to contribute despite his orders that she protect Jagger! He scrambled to his feet, knowing he still had to get that crown while the Arkidos siblings kept Leander busy, but he delayed again.



Zariel Arkidos heard the name Jianyu.

She knew the name Jianyu, and resented emotions that weren’t her own bubbling up within from Leander’s memories. ‘You remember him. You remember the one you let Phoenix kill.’ Did he remember that? Did he even know? Phoenix and Leander’s memories blurred together, with no end, no beginning, no disconnect.

It was why she could not call Phoenix forth. Phoenix would be torn between the two of them, for Phoenix was still within Leander.

It was obvious by his strength and the powers he called upon.

He fought like Phoenix.

He let Phoenix run his life.

‘I won’t.’

She had joined Oleander in trying to throw Leander off, trying to give Oleander an opening for a killing blow, but it came to a sudden halt when Didymus threw himself in to try and steal the crown. A smart move – if not for the fact Leander was still too damn capable and aware.

Oleander saved the thief, and Zariel continued that by shoving Didymus back to the ground – after palming one of the healing bombs – and continuing forward.

She hurled one of the healing bombs at Leander’s back and was satisfied with his shriek.

Not so much with Oleander’s surprised outcry of pain as the healing dust fell over him. He immediately flinched out of it, but Zariel went right into it, ignoring the hissing pain as Leander put his attention right back where it belonged, and lunged at her.

She sidestepped just in time to avoid being impaled, before catching his burning arm and stepping into his bubble, holding his arm tight against her side, letting the flames lick her armor and freeze her flesh, eating away at it, all so she could be close enough to grab the crown.

Leander’s hand followed hers and caught it as she grasped it, but his mind was coming back with the image of Jianyu.

Enough, that when he beheld her, and beheld the phantom behind her eyes, he did not wrench her hand away.

His last moment of lucidity was in silence as his hand dropped to let her take the crown, brushing his palm over the marked cheek in apology.

Leander crumbled to ash, wisps of black flame still flickering around Zariel’s armor from the proximity, still poisoning her flesh, but she silently put the crown on before letting her knees fall into those ashes in similar, silent, defeat.

The healing mist continued to eat away at the wounds but she couldn’t will herself to move out of it.



Anissa wasn’t terrible. Better than most – perhaps not Didymus – but she still felt the panic of it. The panic, and a certain sense of something momentous, and tragic, even if she didn’t know what. She had ideas, but they were too crazy to entertain. So, she just – got to her feet. “I’ll – I can – I can go get help from the ship,” the others didn’t look like they’d be moving much. “Um—”

Didymus forced himself up. “Yeah. Good idea.” He stumbled towards the entrance where Lixue still, mostly, was, “Uh – is there – anything for this kind of wound I can grab, or are we all pretty fucked, Lixue?” Maybe Lixue would struggle to speak, but he was the only one who was going to know what to do.

 

[Arcanist]

The constant chill that lay at Lixue’s back had long faded, and even in his desperate attempt to keep conscious, he searched for Shiva. He saw the remnants of gold flicker and fade. He couldn’t tell if the disconnect was from losing Shiva’s presence, or his fading ability to keep his eyes open...

Lixue’s face collided with the ground, jolting him alert. His throat burned with every breath, but he could breathe. That was when he noticed Leander’s dismembered hand on the ground with him, and Oleander above him, shouting orders.

Living up to his title of Imperator, even if he was being torn to bits by Leander.

But he didn’t protest to his orders to get away. Lixue pulled himself off the ground with considerable effort, dragging his battered body toward the entrance. He would have ran, if not for the ache all over his body, the trembling he couldn’t stop. He wished it was from the pain, and not the thought of that name Leander uttered.

Jagger, meanwhile, willed herself to move. She cursed herself, tried to muster anger and fury to do something, but the way her wound ate at her trumped all other thoughts. Where was the adrenaline, the rush, especially to defend the other two from the black orbs that rained upon them?

Diddy had to be the one to take charge, to ask Anissa to protect her. She wanted to protest, because she didn’t need protecting, she was not meant to be protected! A guilt and frustration broiled inside her, not at them, but herself.

Even Anissa had abandoned her to join the fight again. Not that she blamed her. Jagger quickly became a liability, much like the scientist. Like Lixue, she could only watch the others struggle from the sidelines, desperate not to feel useless.

But the fight would not last long with everyone’s effort. Lixue watched the last of the assault, Didymus trying to pry Leander’s crown from his head. But it was not him who succeeded in snatching the crown, but Zariel.

Lixue could see the familiarity in Leander’s eyes when he finally relented to Zariel. He could not shake the unnerving familiarity when Leander looked at him with those dead eyes.

Lixue didn’t take note of Didymus until his question brought him out of his thoughts. He had been prepared, not for this exact situation, but given Zariel’s state, the vials would work in a similar way to their ailments. He looked up at him, and his hand hovered over his neck, wary of touching it, as he attempted a few words. “Ship. Case of…vials. Ask soldiers where—”

It was all he could manage before he hackled. Every word tasted acrid and getting them out felt like glass slicing at his throat. Perhaps he deserved it. No, that would have been giving Didymus credit.

As Anissa and Diddy gathered their wits about them and took the initiative to go get help, Jagger remained. She hadn’t moved, and there was a certain contentedness in her, a sense of finalisation, despite the zombie turning to ash and dust before all their eyes. She couldn’t look at the two as they left.

Jagger, however, noticed Zariel, still in the healing mist. Her shoulder, arm, chest, was there a part of her not bloodied and mangled? She looked far worse than she did. She knew Lixue noticed too, but she could hardly imagine he would call out to her with the flesh melting away from his neck.

Grumbling, Jagger managed to sit up, calling to Zariel. “Hey, Zariel, you good?” Stupid question, but it would grab her attention if nothing else. There was a weird distance in her, and she was starting to believe that wasn’t just fatigue or the pain.

 

[Lucyfer]

Zariel imagined throwing the crown off and exploding in a fury of flames.

Zariel imagined breaking down in the ashes. Physically, and emotionally.

Zariel imagined taking her sword from Oleander and cutting off her own head.

‘This is my future.’

It sunk like a weight. This was going to be Zariel’s reward for saving the world, and when it all ended – when she was released from this life, it would be into a black pit, oblivion, nothingness. That was all that kept her from acting on these things, but it wasn’t enough to make her move. If she died from inaction, somehow, that was acceptable, even if she was aware of the inaction. Even if she felt her skin crawling away from her tendons, from her muscles and joints.

It wasn’t fair.

Nothing was fair, but the fury of this injustice was…too much, as tears seemed to cut open new wounds on her cheeks with their heat, masked by the fall of black hair as she kept her eyes down on the ashes.

‘I won’t have it.’

Impotent rage with no direction but inwards.

‘I won’t have it.’

Jagger called to her, and though her head twitched in response, she didn’t quite turn it all the way, recalling she was not composed in time to stop that. She had to answer. She had to take an action, but every choice clashed and froze her.

It was enough of a weakness for Phoenix to push forward and take over, lifting Zariel’s body from her knees, “I will be fine, Jagger,” clipped, short, Phoenix moved out of the healing mist without so much as a stumble.

He felt the wounds as if they were his own – but deeper, all at once. Necrotizing wounds were a bane to all he was, despite being undead. Many of these would heal, but not…fully. Zariel took more injury than she should have in combating Leander, risked herself more than she ought to have, given the kinds of wounds he could give.

It would make her state all the more obvious, but Phoenix would cover it.

He always did.

Already, wreathes of flames began to wrap around her, to put a stop to the progression of the wounds with quick cauterizations, and he walked Zariel over to Oleander, who took to leaning on a wall, “Hold still.”

“Ka—AYGHG.” He cried out as the white flame bit into him. It didn’t heal, merely stopped the progression, but it was not comfortable. “Fucking hELL, what did you do?”

“Stopped the progression of the necrotic poison,” Phoenix answered, “Until the other two return with the serums, this is necessary. It does hurt.”

“No shit,” Oleander groaned and slid to the ground, “Fuck. Was that…was that Leander?” he asked as Phoenix turned away to go to Lixue, who clearly needed help more than Jagger, though Jagger was next on the list.

“No,” Phoenix lied, “merely one of the unfortunates here taken by the decay of the temple. It allowed them to grasp a measure of Phoenix’s power, as it did for Leander.” Phoenix knelt by Lixue, and would hold his hand out over Lixue’s form to channel that same holy flame to stop the progression, as well. “I will now be capable of such feats, as well.”

Zariel raged at this internally, screaming that she would not be like Leander, she would not let her identity be tied to Phoenix’s methods, but Phoenix ignored the exhausted and furious woman. She would see things his way, soon enough.

~***~

Didymus did not enjoy traveling back.

Despite Leander being, well, dead-er – the other fiends were not. They had resurrected, and he and Anissa weren’t exactly the best people to deal with it. Oh, sure, the healing mist helped, but it also hurt them both as they ran through it.

They seemed in mutual agreement to run, and keep running, only stopping to help another get free of the zombies. Thankfully, most of the zombies didn’t bother with pursuit, but the few that did were almost immediately taken out by the soldiers outside the airship.

“What—where is the Empress?” one soldier demanded, panic rising in his voice, no doubt a multiple possibilities running through his head, each worse than the last, “where is the Imperator?”

“Fucking dead if you don’t tell me where the case of vials is. Lixue needs them to help everyone so they can make it out of the temple.” Didymus was ever blunt, but the statement didn’t seem to help move the soldier faster, shock first.

“How? We can send reinforcements—”

“They’re fine, just injured, he’s being dramatic,” Anissa said, earning a dirty look from Didymus, “they stayed in a safe room to await supplies so they can recuperate and be able to make the journey back. We were the least injured, and we’ll be able to make it back on our own,” Anissa was somewhat aware what seeing the inside of Phoenix’s temple could do to a normal soldier. “Can you please take us to this crate so we can pack what’s needed and get back to them quickly?”

 

[Arcanist]

Strange.

Jagger watched Zariel twitch, before she straightened up and assured her she was fine. She watched her move out of the mist, and Jagger struggled with what to respond with. “Uh, sure. Whatever you say…” She went with in the end. She couldn’t really place it, but Zariel sounded strange. Acted strange.

‘Wouldn’t anyone after fighting a crusty pile of bones?’ Only, that thing was a hell of a lot more than that. Hardly human, and if it was, it lost its humanity long ago.

She kept observing as Zariel approached Oleander, and it was her turn to flinch at Oleander’s cries of pain. Apparently stopping the progression that Zariel explained was just as bad as having it inflicted upon you. Jagger wasn’t sure if she felt relief as Zariel approached Lixue instead, who shifted a little too uneasily for her liking. They were more roughed up than her, and that thing did a number on Lixue that she was surprised he was still here.

It gave her time to mull over Oleander’s guess at who the poor undead bastard was. He was alone in this room, far more ornate and separate from the rest of this temple. He had the crown and he acted so much stranger than the rest of the shambling corpses outside.

Jagger hissed to herself as her wound continued to fester. This whole thing was weird, but who was she to question it? “Thing must have wandered in and put that circlet on,” she murmured, as if trying to explain it would make her feel better about it. It still didn’t make sense for a bunch of other things.

Lixue noticed the shift almost immediately. The others could tell something was off around Zariel, but Lixue knew when Phoenix had taken the mantle. When you knew, it became more obvious to spot. Those clipped consonants, his very gait and movement. He knew Zariel. He knew Phoenix too.

Lixue, even if he had been shifting around, turned still as Phoenix knelt beside him. He knew he planned to do the same to him as he done with Oleander, to stop the progression. And still, when Phoenix raised a hand, he jerked, his own hand rising as if to grab onto his—her arm—and stopped. He knew Phoenix needed to help with the necrotic ailment and still, he panicked. Lixue was already wary of Phoenix, but looking at him reminded him too much of Leander, and now, he was forever entwined with Jianyu.

His mother never talked about her uncle. He couldn’t ignore why now.

Lixue dropped his arm and relented, giving something of an apologetic look, aimed more at Zariel than Phoenix. When he started the process, Lixue’s features twisted as the flame seared. He sounded strangled even in his cries that he managed to get out, and his eyes watered at the blinding hot pain wrapping itself like a hand around his neck.

Jagger was not so optimistic about her treatment when Zariel reached her. Once that white flame hit her, she howled like Oleander did.

“AAGH-FUCK, that stings!” Jagger banged her fist on the tiles beside her as if that would alleviate any of the pain. She was once told if it stung so much that means something was working. She wished she could have believed it.

~***~

The soldier hesitated again, especially at hearing the duo’s intention to go back in on their own, but he nodded. “Okay. Alright, I know where it’s stored.” He forced himself to move, counting on the other soldiers to handle anything more that stumbled out of the temple.

He led Anissa and Didymus through the airship and to its hold, which already held a number of crates and other supplies safely stowed away. If the two had walked in on their own, they would have surely been at a loss of where to start, but the soldier was well-informed, not needing to look twice to head towards a black container.

Lord Virys was particular about how his goods were transported and stored. This excursion was no different.

Opening it wasn’t too much of a hassle, as all the soldier had to do was unlock it and pry it open with his hands. Inside, as promised by Lixue, were vials with some indistinguishable liquid in them, alongside syringes in cases.

“Just, uh, be careful with all of this, yeah?” The soldier requested with a bit of a frown, “I don’t really want to be on the other end of Lord Virys’s lectures over anything lost or broken.” It happened once before with some other soldiers, and he sure as hell didn’t want it coming round on him.

 

[Lucyfer]

Phoenix was not impressed with any of their reactions to the magic. Sure, it was going to hurt – cutting off necrosis always hurt – but did they really have to scream so much? At least Lixue tried not to scream. ‘This is the one you picked, Ifrit? Ixion?’ Pathetic mortals, really. One who used modifications to strengthen himself rather than improve on his own, and another who still seemed to have alcohol coursing in her veins.

Pathetic.

Wretched.

How were they ever going to defeat Ophiuchus? Phoenix couldn’t help but bemoan the situation as he straightened up from Jagger with a flat, “You’ll live,” and looked to the passage out, debating on letting them all wait here and going to find the vials himself, but knowing it wouldn’t be good to leave them in this state. Someone had to protect the lot, and he was the only one capable at the moment.

Still, he did not enjoy being in here.

This was once his temple.

This was once a grand place of healing, as much as it was a place of laying others to rest so they could be reborn, in one way or another. He felt the corruption gnaw on him, both from Zariel’s wounds, and from the tainted nature of this holy place.

He still smelled the reek of Ophiuchus’s poison, as well. It was nauseating to remember what happened.

Still, Oleander tried to get back up, using the wall, “We should…get out. Head towards the ship,” he said, “we can at least meet them back halfway.”

“You can barely stand,” Phoenix pointed out, which only spurred Oleander to push away from the wall and stand on his own. Walk on his own. Ah yes – the sibling thing. He should know about that, having eleven of them, but it slipped his mind until Oleander pushed his own sword into his chest. Phoenix reached to take hold of it as Oleander let it go.

“I’m fine,” Oleander ground out. “I can carry Lixue.”

Phoenix couldn’t even be amused by the stupidity, and tried to move the sword, but what grip Zariel had on the situation kept the sword pressed hard against the First Wound, where it burned, just enough to be annoying, on that necrotic damage he couldn’t fix.

‘Is now really the time for such pettiness?’

Zariel relented and he put the sword back into his sheath. “We will wait, Oleander.”



Oleander stopped by Lixue, kneeling at his side and seeming to debate pressing the matter, until he watched Zariel take a seat. He saw the wound on her shoulder was still actively bleeding, where the others had stopped. His expression softened, “All right,” he sighed, and his position slackened. “Man. If that’s just a touch of Phoenix’s power, in someone who can’t wield it, though – I think I understand why Leander was such a beast,” he grinned. “You’re still not going to beat me, though. No offense.”

No touch of humor entered Zariel’s gaze as she looked at him. It was like…looking into a golden void. Or looking into fire itself – all-devouring. He tried to ignore that sensation, but it gnawed at him, as she answered, “We will see.”

Deep in his soul, he knew something had changed.

Just as certainly as he knew, he had already lost. He just didn’t know what.

~***~

The soldier led them right to the black case, and the vials. Didymus acted immediately, taking them in their secure cases and packing them up alongside his bombs. He rolled his eyes a bit at the soldier, “Dude, I don’t even know your name, and Lixue hates me more, don’t worry about it.” He could feel Anissa’s look on him, but he disregarded it, “I’ll get all the lectures, just remember that if I ever need a favor.”

The soldier probably would not, but Diddy wasn’t against trying to curry favor. Twelve knew he’d need it amongst, well…Phoenix.

Especially if Garuda could just be obliterated like that.

By an undead, wielding Phoenix’s power, without Phoenix. That was…terrifying. Made all the more terrifying by the fact Zariel now held that power. More than that power, actually. Leander was legendary, dead only a little over three decades. Lavi had almost wrecked that reputation with his incompetence, but Zariel….

Zariel was going to restore it in a flash.

‘That’s good. That’s what we should want. If she can do that, she can find the others, she can make them listen, she can get Ophiuchus dealt with, and we can move on!’ But first the others had to awaken.

How did they awaken?

“Thank you,” Anissa said once Didymus had everything packed away, and they turned back to the temple, Didymus lost in thoughts of that.

How did he awaken Kikiti?

“What are you thinking?”

“Huh? Uh—” Didymus fumbled for words, taken from his thoughts. Anissa was so quiet, he expected to walk on back to the central area in relative silence. “Nothing, just—”

“I’m not an idiot, Didymus,” Anissa stated, and though he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at that and consider muttering a comment under his breath, she went on, “That was Leander we just faced.”

Didymus stopped.

“And you know a lot more about what’s going on than I do, and more than they’re willing to say.”

Didymus folded his arms over his chest, and though his look was hard, it was also thoughtful. He didn’t know her. At all. “Royalty always has its skeletons in the closet. Literally, sometimes.” He shrugged, as if this was normal.

It may as well have been.

“But you know about the Twelve, and you know all about Phoenix, and all the others, too, right? You’re a priestess, after all,” he started to walk again, “Phoenix is Holy. Rebirth. New Life. And Zariel just oh-so conveniently woke him up after an assassination attempt that totally failed,” he was laying it on thick, “because Phoenix is a conqueror, and she had just secured all of Hyune. There’s definitely not another link here that’s exceedingly obvious.”

He didn’t say it.

He didn’t need to by Anissa’s gasp. ‘There. Fuck you Lixue.’

Maybe she didn’t have it fully right. Maybe she had it completely right. Either way, he knew she was on the right track when she didn’t ask any more questions on the way back to the center, where Zariel was sitting, just like Leander had been, in the center of the room.

Didymus hesitated, but knelt by Lixue and Oleander and took out the vials and syringes, “All right, someone figure out how to use these,” Didymus said, “it was quieter on the way back so I think it’s getting harder for them to pull themselves back together, but we don’t want to give the corpses anymore time than needed.”

Anissa couldn’t quite get her eyes off of Zariel, after what Didymus said – but she tried. She tried, because she didn’t need everyone knowing she knew, so she tried to keep looking back to the vials, and tried to pay attention to what was next.

 

[Arcanist]

Jagger couldn’t help but watch for Zariel to turn her back, before she mouthed a mocking, “You’ll live,” in turn. She’d been hurt plenty of times, but that burning was unreal, especially compared to tue burns she’s sufferred before. Couldn’t all be like the Empress, apparently...

Or Oleander either. He was determined to get himself on his feet. If he managed it, well, was there really any excuse for Jagger not to? She too rose to her feet without any aid, but she kept that achievement quietly to herself. It wouldn’t be worth much to the others who were much worse off. She almost yelled at Oleander though when he stuck that sword into his chest, because what idiot did that? “Oh, right, yeah. Holy sword or whatever...” She mumbled. Huh. Not the worst idea he’s had.

Lixue watched on in silence, still even as the others attempted to make some movement and plans to walk out of the temple. He would not be walking out with them, at least, unaided. He was pragmatic enough to admit that. But still, Oleander, stubborn as he was, would insist upon it with his attempt to seal that necrotic wound, and Phoenix a barrier to him. Even the way they interacted was jarring, alien almost.

His attention shifted as Oleander made the suggestion of carrying him out himself. Lixue blinked. And then felt an unfortunate flush bloom over his pale cheeks. He knew he would have needed aid getting out, but he expected an arm around someone’s shoulder. A temporary walking stick as it were. Not the Imperator himself carrying him out in his arms.

Phoenix relented, but still insisted upon waiting. Lixue almost braced himself for the lift as Oleander stopped by him, but eeven he decided not to follow through on his stubbornness. Lixue let his shoulders relax, though, not necessarily out of relief. Almost...no, definitely disappointment. He could not lie about that. It wasn’t every day the Imperator carried you, never mind be offered to be carried. Lilia being the sole exception, of course.

Lixue glanced at Oleander, though, looked elsewhere. Give him longer to hold onto that victory he had over Zariel once before.

The atmosphere around them had grown a little colder, Jagger was too aware, and she rubbed her nose as she said, “At least we all have that confidence going for you, right?” Oleander was pretty good. But the confidence helped massively.

What felt like an agonising wait finally came to its end when Anissa and Didymus returned, emptying a pack with his vials and syringes. The right ones, at least. But then he did leave specific instructions with the guards over their transport, how they were identified. And none were broken, which was a bonus. Lixue really did have the bar set low where some of the soldiers were concerned.

Didymus, unfortunately, made sense when it came to not wasting time, and so while most stood gawking at the equipment, he volunteered to demonstrate their use. He lifted a vial and syringe, knowing he’d grab everyone’s attention with their staring. He removed the vial’s cap and took the syringe, drawing what looked to be a purple nebulous liquid into it. Once he drew a reasonable amount of said liquid out of it, he poised the needle at the sight of his neck wound, and slowly injected it.

It had been some time since he played the role of a guinea pig. At least now, he knew there wouldn’t be high drawbacks from it. Lixue was provided his own little guinea pigs for experiments such as these.

Though, like any injection, there was a sting, judging by his hiss and the discomfort in his face. Not enough to leave anyone writhing on the floor, unless they had a severe phobia of these kind of things.

Lixue had to hold back his amusement at the idea of Jagger being afraid of something so small and sharp.

“You couldn’t have made something we could just drink?” Jagger sighed, though, she didn’t seem like she wasn’t fond of this method. Lixue, as he finished up, gave her a look that said, “no, I could not.” She made her way over to the others, slow, and trying not to look like she was limping, before grabbing a vial and syringe for herself. “This better work, Licksy.” She couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

 

[Lucyfer]

Anissa hyper-focused on Lixue’s instructions. It was simple, really. Take the liquid out of the vial and into the syringe, then plunge it into flesh that was necrotizing. Or, near it, at any rate. A needle wasn’t the favored method of anyone, but Anissa could do this. “Does anyone need help with this?”

Wounds could be at awkward angles.

Didymus had already taken a needle and vial, and was handing them out to Oleander, to Zariel, and offered one to her. She took it. “I’ve got this,” Oleander waved it off, “You think I got all these tattoos without needles?” he plunged the first vial into his chest, where the armor had been all but scraped off of him.

“No, but I also assume you didn’t do those to yourself,” Anissa stated dryly.

“Nah,” Oleander reached for another, further confirmation of how fucked up he was, yet he seemed in high spirits. It had to be the tattoos, right? Ixion hadn’t awoken in him, although Anissa now knew it wasn’t the Zodiac that gave people their strength. Not…entirely.

Zariel was a special case, and she noted that Zariel seemed to be avoiding using the liquid on the wound at her shoulder. “Do you need help reaching…?” Anissa patted her own shoulder, since it was on Zariel’s favored side.

Zariel cocked her head, in what Anissa could only read as a bird-like fashion. Did Zariel do that normally? ‘Who are you outside of Phoenix, anyways?’ A jarring question – but hadn’t Zariel been raised for this? Anissa didn’t know her at all to know her quirks, her differences. Was Zariel even there anymore, or was it all Phoenix now? Anissa had no idea how it worked.

Didymus hadn’t said much, just implied.



Phoenix shook his head at Anissa’s question. He didn’t need help reaching there, he just knew the liquid wouldn’t do much at all. Though, perhaps it would at least close the permanent wound, for now. So, rather than argue it, “No, it is just the least severe,” he answered, before using the liquid there.

Least severe or not, it barely knit together. Even so, with the others healed, he still forced down an elixir and ignored the searing pain that went through him as the other wounds healed, but not that one. No, that one lost whatever healing that liquid had done for him, and new blood hit the ground, but he ignored it.

“We should be able to move now. I will take point. Didymus, you are at the rear this time. Oleander, Lixue, and Jagger need to be center,” their wounds demanded it, even with the elixir.

“Hey, I can manage now!” Oleander protested.

“You still have to carry Lixue.”

“I—damn,” point. He sighed, “Fiiine, but you’re still pretty poorly, Zari.” He would look to Lixue to give a sign that he was ready to be moved, and only then, reach down to either help him up, or outright carry him if it looked like even after all of this, he couldn’t manage his own weight. “Shouldn’t Anissa take point?”

Phoenix simply shook his head, “I am well enough now.”

“You’re literally still bleeding.”

“It does not hurt.”

“That’s not the—ugh, fine, whatever, be that way,” it was pointless arguing with Zariel when she wanted to pretend she was tougher than she was. Which, apparently, was now.

So Phoenix would lead out. Anissa would stay near the front – as Didymus would hang at the back – but as Anissa learned there was little reason for her there.



Didymus could tell even from the back there was little threat any longer. The zombies still arose, of course – but the Corona of Phoenix definitely gave Zariel a monumental boost, and seemed to change her preferred method now that she seemed to be all but brimming with magical energy. The claws that Leander had used came out, not blackened and charred, but golden and fiery, and she didn’t hesitate to engage with novas and swipes of magical energy.

But not her sword.

Not her whip.

Not the weapons she’d used her entire life.

Of course…they weren’t really weapons Phoenix used. Even if the sword was one of his blessings. And Didymus just knew it was going over Oleander and Jagger's head.

 

[Arcanist]

As everyone gathered the vials and syringes, Jagger joined in procuring her own. She could handle a little needle. She handled much worse. And if everyone else could administer their own, so could she. Still, she hesitated, maybe because it came from Lixue, but she followed through with medicating herself. Not like there wasn’t another option on the table.

It was a simple process, but the scientist was glad to see the others understood how to administrate the treatment. A wince or two came about, but nothing as grievous as the flame set upon them by Phoenix. Oleander did not shy away from taking one vial and another to offset the necrotizing flesh across his chest, where he recognised the tattoos for what they were. His fault, but what were some black markings in exchange for power? What was physical weakness to burgeoning magical prowess?

What was life to the powers of a god?

Lixue watched fresh blood drop from Zariel’s injured shoulder, and he wondered again how obvious it all was. When he moved his gaze, he caught Jagger’s eyes wandering to him, some sympathetic, yet uncomfortable look. He held it and let go just as quickly as Phoenix gave their marching orders. Lixue made it obvious with all his staring.

Lixue gave Oleander a curt nod, granting his permission to be moved. It wasn’t difficult for Oleander to move him – Lixue would have joked he was nothing but a paperweight to him, despite his height. He did try to move with Oleander’s aid, though his hesitant pauses and squirming expression led him to being carried outright in the end.

“Cheer up, Lixue,” Jagger said from behind, tone flat as she concealed a slight limp. “Not every day you get carried around by the Imperator.”

Lixue scoffed, though, he did notice her tease lacking. It sounded as if Phoenix’s flame eroded her humour too.

Making it out of the temple proved easier than getting in, that was all too noticeable. It seemed like Zariel hardly had to lift a finger to smite rising corpses that seemed to give them trouble before. Jagger, as awed as she was at watching corpses stay down, felt a twinge of resentment settle in her at that power, that change in Zariel. She was more preoccupied with that then to connect the dots in front of her that Didymus already did.

~***~

The Empress of Amarum, Marked of Phoenix, led them in a procession out of the temple. Her soldiers greeted her with a mix of relief and celebration, a newfound vigour in witnessing the magic that put down the scatter of zombies that wandered from the temple. No time was wasted in sealing Phoenix’s temple and readying for departure once again.

Rest was a much-needed companion for all of them, and those that fought through Phoenix’s temple expected that would consume much of their trip back to Amarum. The nation would have to be witness to Phoenix’s glory, the return many had been waiting and praying for since Leander’s passing.

Jagger sneaked a bottle from the lounge, disappeared elsewhere on the ship, and remarked to herself how quick the trip back to Amarum was as she readied to depart. She argued with soldiers as she tried to leave the airship, and realised the environment was not quite Amarum territory. She recognised it for Juno’s favourite holy city.

Ibec.

And when they left Ibec, the High Priestess of Phoenix was smoke and ash. Condemned and punished by Phoenix for her acts of harbouring the Marked of Capricorn. No one dared to oppose it. No one argued when Phoenix decreed Zariel hold the highest position in Phoenix’s clergy. Ibec was left shaken in a matter of hours.

It would not take long for the news to trickle throughout the rest of the continent. It definitely didn’t take long for the news to return to the ship with the Empress, who ordered they resume their journey back to Amarum.

The atmosphere onboard was morbid and stifling. Zariel discussed their plans to gather up the rest of the marked and storm the viera village with Oleander as if she didn’t just execute a woman, just another cog.

These were more useful things to worry about.

Once they docked down in Amarum, its passengers wasted no time getting off the airship after they were dismissed for a well-deserved rest. The reprieve would not last long, and so they would need to take every moment of rest they could get.

That, and the lingering thoughts of what happened, what it all meant now.

~***~

Zariel called for an audience. A challenge by the Imperator against the Empress who possessed the power of Phoenix himself. Oleander wanted his fight, and he would get his fight. The People wanted Phoenix, and it was only fair to give the people what they had been waiting for, what their Empire was built upon. Anyone who was anyone would have been a fool to miss out on the chance of witnessing a fight like this.

The other Marked included. It was clear that Lixue, Anissa, Jagger, and Didymus were required to attend. Lixue understood that it was much to prove his enhancements were no match for Phoenix as it was to boost morale. A reminder of what Phoenix was capable of, how no nation could match such power, how no one could compare to His might. Lixue did not need the reminder, not when Phoenix did nothing but worm his way through his head, every waking moment. He was sure the others didn’t either, who were witness to Phoenix’s wrath in one way or another.

But he understood the statement that needed to be made.

Where before it was contained to the training grounds hidden behind palace walls, this fight had a much larger, much more accessible space within the city. Set up and secured accordingly, of course. They wouldn’t risk Amarum or its people burning for such an important fight, the kind for the history books.

 

[Lucyfer]

The metaphorical blood dripped from between Anissa’s fingers as she stood in Ibec.

She had made it off the ship, none kept hostage on it when they landed in Ibec, and was witness to Phoenix’s execution of his own High Priestess, a woman Anissa had known since she was a child. A woman who was unable to get a word out before it was done, and Phoenix turned to Ibec to announce his reasoning.

To announce Zariel as High Priestess instead.

‘This is my fault.’ Well, the Priestess made her choice. And Anissa made hers, to deny being known, and it brought her…here.

Could she fault Phoenix, a God, for his actions? Anissa wanted to, despite knowing what was going on and how important this was. She wanted to hate Phoenix in that moment, and perhaps, a part of her even did – but she was pragmatic to a fault. She understood why it was done. It didn’t wash away her guilt, or her own self-loathing at playing a role in the demise of the beloved priestess…but she understood.

The priestess had gone against Phoenix’s express command. They all had, in Ibec, but Phoenix did not touch the clergy of the other Twelve. Would they be upset? Could they do anything? Anissa was curious, but knew she could not ask.

Garuda and Shiva had been put of commission in that fight.

‘Nothing, compared to the might of a Dead God.’

Was Phoenix more powerful alive, or dead?

Anissa didn’t want to know.

The mood was darkened when Zariel returned and spoke of plans, clipped and curt. None challenged her then, of course. Not after the execution. When they came to Amarum, it was Oleander who showed Anissa to where she’d be staying in the castle, and she went to sleep almost immediately, trying to digest everything.

When she woke, she understood a holiday week had been declared in Amarum, and also understood she was somewhat expected to go witness one of the opening events of the week: a show of strength, to finally show Amarum what they had been waiting for.

‘A Dead God.’

Still, Anissa made her way out, and found a guard to help escort her to where the…celebration, was.

~***~

“Citizens of Amarum.”​

Despite Zariel’s own rage at the priestess, despite Zariel wanting the priestess dead – Ibec had been all Phoenix. Zariel had existed, for Phoenix separated from her to make it painfully clear who’s ruling it was – but barely. Phoenix took over almost immediately afterwards, made the plans aloud with the others, and returned to Amarum.

When Zariel woke the next day, it was with that same jolt as all the times since her death.

There were still no dreams. Just the endlessness of the void.

There was no differentiating between sleep and death – except she came back from sleep. ‘But for how long?’

And how long, indeed, until she was Leander?

“The day we have all been waiting for is here at last.”​

A fit of quiet hyperventilating and crying was all she could afford herself while Phoenix chastised her from the back of her mind for such behavior, which she couldn’t stop as she felt her control spiraling out of her hands. Phoenix pressed forward to take that control for himself – and Phoenix was thrown against the wall of her room for it.

Mussed hair, red eyes, and swollen cheeks, Zariel got off the bed once Phoenix was thrown out of her and began to move to prepare for the day, as Phoenix chirped, “That was all I wanted, Zariel. You cannot stay in bed and cry all day. We do not have time for it.” Zariel was tempted to throw her hairbrush at Phoenix for the remark.

For doing what he wanted by getting ready for the day.

“I am not your enemy.” Phoenix knew her thoughts, of course. “We must strengthen each other, not fight, as—”

“—as you did with Leander, who was a shambling and broken corpse wholly dependent on you.” Zariel snapped the words, whispered though they were, they still cracked like her whip. “I am stronger than Leander. I do not need you to cut into every moment of my life and try to run it.”

“Leander did not waste time crying on his bed.”

“No, he was too busy letting you guide his hand.” Zariel all but slammed the hairbrush down in front of her vanity as she paced to her closet to find something appropriate to wear for the day. “You will work with me, Phoenix, not through me, or I will sink myself into the ocean.”

Phoenix scoffed, “No, you will not.” It went unsaid. Zariel was too afraid of death for that. A death she just woke from. Eternity in a second. “You need to learn to trust me. There are things bigger than all of us. You know this. You have preached this. It is no different now than before. You must continue to sacrifice for the greater good.”

“I will.” Zariel bit down on the words as she found what was fitting, “Learn to trust me as well, Phoenix. I was preparing to do this without you.”

Zariel dressed, and early that morning, went out to speak to Amarum – to declare a national holiday full of weeklong celebrations. Short notice? Yes – but nothing she hadn’t already been preparing for in Ucantis behind the scenes.

Failure had never been an option, and the crowd cheered at the sight of Phoenix in full glory.

The crowd was also, soon, at the arena that was set up and prepared for her and Oleander, because there were none known to be stronger than Oleander, and it was known well enough that he tended to win their little spars.

The last one, she’d screamed into a pillow after, furious that she’d actually lost, though she never showed that. The fight had been necessary to show why Lixue’s experiments were necessary, her loss, in a way, necessary.

This time, her victory was necessary.

‘You will not take over.’

A silent command to Phoenix, who remained outside of Zariel, shifting in size as appropriate to the scenario. For the battle, he was back to his full, flaming glory, and perched himself atop one of the pillars of the arena, casting his shadow upon it.

Zariel stepped into the arena with a pleasant smile on her lips, but it was entirely false. Not that it looked that way to most, of course. She’d be a poor politician if she ever slipped that way.

There was an audience in attendance, a true one, not just random soldiers who had been displaced from their training by the Imperial Siblings. Now, with Phoenix’s crown upon her head, she came here to show them why the Zodiac trumped all.

There was a time she would have relished this, and those old feelings still pricked at her heart, jumping its beat in some anticipatory excitement, but it was far duller than what it should have been. How long she had waited to be able to crush Oleander in a fight! And yet, she could only think of the practicality of it.

The necessity of winning.

Oleander, of course, stepped onto the arena to cheers, beloved by the soldiers in a way Zariel wasn’t. Zariel was heeded better, people craved her approval, but they wanted to hang out with Oleander in a bar and tell jokes.

The cheers did not bother her as they used to.

Nothing did.

Just the thought of loss. “I won’t go easy on you like I have in the past, Zariel,” Oleander teased, more for the crowd than anything else, “Unless…?”

A trace of a smirk touched her lips, “Please, go all out,” she invited, “all I need is twenty seconds, if you can even last that long.”

There were some ‘ooooo’s from the crowd. Some laughter. Some trilling fear. She felt it.

Oleander felt it. His confidence faltered, but he chuckled through it, “All right, all right, just say when.”

“When.” And that was when Zariel moved.

The wings erupted from her back as she went forward, giving her speed to take him by surprise. He managed to dodge, the tattoos giving him the speed for that, but she simply flew up as flames erupted where she had been. Oleander was caught in the explosion and rolled back, pinning himself up against the magical barrier that kept their fight encased.

The look of ‘fuck’ was on his face before Zariel dropped from the sky, wings evaporating for the freefall, sword pointed down.

He evaded that, but was again taken by the explosion of holy energy that erupted when the sword pierced the ground. It knocked him back again. He lifted his sword in time to catch her blade against his own as she came at him. One, two, three, four – the blades sung as they collided, Zariel leading the dance, Oleander unable to get his bearings as each collision was an explosion of blinding light, each one searing his flesh red and melting armor, until his sword was cut in twain, the heat from her own blade too much for it to withstand.

His eyes blazed with a need to win, and so of course, he tried to push forward – shove his shoulder into her, catch her arm, but she deftly stepped aside and he felt the pain as her sword cut right up the back of his left leg.

He fell forward to a knee, but grabbed the pointed piece of his blade that had been broken and tried to thrust that up at Zariel.

It was swiped out of his hand by another deft cut, leaving his palm wound immediately cauterized, rather like his leg wound.

“Fu—”

The sword’s tip sizzled on his bottom lip and bubbled saliva on his tongue as Zariel rested it there.

Not a drop of blood hit the arena floor.

No glint of amusement, even as the crowd erupted in applause and laughter at the method with which Oleander was both beaten and silenced. It was wonderful showmanship – but that was all it was. Zariel couldn’t even find enough strength to care to put on a face for the crowd in that moment, the façade broken as she held Oleander’s gaze.

They were too far away to catch the details of her expression, anyways.

Perhaps it would have been nice for Oleander, though.

For a moment, he looked nakedly terrified.

“I ihv uuf.” Oleander managed to say around the sword.

Zariel withdrew the blade with a flourish and turned, of course, to the crowd, as Oleander fanned his mouth and cursed, before covering his lips. “The Imperator has given up,” that deadened expression was replaced with the politician’s mask, though where smug sibling victory should have shone through, there was nothing. Not even satisfaction.

But the crowd loved it anyways, already in love with the method that shut him up and ended the fight, so of course, there was applause. Chants.

And Zariel did notice, mixed in with the chants of ‘Phoenix’ – some said her name.



Oleander frowned, glared, but of course, his own inability to stay down caused him to laugh and wince, “Shiva’s tits, you weren’t kidding. Man, I can’t wait until I can get Ixion’s power!” Oleander laughed it off as Zariel sheathed her blade and turned from the crowd to him.

He winced again as the pain of all the holy burns shook through him. “I’ll clip your wings then, bet on it!”

Zariel didn’t even scoff, just leveled that terribly calm, cold look upon him, until he wilted and looked away.

And Oleander knew he couldn’t win, even with Ixion, though he didn’t know why. It was that sensation he felt in Phoenix’s temple, of a terrible change, of a battle already lost – but not so severe. He imagined humor in the cold, even as his flesh burned, and tried to demand he stop moving.

Every move of his arms was sheer agony, and he was pretty sure blisters were forming on his lips. Indeed, medics were already rushing towards the arena as the barrier dropped. Phoenix flew in, and Zariel caught him on her arm.

‘Fuck.’ Oleander’s head bowed as one of the medics came to his side, and asked him some nonsense question he didn’t even register. He didn’t really take notice that he was being spoken to, until someone grabbed his arm to try and hoist him up.

“I can get up, I can get up,” Oleander complained, and did, “I’m not that bad off, fuck.” A mercy. “Did I make it twenty seconds?”

“Uh…I wasn’t—”



“Nope,” it was Didymus who answered Oleander, walking down to see him because he knew Jagger would want to, and he’d sat with Jagger in the stands. And placed his own bet on Zariel, because he knew it was a sure win. Anissa stood a bit behind him, but she was there. “16 seconds before you were crushed.”

“Fuck,” Oleander cursed again, “I want a rematch!” he said it loudly – but not loud enough, of course, to be heard by Zariel, or anyone who really mattered. Already, Phoenix was flying off from her arm, and Oleander had a moment to wonder why she wasn’t seeing him off to the medics.

What did she have planned after this? He didn’t remember…certainly nothing…she couldn’t have been that certain of victory not to plan for time to recover…right?

“Oleander, can we please get your wounds seen to? Your, uh, enhancements make it a bit difficult sometimes,” one of the medics – some apprentice to Lixue or something – pleaded.

Oleander sighed, “Yeah, fine, whatever. Rematch another time. Let her know, this was just…just lucky.” Oleander insisted to the other Marked.

‘Sure, whatever you say.’ Didymus just rolled his eyes at Oleander’s protesting. If only he knew. If only any of them knew.

But then he wouldn’t be making this sweet payout. Oleander was still the favorite amongst Amarum, which meant the odds had favored him. So, Didymus was making bank.

 

[Arcanist]

Zariel did not need those twenty seconds after all. Sixteen was all it took. It took Oleander longer in their last fight to secure a victory, and even less time to lose in this one.

While the crowd chanted for Phoenix, the odd voice giving Zariel due credit, Lixue watched with an impassive stare, one he had those years before when he watched Oleander and Zariel spar from the shadows. No one could hope to know his true feelings.

The fight served its purpose and proved Phoenix and her marked was a force far beyond anything a mortal like Lixue could ever hope to recreate. But Zariel and Phoenix greatly exceeded his expectations he thought could not be topped from what he already witnessed.

Inside, he was recoiling from how much stronger Phoenix really was, what he was truly capable of. Phoenix’s fire burned radiance, not like the black flame they witnessed at his temple, and Zariel was unrelenting. Where Oleander was quick, Zariel was quicker, stronger. Her cuts were clean and precise, each movement a calculation that she spent no time making. His original pet project, one of Lixue’s greatest feats, was reduced to a simpering swordsman before Amarum.

If Oleander, a marked endowed with his enhancements, could not lay a finger on Zariel, then there was no hope for any other mark to keep up with her.

Lixue thought of this fight often. He wanted to see Zariel wield that power easily in her fists. He wanted to her win. But that was when he didn’t expect Phoenix to be what he was, and he didn’t pity Oleander mourning his loss.

Lixue rose from his seat, though, rather than make his way down into the arena, he chose to depart. He played his role, being witness to the man he empowered forced to the ground in less than half a minute. Zariel would not dally, and the others and his own flailing apprentice among the medics saw to fawning around Oleander. He would see the younger sibling later. He would see Zariel first. Alone.

As he left, he ignored the stares, the smirks, some whispers from those who remained. He couldn’t understand what more there was for them to witness.

“Lord Lixue, leaving so soon?” One on-duty soldier called to him when he was almost out, bemused by the sight of him fleeing.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” Lixue curtly responded, refusing to stop. He realised how it looked like a walk of shame, his pride stinging. Perhaps it was, with his vendetta against Phoenix.

“Ended quickly by Phoenix. I guess you’ll have to rethink those enhancements now, won’t you?”

“If I do, I’ll be sure to bring you in for some, seeing as you’re so eager.”

Lixue did not look back, but he did not need to. The silence was enough to make her shirk back, that he knew.



Jagger almost bounced out of her seat once the barrier came up, even if she was stunned by the flurry of fire and light. She had to hide her disappointment. She wouldn’t have called that a fight at all, watching Oleander run for most of it. Diddy was quick to get on his feet too, knowing too well she would want to see Oleander.

She wasn’t sure what to say when they got down onto the field, but Didymus was quick to point out the time it took for Zariel to grind his ass into the dust.

‘Ouch.’

Although, she was counting. Didymus was counting too. Jagger glanced at Zariel, unsure of whether to congratulate her in front of Oleander, at risk of hurting his pride even more. An acknowledgement was all she afforded her, but even then, she didn’t think Zariel noticed it. Phoenix moved from her arm as if readying to leave. She expected more celebration from Zariel, more of that pride from winning in this chapter of sibling rivalry.

But there was nothing from her. And she didn’t even begin to seek it from any of them.

Jagger just tried to shake off the awkwardness of the whole situation. “If it makes you feel any better,” Jagger chirped in and looked at Oleander, hands on her hips, “I gave you some more time to hold out. Like, a couple of minutes.” She failed to mention that, like many of Amarum’s patrons today, she put her hard-earned Imperial coin on a bet. The bet did not favour the Imperator’s victory against the Empress.

She liked him, and she saw him fight – and she was willing to admit he was a better fighter than her, not something she willingly admitted often - but she also saw Zariel fight. She saw her mow her way out of those zombies in the temple. Jagger was optimistic and loved a black chocobo to sweep the feet under their competition, but she was not so stupidly optimistic. She was when it came to the minutes part, but, eh.

“But, hey!” She laughed a little too hard, punching Oleander’s shoulder lightly, “next time though, right?! She was totally lucky. You just gotta get back up and hit harder next time.” She echoed his previous insistence on whooping Zariel’s ass when he got Ixion. It would make him feel a little better. Maybe.

Even she inwardly cringed at the unusual amount of optimism.

At least she’d get some coin out of this. That would make her feel better.

 

[Lucyfer]

Zariel had indeed been so confident in her victory that she had made plans immediately following Oleander’s loss. Not for a bit, of course – the fast sweep was unexpected even by her. The power still rang at her fingertips even though she no longer burned the way she had when she first returned to Ucantis. No, by all appearances, she was now…normal.

But the power sung in her veins even as Phoenix far more easily separated from her to do his own rounds, apart. It was something they both needed, her more than Phoenix. She refused to get as entwined in his identity as Leander had done.

Phoenix needed to show his return to the world, anyways.

Draw the Cardinals here, so she could dispatch them.

She caught sight of Lixue out of the corner of her eye and slowed her steps to allow him to catch up as she made her way back towards the castle. The crowd had easily parted for her. She’d easily smiled at blurry faces, and even said words she didn’t register, parroting ‘thank you’ and chuckles at her brother’s expense, clucking against negative words about Lixue’s experiments.

She wouldn’t hear it.

It was still necessary, no matter what anyone said. There was only one Phoenix, and Phoenix had been bested by Ophiuchus.

It wasn’t enough.

“Lixue,” she addressed once he was in step with her, and they were much closer to the castle, enough so that the crowd of citizens had thinned dramatically and now it was just the unfortunate guards who weren’t able to go watch the show. “I promise you will still have funding and resources to continue your work,” she reassured.

Of course, she knew that wasn’t why he was there, but he wouldn’t linger in small talk long. She was certain of that; Lixue never wasted time with such things, and he knew she didn’t have the time to waste.

~***~

Oleander scoffed at Jagger’s note, and fixed his eyes on Didymus, “And you?”

“Not even a minute. C’mon, I grew up in Escander, I know how to bet,” he didn’t, actually, he was usually pretty shit at this, but he had insider understanding here, as Anissa joined them while Jagger tried to reassure Oleander about ‘next time’.

Oleander grinned at it, but it faltered, “Yeah. Yeah maybe. But – shit, thief, did you get that much stronger?”

“Totally,” Didymus lied in monotone, making it painfully obvious. “I could kick your ass now,” he could not. Garuda might, but a part of Didymus actually wondered. Oleander was…powerful. Beyond a normal man. Could he stand to Garuda? He took a hit from Leviathan.

“Heh. Yeah. Didn’t think so,” Oleander said. “Next time. She got lucky,” he concurred, because obviously, it couldn’t change things that much. Zariel was always a capable fighter and good enough with magic – he’d be ready next time.

Lixue’s apprentice was giving him such a look that he finally started to walk, “Jag, I’ll catch up with you in a bit.”

“Hey! Oleander! I need to check on something in the prison, can I do so?” Didymus asked.

“What, leave something down there? Sure, whatever,” he waved it off, and Didymus smirked, but took it. Sure, no one was likely to stop him if he went that way, but now he had Oleander on record giving him permission.

“Thanks!” And as Oleander hobbled off, that injury to his leg giving him a limp, he noted Anissa’s look.

He jolted a bit, not realizing she’d joined them, “When did you learn to sneak?”

“I didn’t,” she said. “What do you need in the dungeon?”

“Nothing that concerns you,” he hedged, “I’ll have to catch up with you later, Anissa.”

“Wait—”

“—yes, whatever it is can wait,” Didymus confirmed, “gotta talk to Jagger and get to the dungeon,” Jagger was, obviously, invited to talk.

“Didymus, I—ugh, you know what? Fine,” Anissa huffed, and turned off, deciding she did have other business, and it involved the moogles, a letter, and Hector.

Didymus wasn’t upset with her irritation. He didn’t hold it against her at all, considering they were the only two who could, well, talk to each other about some things. For now. “So, you know Oleander doesn’t stand a fuckin’ chance against Zari, right?”

 

[Arcanist]

Zariel’s reassurances about his work continuing unimpeded did not fall on deaf ears. That was never in doubt for Lixue. There was still plenty to be uncovered, more power to secure. Those harping that the scientist was outliving his usefulness couldn’t comprehend the amount of work there was still left to do.

She knew his contempt for small talk well, and he knew there was no time to waste.

“I never had any doubt you would continue to support it, Zariel. Thank you.”

Despite that hatred for small talk, Lixue felt heavy with looming question he had for Zariel ever since it was planted in him at the temple.

And when they were out of earshot of any citizen, any guard, any of their marked, in a room where Zariel could grab the ether she was no doubt gasping for, Lixue did not waste time, as expected.

“Zariel, why did Leander mention Jianyu?”

Zariel knew he would ask. She heard his name after all. And Lixue knew just as well she would know why the name was uttered if she shared Phoenix’s memories, Leander’s memories. It was a reason far beyond recognition, an uncanniness in appearance, and he would leave this room and understand why.

His great-uncle was not like him. He was just an advisor to Leander, nothing more.

~***~

Jagger couldn’t help but snort at the image of Didymus taking Oleander on in a fight, and winning, even with Garuda. She couldn’t imagine it.

After some prodding from the apprentice, Oleander was on his way. She saluted him after saying he’d catch her later and started walking. “Speedy recovery!” She cheerfully called after him. She’d bring him a little something later to raise his spirits. Something…spirit-y.

She was not the only one to call after Oleander. Diddy sought permission to go down to the prison. She looked at Didymus, just as Anissa asked about what he wanted down there – she only just noted her presence too, agreeing with how sneaky Diddy said she was. Jagger recalled one of the cell’s new occupants.

The Lalafell’s parents.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him, but she stayed silent for once. She observed the strange urgency in Anissa, and how quickly the conversation was cut short by Didymus. Apparently, Jagger was more important than whatever Anissa wanted.

“I mean, I don’t mind waiting…” Jagger trailed off as Anissa turned then, whatever business she had apparently something she could wait on. She gave a half-assed wave she couldn’t see before she mumbled, “Wow. Zariel really shit in her cereal, huh?”

Not that she could blame Anissa either. A reminder not to get on the wrong side of Zariel. She bristled at the thought of that priestess dying by fire like that, and it was not the first time she thought about dying that way. She rubbed her gloved wrists.

Jagger looked at Didymus then, giving him a strange look when he spoke of Oleander facing Zariel. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Knowing him, it meant something. “Yeah, sure, he wasn’t up to scratch against her today, but she’s not the only one with a Zodiac.”

She already knew her words didn’t inspire confidence in Diddy. There was something strange in his look, like he was gearing up for something. There was something weird about all of this, and the way Anissa and him spoke to each other was weird, like it was some inside thing she wasn’t in on. And she hated not being in on stuff.

“What, Diddy? What is it?” She was impatient now for him to get to the point.

 

[Lucyfer]

Jianyu.

Zariel truly should have expected it, and yet after wiping the arena floor with Oleander, somehow, she expected another question. Even as she didn’t reach for an ether, she expected a question of something, well, scientific. Sentimental didn’t cross her mind, and this was strangely sentimental, if only because the memories Leander had of Jianyu caused a strange ache in her own heart.

An ache that turned to pure hatred as she looked at Lixue. Not hatred for him, but hatred for what Phoenix might do to him, Shiva or no. When Zariel’s body reached its time limit, there would need to be a sacrifice, someone to become ashes, so that no one knew Phoenix’s cursed state – a state that defeating Ophiuchus wouldn’t change in the least.

“And here I thought you might want to run experiments on the Corona of Phoenix,” Zariel sighed, but let her back hit the wall of the room. She wasn’t tired, physically, but the memories were…heavy. “Jianyu Virys. The man your family owes everything to, I suppose, for becoming Leander’s best friend, even if perhaps Jianyu didn’t see it that way himself.”

She did not have Jianyu’s memories, but she had her own detached way of viewing Leander’s. When Leander gave all to Phoenix, he’d considered more than once telling Jianyu what was going on, but he never did. He listened, wholly, to Phoenix.

“He was nothing but a pawn to Phoenix, and Phoenix cultivated the friendship for one end, and one end only. We both know there was no body found when Leander passed, leaving only his sword. We all thought he burned up, like a Phoenix himself. Now we know better,” Zariel shut her eyes, “the ashes were Jianyu’s ashes. Leander’s last lucid memory was Phoenix burning him alive, when Jianyu was called to check on Leander’s faltering health.”

What a terrible way to go…and despite the heaviness, the terribleness of it, Zariel chuckled, because what else was there to do but laugh at a past that wasn’t as rosy as she’d been told? What else but to slowly sink into madness and fight at everything, even sorrow and rage? “Promise me you’ll kill me before you ever let that happen to you, Lixue. I don’t’ think I’d go peacefully to Phoenix’s temple if you had to be the sacrifice for it.”

She’d burn Amarum to the ground.

~***~

Didymus snorted at Jagger’s comment. ‘You have no idea.’ Which was entirely the problem, and entirely why he needed to talk to Jagger alone. Sure, Anissa knew, but Anissa might just say it, and it was better if they all sort of…figured it out. If only because Lixue would kill him. Lixue might not have the loophole to kill him if Didymus made people figure it out, without saying it.

That was what he was going for, anyways.

“Jagger, come on, you’ve seen Zariel fight before. You’ve seen her on the fucking frontlines with your mercs and Oleander,” because Zariel never ordered anything she wouldn’t do herself. It was why people loved her. Why they respected her. Also why they respected Oleander. Sure, the nepotism was rampant, but good god if the holy family wasn’t willing to get down and dirty with the peasants! “And you saw her in the temple, and just now. Tell me Oleander’s ever gonna stand a chance after seeing that.”

Didymus would give her a moment to let it sink in – the change, more than anything. Oleander and Zariel were fairly even before, though Oleander was still the one more likely to win. Zariel only stood a chance with magic, if she could keep Oleander at a range.

It didn’t matter now.

“If the Zodiac gave strength like that normally, don’t you think Lixue and I would show some sort of change, too? Even Reva – but she was just a regular viera.” But, they didn’t. Jagger knew how weak Lixue was. And Didymus hadn’t changed all that much. “It isn’t normal.” Get her to consent to that, “Don’t you see the obvious?” get her to realize there was something. He could point further – but first he had to make her see that something was very, very off. “Fuck, the Zodiac didn’t even stand a chance against that zombie in the crown.”

Who fought like Zariel did, in cleaning up the zombies. ‘Come on, Jag….’ He knew he’d need to say more. He knew that – but he had to get the wheels turning.

 

[Arcanist]

That pause lasted too long. He felt every muscle stiffen as he waited for Zariel to say something. Anything.

This was week of firsts for him. The first thoughts of treachery, the first moments where he felt uncomfortable, the first doubts that maybe, he was overstepping. But he always did. He was never concerned with the repercussions of his actions before, and now he reconsidered them with every step he made. And it wasn’t Zariel’s fault for this. She did not make him feel this way, he insisted.

But he misjudged. Of course, Zariel would not have been plagued with thoughts of her grandfather’s advisor, his great-uncle. He did not look at her as he considered that misjudgement. That was how much Leander’s rasping voice played on him, to the point it warped his usual sense of practicality. He then watched Zariel back up against the wall, the strain of memories from decades weighing down her face, the rest of her body.

He did not know much about Jianyu. Only the facts he was spared, like how he was aide to Leander, spearhead of their family until his niece and ward took that mantle after him. He spent most of his time in Amarum’s political circles and as much time making Chiyou pass through those same circles.

Lixue didn’t note a fondness from Jianyu when it came to Leander, at least from what he gathered from his mother. That seemed to line up with what Zariel said, from an objective standpoint. Leander felt differently.

And Phoenix took advantage of that. Just as Jianyu saw Leander as a rung on the ladder, he became a scapegoat for Phoenix. He could have laughed at the irony of it, but he couldn’t bring himself to. Not when Zariel confirmed Jianyu’s fate, the pile of ashes that he became in place of his Emperor. That was one of the conclusions he made, the only other logical conclusion he could come to, but he made himself blind to it. He wanted to ignore it as a possibility.

And now it was all but confirmed. Lixue found a chair and just sat down. He felt himself unravelling at the revelation of it. Zariel had Leander’s fate to look forward to, and Lixue leaned forward as it dawned on him that he might very well share the same fate as Jianyu.

“Fuck.” He laughed, a hand on his head.

It frightened him.

“What a shitshow we’ve inherited…” Lixue laughed a little more, at how fucked up it all was. An Empire built on the ashes of another.

The pieces fell into place. Lady Virys’s overzealousness started to make more sense. Not a foot out of place, because they could all disappear like Jianyu, and no one would dare to question why, how. She distanced herself, and yet, pushed Lixue into the lion’s den, because what else did you do when your son was Aquarius?

She survived longer than Lavi or Bellona to make it worthwhile.

He stopped himself from laughing any more, afraid of delving into some demented cry of frustration. He did not want the weight of realisation to drag him down. Lixue looked up at Zariel then, locking eyes with hers as she requested, no, made him promise, that they would not walk the same path as their counterparts.

He hesitated.

“Promise nothing.”

The warning rang in his head like a plunge into icy waters.

He never refused Zariel.

“Lixue,” it came again, sharper. “You mark us for death.”

Us. As if she did not return to the aether and leave him a pile of ashes.

The hesitation in his eyes thawed. He did not need to answer it.

He never refused Zariel.

“I didn’t think you would suffer going to Phoenix’s temple at all,” he answered, trying to be candid and dry. But he smiled a little instead. It dropped as if it hurt to keep up. “We were children, Zari,” Lixue whispered. He had never felt sentimental about his childhood, the duty placed upon them both. Zariel’s was far larger, life or death, but he wanted to be selfish and not deny the weight of his own. “Children. They put this on children.” Their parents, or the gods?

~***~

Jagger made another face at Diddy’s snort, and she would have shaken the answer out of him but decided to exude that thing called patience.

It was taking him awhile to get to the point, but he started to point out things to her. Notably, how Zariel fought, how Oleander fought too. That was always one thing Jagger would give – the two of them fought side-by-side with others instead of hiding behind four walls waiting for the battles to end.

Naturally, she thought back to seeing Zariel holding her own. And the improvement in her. All that in an instant, and she floored Oleander. Jagger had already picked up on it, just not in the same way that Didymus did.

Jagger looked sceptical and shrugged, not really wanting to admit that Oleander hadn’t a chance even going into the fight. “Well…” She could have used the excuse of the Zodiac – after all, that power came from Phoenix.

But it was like Didymus pointed out – the viera was more than capable in a fight, but she was a seasoned fighter by Diddy’s accounts. Lixue still had the strength of a limp noodle, and Diddy was still Diddy, and Garuda and Shiva hadn’t lasted that long against the zombie at the end of the temple. Weren’t they supposed to be on an equal playing field?

“She’s been weird,” Jagger agreed, “ever since we came back from Escander, there’s just this…thing with her. Thought she might have loosened up but…” Then the temple happened. Then Ibec.

She was silent for a moment, thoughtful, uncharacteristic for Jagger. Something started to click, even if it wasn’t an immediate realisation. “That…thing we fought. In the temple She fought just like it. Zariel said it was just some corpse that got some of Phoenix’s power. Hell, Oleander even asked her if it was, uh…shit, what was his name…Leander?”

And it was when she spoke the name, she paused again, and looked at Didymus, disbelieving, looking for confirmation almost. “I mean, nah. Leander? He’s old and dead as fuck. There’s no way…” She trailed off, sceptical once again, but so close to touching the truth.

There were other dead corpses shambling around in that temple. And there was only one, with a crown, and sitting on a throne at the end of it.

 

[Lucyfer]

Little disturbed Lixue. The fate of some distant relative shouldn’t have been one of those things, really – except it spoke to their own strangely conjoined fates, their own futures. Zariel refused to make Lixue the scapegoat. Even if Jianyu hadn’t happened, she would have never tolerated the thought.

Not that Leander tolerated the thought, but his will wasn’t enough to challenge Phoenix.

‘But who’s is?’

Lixue took a seat.

He cursed.

He shortened her name, and bemoaned a past neither of them could change.

It was enough to stir an ache, but perhaps not the ache it deserved, as her laughter wrapped up with Lixue’s, and she fell into a contemplative silence. ‘I haven’t decided if I’ll walk into Phoenix’s temple.’ Phoenix needed her more than she needed him. She was allowed her rebellious thoughts, because everything was new.

Pity and anger coexisted within her. She understood Phoenix too well not to pity him. In his situation…oh, she’d do worse. Unapologetically. And she knew, that was so much the problem when she considered genocide of her bloodline just to spite Phoenix. She’d never lay a hand on Lilia, on Oleander – while she had her mind.

And that was slipping.

“We were,” Zariel agreed, “but imagine if we were not prepared when we were children, Lixue.” He didn’t want pragmatism. He wanted sympathy.

If she gave him sympathy she would break over the injustice of her own past. Of her future.

“You see Didymus, Jagger – you know of the others now. Someone had to be prepared.” Her. Oleander was, in his way. Lixue…, “I admit, you could have delayed preparation. I’m sorry it wasn’t different for you,” they could have met years later. “But don’t mourn what’s lost long. You will have a future if I have to carve it out of Hyune’s decaying husk.” She shut her burning eyes, and swallowed the hatred for Hyune that wasn’t wholly hers.

It also was hers, and that was…wrong. This was all to save Hyune. If she ever thought that wasn’t worth it….

“Ophiuchus will perish. You will find happiness. Oleander…,” everyone else. Everyone, but her. That was as much the source of fury for her as it was for Phoenix. They would sacrifice, again, and again, and find no reward at the end. Nothing. “Look forward.”

She didn’t have that luxury any longer. Lixue would have to keep it, for her.

~***~

Jagger noticed the difference. It was in Zariel, and Zariel-Phoenix, although definitely more pronounced in the latter. Didymus let Jagger start to talk it out as he wove the long way towards the dungeons, familiar enough with Amarum’s castle even if he hadn’t really been in it much. He was just…good at that.

Navigating.

Feeling where the air came from.

“Yeah. Leander,” Didymus confirmed the name, “The Emperor of Amarum before Lavi and Zariel, the first to inherit Phoenix. Lots of portraits of him around the castle, I’m sure you’ve seen a few,” whether or not she meant to. Didymus definitely planned to lead them by one, so that the image would be unshakable.

“It’s kinda weird that Phoenix would also manifest over conquest, too. I mean, if you think about it, her story doesn’t really line up. Phoenix showed up before Rozari was actually, you know, conquered. Showed up right at her assassination.” He didn’t say attempt.

He saw it. He’d never forget it.

“Sure, the arrival of Phoenix made Rozari kneel, but she’s said Phoenix showed up as a sign of the conquest, like it had already been done. And Phoenix isn’t known historically for conquest in any of the myths, either.”

He gave a mock frown, “Wasn’t there one Juno liked? About Phoenix’s tear?”

About restoring life to the dead. “She liked so many, but I can’t really remember any about conquest. Phoenix was just…always about life.” And then it’s temple was overrun with the undead, and Zariel faced an assassination. “Although, I guess there are some events that dramatically change even a god, huh? Even to decorate it’s temple with a giant corpse, but I’m not sure that was Phoenix’s conquest….” It was Ophiuchus’s.

‘Do you remember the fucking bird on the temple, Jagger?’

 

[Arcanist]

Zariel was right. Lixue did not want pragmatism, for once, but an excuse just to feel something. He was not like that. He did not seek sympathy, nor did he so easily give it. But once, he wanted to lament at how unfair it was. It was never meant to go this way. They were promised it was simpler than this, despite the two of them being wise enough to know that would never be the case.

Alas, there was no place for that here. Though Zariel agreed, she reminded him that someone had to be prepared. They could not go into such things blindly, not when Leander left what he knew behind. He knew he could never have been left out of such preparations, not with the way his mother pushed him towards the Arkidos siblings, even if it was not something he wanted at first.

He wondered what kind of future was ahead of him. He knew things would change as they always did, just with the three of them together in some way.

It wasn’t meant to change like this.

Lixue took a breath in, and out, centring himself. He rose from the chair and brushed himself off as if to scatter the remains of what pity still stuck to him. Look forward, as he’s always done, as they’ve always done, because their work was not finished yet. There was still time. Could he still delude himself?

“You’re right,” Lixue whispered, before he cleared his throat, “but then you always had to be, didn’t you?” There was a softness there, something he thought he’d never offer even Zariel. It was him he should have been sorry for her. But he would not risk showing that sympathy. He wasn’t sure how much more she could take, and he did not want to see the fallout of it.

“You have done everything you could have thought to do, as have I. Delaying my preparation for this wouldn’t have helped.” The other marked had none, and now they swanned across the continent with no direction.

It all fell to Zariel uniting them as planned. That did not change.

“I’ll see to the preparation of the resources Oleander will need for the viera village.” There was little more to prepare for, but the mask of pragmatism felt easier to slip under again.

~***~

Leander, of course. She nodded. Everyone knew Leander. Even in Prumoor when early Imperialism couldn’t pierce her home soil’s politics, his name was always tied with Lavi’s, often in mocking vitriol. They didn’t fear him, but if it had been Leander in his place, Prumoor would have come under the Empire long before now.

Jagger scratched the back of head as Didymus unwound the spool of all things Phoenix. How he never showed up until after Zariel’s assassination, before he even got Rozari on its knees.

Assassination.

She figured she misheard him. He said attempt. He had before, hadn’t he?

He mentioned Juno, and even with her train of thought focused on Phoenix and Zariel, her skin crawled at her name. She kept her contained in her thoughts, as if she was just…somewhere else. Diddy saying it made it even more real that she was…

“Yeah,” Jagger curtly responded, “something about his tear or maybe his feathers that could bring people back to life. All with storybook endings.” She even bought knock-off gemstones and red chocobo feathers, because you would never see Phoenix’s tear, she reasoned. All a bit of fun.

But she agreed with Didymus when she thought back on some of Juno’s favourites. “Juno never talked about Phoenix conquering,” she agreed, and her forehead creased, “just…life and death…” Jagger grew quiet. She felt some cold dread settle over her.

The assassination. The skeleton. All the dead shambling around his temple.

And as they passed through another hallway, she caught Leander in the periphery of her sight. She paused, turning her head to take a better look at it.

The regal outfit was standard; red, black, gold, all frills. She passed by his face to the corona that sat perfect and pristine on his head, and when her eyes went back to his, she couldn’t see it. She saw two black eyes bleeding golden cracks. Obsidian wings and an unholy fire.

Jagger looked at Didymus, feeling that dread spread right to her fingertips. “It was him. Leander was waiting for us in that temple. But he was—is—dead.” That was exactly the point.

“Fuck. Nah,” she laughed a little, disbelieving, but the fright carried in her laughter, “nah, that can’t be right…there’s no way. Things stay dead, they don’t just…” Rise. The corpses did. Leander did. “Oh, fuck. He’s dead. Phoenix is fucking dead.” Jagger ran her hands through her head, kept them their as she paced. “That’s not possible. There’s no way!”

And then it really hit. If Leander was dead, if Phoenix was dead…

Jagger grabbed Diddy’s shoulders, unsure to where to put this sudden spike of adrenaline, and she shook him. “He fucking did it! He killed her, princey actually killed her?! What the fuck, Diddy?! Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?! Why hasn’t she told us?!”

 

[Lucyfer]

Lixue had to center himself. Zariel gave him that time as she let her eyes open to watch him, only to feel her chest tighten terribly when he spoke so softly to her, so gently. It was almost a sweet agony, when it was so hard to feel anything but constant wrath, anger, and frustration – that was all she had outside of an unending void of numbness that was the sweet oblivion of death left in her mind.

A part of her desperately wanted to grab it. To take it, let it run its course, and see if it could restore some semblance of…well, humanity was the word, she supposed, because even she was aware of how gradually inhuman she was becoming.

But she could not.

Her own words beat into her head.

The mission she was born with beat into her head.

She would save the world, and then…well, then she’d figure everything else out, even if by that time she was nothing but a necrotic mess.

“And see to Oleander’s preparations, Lixue,” the words came out tight, remnants of forcing herself to release that rope of softness she could have hung herself with. “I know he’s hurt from the fight even if he won’t readily admit it. I went easy on him, but…,” she pushed away from the wall, “…it was difficult.”

A small admittance.

Keeping the power in was difficult, but she could do it. That’s what the crown allowed her to do so she wasn’t spewing heat and magic just to get it out so she didn’t burn up from the inside. Even so…the depth of it was impossibly deep, a seemingly endless well. And she should give the crown to Lixue to study, but she wouldn’t right then.

“I need to see to our other festivities, now that Amarum is in holiday.” She wasn’t thrilled about it, but it was a necessary thing. “Let me know if you do need me for anything with the viera, I’ll step away.”

~***~

Didymus could see it was sinking in. Juno brought up thoughts of death in its own way, as did the rest of it. Jagger wasn’t an idiot, she was just…well, she saw what she wanted to see. Like everyone else. It was an advantage Didymus had, but he could break through it. And he did. As they passed by Leander’s portrait, he saw more and more of Jagger’s resolve to hold up her illusion falter.

And then it broke.

He was grabbed, and a couple of nearby guards looked their way, but he smiled at them, before shooting his eyes at Jagger in a harsh fashion, a reminder that they weren’t alone. Not that the guards seemed to have heard anything, but they were paying attention now.

So he lowered his voice to a whisper, and indeed, it carried unnaturally on the wind only where he wanted it to go – Jagger. “Lixue will kill me if I tell anyone. You figured it out,” Didymus said, “And Oleander doesn’t know.” That one, he was too afraid to approach now that Lixue was on his scent.

That one, well…he wouldn’t listen to Didymus anyways, would he?

“It’s politics. It’s moral. You don’t tell a country you have a dead god inside you, so you don’t tell your allies, either. Well, unless you’re Lixue, apparently.” Didymus scoffed, but it was clear he was a bit unnerved by the trust between them. He couldn’t explain it, but he didn’t expect Zariel trusted Lixue over Oleander. Over, well, a lot of people.

He should have seen it. “You have to tell Oleander, Jagger. He won’t listen to me, but you…and – look, regardless, we know what’s coming. So dead god or not…we have to deal with Ophiuchus. If he can kill a god…he can destroy this world.” So he was still behind it. No matter what.

They had to stop Ophiuchus from killing the world. His power was now well and truly proven to Didymus, though he understood why this would shake resolve – but what choice did they have? They couldn’t flee. That wasn’t an option. “But it’s still better if we all…if we all know…and now Oleander’s the only one who doesn’t. Cleon, everyone – they saw. And…yeah. Cleon did it. Zariel was unarmed. Unprepared. It was supposed to be a parley and he fucking—he ruined it.” Didymus shook off one of Jagger’s hands as he reached up to put one to his own forehead, “it was like something out of a nightmare.”

 

[Arcanist]

And yet, as easy as she made that fight look, there was only so much Zariel could keep down. Without the crown, that fire would pour out of her, just like the night she died. She needed that crown. He would have taken it to study further, though, his thoughts had been far from study as of late.

Lixue nodded. “I’ll have everything accounted for on Oleander’s end.” That was simple enough. Keeping him in a medical cot was a more complicated matter.

Anything to keep him out of Zariel’s way for now.

Zariel pushed away from the wall and signalled their conversation’s end. She offered to step away should he need her, but he just shook his head. “No need,” Lixue insisted. “It will all be in hand. I’ll make sure of that.” Business as usual.

Part of him wondered whether she preferred to be pulled away, and he almost considered backtracking to give her that window. She looked anything but thrilled to be in attendance of some holiday events. He stepped away instead.

A necessary evil, and not just for Amarum.

He considered departing on a final note, some final phrase or word of comfort, but left the room, silent. It was never in him to think of doing such things, so why would he have thought to start?

When Lixue closed the door, he forced himself forward. If he paused and thought about all that had happened for too long, he would crumble in a way he never thought he could. And so, the best he could do was keep his focus on the future, like Zariel said. Have some hope. Organise himself for the next step. One foot in front of the other.

~***~

Jagger caught the look, and avoided looking in any guard’s direction but, damn, the way she had to stop her eyes from wandering. Diddy’s voice lowered to a whisper, clear as bells. Lixue knew, of course, because what didn’t he know? “Motherfucker…” She tried to keep her voice down, but she knew it wouldn’t be anything like Diddy’s whisper.

It must have come up when Diddy was getting the bombs. Or rather, Lixue threatened him while giving him the bombs. He might not have been threatening in that strong, hulking way, but she was sure he made up to it in many other ways, no less to what he got up to in that lab.

Though, she inclined her head at Oleander, Zariel’s brother, the Imperator, not even knowing about this. “Shit. I mean, I guess I get it with anyone else, but,” Jagger scoffed, “us? I thought we were meant to like, work together. Fuck.” She bit her thumb. She couldn’t rave about it; she couldn’t make a show of it like she did seconds ago. Jagger was about ready to burst.

And she nearly did, at Diddy’s suggestion. “Me?!” Her whisper was harsh, almost like a shout, the only way she could explode in some appropriate way. “Nuh uh. Oleander will go apeshit. He’ll think it’s some bad drunk joke I’ve pulled out of my asshole.” Even drunk Jagger knew better than to make jokes about family, especially the Arkidos family.

But even with alcohol swimming in her system, she couldn’t make up a joke as bad as this.

They didn’t have a choice either. It wasn’t something to run from, because they still had that world-eating serpent or whatever the hell hot on their tails. Dead Phoenix was just another problem they had. Everyone knew – fuck, even the priestess knew!

And she realised the potential Ophiuchus had in killing the rest of them, the world even. They wouldn’t even be able to blink before it could all fall apart.

‘Why did you pick me for this, Ifrit?’ Jagger wanted to feel Didymus’s level of concern, to care, but she had that numbness in her that was so hard to shake. Would they really know if the world ended? Would they be there, and just gone, a cut to black without any recognition they were gone?

It was easier to think there would be some semblance of peace then.

She had to try for Diddy, who wanted this world to go on, and wanted to be here.

Jagger let out a long hiss, rubbing her jaw. “I didn’t think he had it in him. He’s just so…” Soft. A sopping wet rag was what she thought, he looked that melancholic. But if Diddy said it was as bad as it was, she would believe him. Didymus didn’t say things like that lightly.

And even worse that the two of them were supposed to be talking.

“That bodes real well for fighting Ophiuchus.”

Jagger bit her thumb again. “Fuck. I’m gonna have to talk to him. I’m really gonna have to break it to him.” She didn’t want to do it. There’s nothing like dropping bad news on your drinking buddy. What else were friends for?

“Look, I’ll do it,” Jagger murmured, “it’s going to be fucking ugly, so you better be prepared for the fallout.”