I was looking for a breath of life
A little touch of heavenly light
But all the choirs in my head say, no oh oh
-Lyrics to 'Breath of Life' performed by Florence and the Machine
Elements of Great Design Part 63
"What... do you mean... the Alliance has the last Elemental Stone... and now they are nowhere to be found?" Chaos gritted slowly through his clenched teeth as he turned towards his nervous messenger.
Trembling, the silver-and-red streaked Puk that had delivered the most unpleasant news lowered itself closer to the throne room floor in its bow. "F-forgive me, sire, but my Commander was not at all sure himself," he half-spoke-half-hissed. [1]
When his Commander took on a deeper shade of red, the creature was quick to add, "However, I believe that their reaching the hidden land of Trabia could only be explained by assuming that they had tunneled beneath our army. Only which direction they are moving now has been hidden from us as all of the possible tunnels were closed off."
Only just managing to have a handle on his building rage, Chaos drew a deep breath and paced before his Sorceress perched on her throne. "A very wise conclusion given the circumstances." He opened his clawed right hand to call upon a glowing 'mirror.'
Appearing on the other side of the mystic ring, a wide-eyed ogre stammered, "C-Commander. To what do I owe the honor of your calling upon me."
"Your scout has just arrived to inform us of the Alliance's capture of the Earth Stone, Captain," the demon answered bitterly. "So, not only have we lost one of our strongest leaders in Lich, but you have also failed to secure the location of our enemies. It would have been nice to receive this information from you as opposed to waiting over a day. There may have been a chance to track the Keepers instead of having the track go cold."
The panic on the scarred face watching him amplified into sheer terror as the ogre cried, "Master, please forgive me. I did not mean to-" He never got any further... a pulse of power was sent through the mirror to slice the beast's head clean off its shoulders. The bloodied husk of a body remaining collapsed shortly after it.
Spinning towards the stricken Puk, Chaos snapped, "Get out of my sight before you are next." Not needing to be told twice, the small demon flew through the closest window in the blink of an eye.
A long scream erupted from the red beast as he threw a fist through the nearest brick wall that he had stomped to. Reeling his hand back, steam poured through his nostrils. Looking to the Sorceress watching him, he lowered his head with a sincere, "My apologies, Mistress. I should not allow my emotions to get the better of me like that."
"Frankly, I think you went easy on the Captain," Mariemaia chastised, eyes narrowed in a threatening glare as she slipped from her seat. Stalking towards the surprised beast, she shouted, "How in Abaddon's name did this happen?! You had overestimated your men in securing the last weapon. Now there is nothing to stop the Alliance from storming up the castle stairs to face us head on!"
It was an incredible act, her screaming in such anger and frustration. But it was the reaction that would have been expected from the dark Sorceress. And she would see it to the end when the Keepers would storm her home kingdom.
Sure to bring the blood rushing to her face, the girl shrieked, "Victory was in our grasp and now we may have very well lost this war!" Continuing to walk towards the retreating Commander, she bellowed, "I will not be sent to the Dark Lord because of such foolish trust in incompetent creatures! Do you understand?! Find the Alliance at all costs before the situation becomes any more dire!"
Chaos's mouth opened and closed until it sealed with a loud snap of his teeth. Bowing deeply, he replied quietly, "Yes, Mistress. Right away." Opening his wings, he soared through the opened throne room doors.
"I will not tolerate any snide comments from you, Uncle," Mariemaia warned, storming back for her throne and the old man standing beside it. folding his arms, Dekim kept in quiet reprimand.
Shaking her head, the Queen stated, "I realize my failure to secure our moves in this chess game. But the damage has been done and so we will need to do whatever we must to secure our win when all is said and done."
By now, the child was certain that she would be able to make the next step in covering her true intentions. "I will keep the Gates of the Damned open for as long as I can... until I can no longer will them as such. We will see a force the likes of which will have what is left of Gaia falling to our mercy rather than wait for their fate."
That was the last thing that Barton had expected to hear from his little neice, enough so that his jaw fell open. Quickly recovering, he smirked, "Well, it is good to see that you learned what is needed to finish what we had started. Allow me into your spell room so that I may witness the feat with my own humbled eyes. This will be something that I would not want to miss from my prized pupil."
Of course he wanted that, Khushrenada reasoned to herself. Dekim's eye had remained trained on her at every opportunity. But he would see everything that she had promised. The Keepers had the Elemental Stones in their possession. Surely that was going to be enough to see them through whatever could have been thrown in their way...
...at least that was what she hoped and prayed.
Salvation and forgiveness from the Creator were not coming for Mariemaia, no matter how much she wished otherwise. But that no longer mattered. Her last actions were what she would see did count... even if they were only for her own peace of mind.
Nodding firmly, she told her Uncle, "Very well. I do not want to waste another moment." That said, she turned and descended the short stair rise from her podium with Barton close behind.
His eyes set firmly on the girl's back, Dekim smirked. 'Brilliant performance, child,' he thought to himself. 'Now I will just have to see that you go above and beyond what you think will satisfy my doubts.'
Moments later, the Gates of the Damned were opened... and they stayed open for the remainder of the night.
* * * * * *
Anna threw her arms around Wufei's neck and rained kisses along his furry head. Resting their foreheads together, she beamed, "I knew that you would win your Earth Stone, love. I am so proud of you." A smile tugged the wolf's muzzle as he wagged his tail excitedly. Leaning forward, he licked the side if his wife's face.
Biting her lip, the redhead looked to Quatre to ask, "Wufei was not injured too badly during the fight, was he?
Grinning, the White Mage shrugged, "He was a bit of a sore sight, but his wounds healed very quickly. Not that I am at all surprised, given how strong he is on his own." He smirked, "You all managed to keep me busy, so it was a good thing that he did not need my help beyond those powers." Relieved, the redhead sighed and gave her grinning soul mate another tight embrace.
Heero emerged from checking on the horses, smirking, "And Wufei asked that I pass this on for him." Blinking in surprise when he gently tugged her up to her feet, the Fire Keeper gasped when their lips were pressed and held together for a couple of heartbeats. As he pulled back, the Fighter said, "You scared him half to death with how you went for that vial, but he is grateful for it... as we all are."
Chang waved a hand in the air, face flushed from the unexpected kiss. "Aw, I just did what I had to," she giggled. Winking to the Water Keeper, she told him, "Thank you for the nice patch-up work, by the way." Snickering, Quatre nodded and took his place beside Trowa at the campfire as his lover took the boiling pot of their dinner from the flames.
"So," Anna began while she sat across from her brothers, "what is the plan now? Tunnel all the way to Paramecia from here and take Mariemaia out?"
At the mention of killing the Sorceress, Heero winced and quickly lowered his head to hide his hesitation. At his right, Duo gave him a subtle brush of their arms to offer whatever support he could given their audience. "Wufei has a fairly good lay of the land in placing where we are," the Black Mage answered, peering up from his bowl of soup. "He figures that it will be about a week before we'll reach the Empire."
Folding his arms behind his head, Trowa leaned back against the wall behind him as he smirked, "If all goes as we hope when we do arrive there, we'll have Gaia back in time for spring. That would make for a nice time of year for us to help with the rebuilding of what was lost."
Excited as he was by the prospect, Heero could not help but think of every aspect of the war. Frowning deeply he stared into the fire and muttered, "I just wish that it could have come in time for all of those innocent lives that were lost. By now, half of the world is covered with Abaddon's soldiers... and there were countless people who refused to leave those lands."
A sobered silence filled the cave, the only occasional sound coming from the crackle of the flames.
"Leave it to a Fighter to dampen the mood," Duo finally chuckled, slapping his counterpart on the shoulder as the others laughed quietly. Ducking his head, Yuy was pulled against the son of Shinigami's side when the atmosphere turned serious again. "No one in this room will ever forget about the fallen," he commented softly, placing a kiss in the Fighter's thick and unruly hair. "It is only right that they be mentioned any chance we get." The Keepers nodded in agreement.
Biting his lip, Quatre stated, "I really hate to be the one to bring it up, but I think that we also need to weigh in Howard's vision of what he saw happen when we meet Mariemaia. If what he saw was literal that one of us will d-die, we should discuss how in the world we are going to be able to stop her."
The thief shuddered, suggesting, "We should take into serious consideration that it was not a literal vision. If one of us here is killed, there will be no way of defeating her. And I refuse to believe that Gaia is lost."
Pulling her legs close to her chest, she all but whispered, "I just cannot bear the thought of losing any one of you." With a quiet whimper, Wufei curled up along her side and rested his muzzle on her shoulder.
His braided head shaking, Maxwell declared, "I'm with Anna on this. What Howard saw had to be an interpretation of something other than someone dying. Like she said, nothing we do would be able to send Abaddon back where he belongs if we lost one of us."
Sitting up, Barton thought aloud, "But what if there was a way to carry on and we need to start figuring it out before it is too late?"
Instantly, tears filled Fire's eyes as she raised her head and snapped, "I think this discussion is done for the night."
"Agreed," Death bit out. "We earned a little time to be happy for a change with what we've managed to pull off in getting the Elemental Stones. Let's not spoil it now."
Heero and the wolf remained the calculating warriors and exchanged glances that showed their understanding of both sides of the argument, but neither was about to move and have the matter linger on any longer than needed.
Trowa and Quatre lowered their heads, their eyes flicking to one another in silent agreement that the subject was far from over... however, there was no reason to dwell on it at the moment.
And just to made their intent to bury the discussion that more solidified, Duo and Anna rose for the horses to remove the bedrolls.
Shifting into their respective corners in their pairings, the Alliance settled down for the evening and tightly gripped onto their partners. The vision may have not been brought up again, but there was an underlying fear of the person in their arms ever being taken away.
Before the room fell into darkness, Heero squeezed his lover and whispered, "Duo?"
Just as quietly, the son of Shinigami requested just as softly, "Can we please talk about it another time, 'Ro? I just... can't do it right now."
"Okay," the Fighter responded. Rather than use his words, he took his soul mate's chin between his fingers and turned it up to kiss him soundly. "Try and sleep well," Yuy breathed. Shivering, Maxwell buried his shimmering eyes into a strong shoulder and willed the rest of world to fade away... a world that could very well mean the end of someone in his cherished family.
Anna wiped at her eyes with a sniffle before curling up against the black wolf. Unraveling himself enough to stretch his head out to his lover, Wufei licked her cheek to clean away the tears that had begun to roll down it. A sad frown on his long muzzle, he pressed the end of his cool nose there by means of a kiss.
Sighing, the redhead put on a brave smile for him and raised a hand to douse the campfire before she burrowed the side of her face against a blanket of thick fur.
Protectively, her stretched out legs curled around her pack carrying her vials... nearly all of the remaining having been tampered with to bring her a complete death.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At that same time far in the north, Mariemaia had all but collapsed at the end of her spell that brought in yet another batch of unsightly demons by the hundreds of thousands. When she blinked her eyes wide eyes upon stepping out on her spell room balcony, she gasped at the sight of those horrific beasts, many the likes of which had not stepped out through the gates before.
It was all a striking sight as the sun began to set below the frozen horizon.
One of those types were long, darkly skinned worms three times the size of any grown man with a round, open mouth of four sharp lips. There were dozens upon dozens of them, all rearing back to stare up at the girl that had summoned them. And they seemed to excite Chaos even more than the incredible number of troops now at his bidding. [2]
Smirking, Abaddon's messenger rested a clawed hand on the Sorceress's shoulder without taking his awed eyes from his reinforcements. "You have outdone yourself, Mistress," he praised. "Never before have I seen a power like yours that could bring this hoard forth."
He gestured to the slimy slugs at the front of the endless band of monsters, he added, "Our earthworms will cover the ground beneath us to seek out and kill anything hiding there. They can travel at incredible speeds and will reach the Alliance within hours while securing the rest of the world below for as far as Gaia reaches. I promise that the Keepers will be hunted down long before they have any chance of reaching Paramecia."
Low hisses filled the air and those grotesque creatures lowered their gaping, sharp-fanged mouths onto the dirt and sank beneath the surface in wide tunnels within seconds to completely vanish.
Suddenly stricken by dizziness, Mariemaia gripped the edge of her the balcony railing. Pale and sweating, she looked up at the demon that had caught her up for support. "Forgive me, Chaos," she sighed. "I have pushed myself to my limits by holding the gates open so long. I must rest now so that I may do the same as soon as I am able. I want this war ended once and for all."
Which side she wanted to be victorious at the end of the struggle remained with her.
"Of course, Mistress," Chaos replied with a deep bow of his head. "I will see you to your room, then." Sid followed close by, his little green stubs for hands pressed together and worry for the young Queen in his gold eyes.
All the while, Dekim had stayed back, both impressed and frightened by the extent at which his niece had worked to keep up her ruse. It was still too little and most likely too late now that the Keepers had the four Elemental Stones. Had she extended herself as such before hand, the old man would never have had a doubt in her.
Now, all that he could hope was that the Commander was right about his new followers when it came to tracking down the Alliance. Staring down at the vacant tunnels that shot deep down into the ground, Barton shuddered at the memory of those earthworms and muttered to himself, "Vile things. I hope that Chaos's faith in their hunting skills holds true."
The corner of his mouth curling up, he chuckled darkly, "Otherwise, I wonder if they have a taste for little girls."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Duo's violet eyes blinked open, quickly widening when they greeted him to the view of a misty field. "Heero?" he called when he sat upright and felt for where his lover should have been asleep at his side. Though he could not see the grass beneath him through the fog, it was the only thing that he felt when his fingers came in contact with the ground.
Opening his mouth to shout for the others, the Black Mage cut himself short with a sharp gasp when he saw the encroaching figure slowly lurking towards him. Tall in height with a slight hunch in its shoulders and bearing a scythe in his right hand not unlike the one that the braided teenager carried, the caped face remained shrouded beneath a hood.
"Shinigami," Maxwell breathed, skin paling and eyes growing in disbelief. All but jumping to his feet, he huffed, "Hello, father. Nice to finally meet the creature that damned me to the life that I had to live out on my own in this existence."
The lord of Death came to stop a foot apart of his son, never making a sound and not changing his posture to make a response... and yet there was a sense of fondness hanging that was impossible for Duo to not notice.
Caught up by surprising emotion, the Mage bit his lip and swallowed roughly. Stating into the dark abyss of a shadow around the invisible face, there was something else that took over his feelings that brought tears into his violet eyes. "dear Creator," he breathed, "...someone from my family is going to die. You are here to warn me."
A shallow nod was the only movement Shinigami made. It was a sad atonement for the grim announcement that he had to pass on.
Drawing a deep breath, Duo's eyes narrowed as he demanded, "Who? Which one of them are you going to claim?" Once the question had passed his lips, the fog began to clear in a ring off in the distance to reveal Heero and the Keepers sleeping soundly on the ground on their own patches of grass. It was enough to tear the cursed youth in two... knowing that he was going to lose any one of those dear souls.
Maxwell rolled his shoulders back and gathered up his strength to growl, "Who?"
Very slowly, the long sleeve around the free and transparent hand rose as a finger extended. Just as Shinigami was about to point at his charge, the world faded when the vision began to shake violently.
Opening his eyes to the cave that was now lit with a fresh fire brought on by Anna, the son of Death fought alongside Heero to get onto his feet with the ground quaking around and beneath them. "What is this?!" he cried over the loud rumbling to the rest of the team but focusing on the black wolf across from him.
Given the alarm in Wufei's eyes, he was just as unsure to the cause of the growing tremble.
The horses reared up on their back legs, whinnying in shrill screams. Breaking through the vines holding them in place, they ran aimlessly around the space in wild fright. Trowa had to knock Quatre aside to keep his lover from being trampled by the steeds when they came up on the Water Keeper from behind.
Having avoided that pair, the mounts charged for Anna next. The wolf bolted forth to scoop his wife across his back and made one swift leap to the closest wall for safety... but the pack carrying the vials of his freedom was left behind to be crushed under the storm of hooves. At the sight and sound of the beakers shattering, the Fire Keeper shot a hand out for the carrier with a cried, "Nooo!!"
Once the horses cleared, she ran to the bag and fell to her knees when she reached it, only to find that the dark droplets had leaked through the fabric and through the ground along with shards of glass that cut at her hands desperately scraping at the mud left behind. "Nononononono," the thief whimpered as her eyes misted over.
Already in the process of securing the steeds by grabbing their reins and pulling back hard to quiet them, Heero and Duo looked back in despaired shock at the sight of their sister scrambling to save anything she could... despite how useless her efforts were. And still, the cave only shook all the harder.
Chang continued to dig into the sharp glass when Trowa rushed to her, lifting her bloodied hands up into his own as he cried, "Anna, stop! It's too late!" When her whole body was wracked by her sobs, he pulled her close into a tight embrace.
The roar of the quake rose to a near deafening pitch when the wall at the far end of the cave began to open up. "Uh... guys," was all that Duo could manage out when a very wide mouth rounded with sharp teeth shot inside their cavern.
TBC...
[1] Puk
[2]Earthworm
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