Lament of the Fallen

Although the Morningstar hadn’t performed an immediate follow-up attack, he wasn’t about to give Dee the chance to come up with countermeasures. It seemed he was simply surprised that Dee had managed to survive the first attack. Usually, one attack was all that was needed. That caused him to delay the next attack just a little. Luckily for Dee, she was a psion and could quickly come up to a handful of conclusions in very little time. If she wanted to survive this fight, she had to figure out how that weird attack worked. Two possibilities came to mind. Either the blade was simply undetectable and could pass through defenses like the armor of light, or the attack had some sort of spatial property that skipped the space in between the sword and the target, allowing it to reach the target instantly.

Dee saw the angel start making another casual swing, slightly more serious this time, and knew she had no more time. Two hasty plans immediately sprang to action. A million invisible hands surrounded Dee from all sides, forming a forest of psionic energy. If the attack was simply invisible and undetectable, then it would cut through those hands, giving her some warning. The two were also suddenly completely covered in thick darkness, rendering both of them invisible to even magical sight. If the attack was entirely spatial, then at the very least it had to be aimed very precisely. The darkness would make such aiming at least a little harder.

As the attack closed on Dee, only barely missing her, several things became clear. First of all, several of the invisible hands between the two beings had been cut, making it clear that the attack did actually have to cross that distance. The attack was so fast though that it obviously had a certain amount of spatial element mixed in, as even with the small warning from the invisible hands being cut she only barely managed to dodge the deadly blow. Notably, only some of the invisible hands in between them had been cut, so the strike did skip some of the space in between. Anyone slower than Dee would have no opportunity to avoid it.

It was also clear that the Morningstar could still track Dee to a certain extent through the darkness. That didn’t come as a huge surprise as Dee no longer had the gift of stealth she used to have. If it was the Dee of the past, she would be able to stand right in front of the Morningstar and not be detected. The Dee of today was much stronger, but that power came with a price. There were now multiple ways of detecting her presence, the heavy oppression of her Domain being just the most obvious sign of her location. She could use the Authority to hide herself for a short time, but even that wasn’t a full guarantee of keeping her location a secret.

Speaking of Domains, as she avoided the third attack, this time with slightly more margin as she got used to it and because the enemy couldn’t track her perfectly, she sensed that the enemy’s attack had something to do with his totem and Domain. She had expected as much, as an immortal’s most powerful abilities usually had something to do with their totem. Still, it did make things a little simpler as it placed certain limits on the usage of that ability. For example, the Morningstar didn’t seem to be a spatial mage so Dee didn’t have to watch out for spells of that type. Not that she would discount the possibility completely, as he could just be trapping her. Her concentration was shaken a bit as a bright light suddenly flared up, pushing away the darkness surrounding the two.

The Morningstar was the highest ranking angel after all, and nominally quite high in the hierarchy of Lumen’s servants, even if his faith wasn’t very strong. Thus it wasn’t shocking that he had the ability to push back the darkness created from Umbra’s power. Two things happened simultaneously as the darkness was pushed back. The first thing was that Dee faced the fourth attack that came just as her cover of darkness went away. Luckily for her, the Morningstar had judged her position slightly wrong. He might be able to tell where she was, but he couldn’t tell which way her body was moving. In this case, she was almost parallel to the ground, leaping over the attack that harmlessly whizzed by under her. Considering the fact that they were both in the air, the maneuver looked a little silly.

The Morningstar wasn’t in a position to judge though as the second thing that happened was Dee launching her own attack. She had judged that a frontal attack would either be blocked or dodged, so she tossed a pair of psionic daggers into her own shadow, and the two daggers exited from his shadow, hitting him in both legs. To her chagrin, Dee noted that the attacks had no effect, not that she had expected much, but it did cause him to get distracted for a second.

She certainly wasn’t going to allow such an opportunity to go to waste, and a man-sized ball of black flames rushed at the angel immediately. While her black flames were an almost unstoppable force, they were not a perfect form of attack. Almost everyone tried to block the flames either with their own power or with some kind of protective shields, both of which would result in a miserable failure as the flames simply absorbed those defenses. The Morningstar wasn’t like almost everyone. His first instinct wasn’t to block the attack but to avoid it entirely. Befitting for someone with clear spatial talent, his ability to dodge was equally impressive when compared to his attacks and the black flames harmlessly passed by.

“Well then. Now that we’ve both shown our impressive ability to make lethal attacks and to dodge them as well, I think it’s about time we got serious.” The Morningstar declared, lifting his sword in something resembling a salute in front of his face. Some sort of boosting abilities seemed to spring to life around him, and Dee responded in kind. Croestia especially focused all her power into boosting Dee’s speed.

Immediately Dee felt the invisible hands in her surroundings being shredded as hundreds of invisible blades curved towards her from all sides. Dodging was entirely impossible. It would also take too much time to slip into the shadows personally as the process was far from instant. In the end, Dee had to rely on something much more direct. She dashed straight towards the Morningstar and the thickest storm of attacks. A pair of lavender wings cradled around her front, trying to form an impenetrable wall to clear her path as she moved out of the way of the other attacks. She felt the heavy impact of the attacks hitting on her wings, but the defensive power of those wings surprised both of them. She emerged from the storm of deadly energy with only slight scratches on her clothing, her wings fully intact.

‘I see. The wings of someone on a mission from Lumen should not be underestimated.’ The Morningstar thought to himself, just as he also avoided the counter-attack.

A large psionic blade extended from a ‘cane’ in Dee’s hand, the sheer size of the blade leaving little chance to dodge. Yet the attack seemed to pass harmlessly, as if the Morningstar had somehow phased out just as the attack went through his previous position. Dee had not expected this, not exactly, but she had suspected that the enemy had some way of avoiding her attack. Thus she followed that attack with another, a more innocent looking one as her black wings slashed at the Morningstar that returned to reality. In haste, he used his own wings to defend against the attack, but unfortunately for him, his wings didn’t quite have the defensive power of Dee’s lavender wings.

That was also the point at which he made the mistake that would decide the entire fight. It was a natural reaction for someone to try and back off and take distance to re-evaluate the changed circumstances. It was also the normal reaction when getting injured, no matter how lightly. Dee had tried the same thing when faced with his first attack, the difference being that she didn’t get very far. The Morningstar on the other hand seemed to disappear and appear several hundred mel away while invisible chains seemed to hold Dee back. He looked at the mangled pair of wings on his right with a slight grimace. He had been careless and paid for it.

However, this short moment of reprieve allowed Dee to cast a spell she had never used before, while she used the pressure from her own Domain to shatter the chains that had already done their job in holding Dee back for a second. The main reason she had never used the spell, was because Death had taught the spell to her after she had left Pantheon. She had been taught a lower ranked version, which she had even used once, but this one was much more effective. Apparently, it was the most dangerous death-element holy spell there was, and it had several conditions that needed to be fulfilled before it could be cast.

One of those conditions was enough time to focus on casting the spell, something rarely found in a fast-paced combat but also something the Morningstar had just granted her. Another condition was the availability of life-force. The spell required a lot of life-force to be used in addition to a large amount of holy power. The required life-force could come from the spell’s caster, but that kind of drain would take a long time for even an immortal to recover from. Luckily for Dee, she had ample sources life-force nearby, just waiting to donate to the cause.

The Morningstar of course felt the gathering holy power but could do little about it. Such large-scale holy spells were hard to disrupt once set in motion. He wasn’t too worried about it though, as he still had his ways of avoiding pretty much anything that came his way. His expression did twist a little as a large dark portal appeared in the sky, as if someone had opened a black hole in the sky. This dark portal wasn’t a force of gravity though. Instead, it was something more sinister. A large skeletal hand reached out from the gate and anyone observing could see a reaper-like being inside.

“Did you think something like this would be able to hit me?” The Morningstar asked with slight derision as the slow-moving skeletal hand moved towards him.

“You misunderstand.” Dee replied with a small smile. “That’s not for you. Not yet anyway.”

Suddenly the gathered angels started screaming in pain as green streams of light were sucked out of them. The light went towards the skeletal hand that gathered all that life-force into a large orb of power floating above the palm of its hand. The weaker angels died outright while the stronger ones seemed to wither and age in the span of seconds. “You bastard!” The Morningstar cursed Dee.

“I really don’t understand the hypocritical attitude that you people have against death spells. Your blades kill people as well and a mage dropping a meteor on an army causes just as many casualties. The death spells are simply slightly more effective and leave less of a mess.” Dee was honestly a little confused about this. In truth, a major part of the hatred against such spells came from an almost animal-like instinct that wanted to rebel against death.

That was another reason Dee had never used the spell before. Such spells would not make you very popular once word got out. It was one thing to use a death spell that attacked a handful of people, but to use one against an entire army caused a visceral reaction in people. Such spells could be resisted, perhaps even negated, but that required enough warning to prepare the specific countermeasures or very skilled and powerful clerics of the light side deities. And with many of the high ranking clerics of Lumen gone…

In a desperate attempt to stop the spell, the Morningstar closed the distance between them and fiercely tried to attack Dee. She had to admit that the angel was much better than her with the sword, and she was being pushed back constantly. However, that was the extent of it. She was simply pushed back as she was playing for time. The large spell came to the end of the first phase. Suddenly the Morningstar felt like there was something squeezing his heart. “You didn’t think I cast the spell just to get rid of your subordinates, did you?” Dee stated and backed off. The Morningstar was unable to follow as the pain in his chest grew more intense.

If one looked closely, they could see that the green orb of energy the skeletal hand had gathered had turned sickly greenish-black. It had also taken the form of the Morningstar and the skeletal hand was squeezing on that energy, attempting to close its fist. The Morningstar suddenly vanished, trying to escape the effects of the spell in a fold of space where he should be safe. No such luck though. Once Dee’s spell had locked on to him, there was no avoiding the effects. That’s why she had used the spell. Any other of her powerful attacks could be avoided with the Morningstar’s spatial tricks. The Morningstar could’ve tried attacking the portal and that would’ve had more of an effect, but that was not his first instinct.

Still, it became a struggle. All that life-force was used to attack the Morningstar, but he wasn’t just any angel. Dee also supplemented the spell with her own power. Even with the blessing of the Goddess of Death and the nature of her totem and Domain, it was hard to snuff out the life inside the powerful angel. Dee was sweating profusely and the spell had almost entirely run out of power by the time the spatial pocket around the Morningstar collapsed and he fell back down to the ground.

Dee slowly and carefully approached the almost dead angel. She could sense that the Morningstar was holding on to a thread of life even now. Otherwise she would’ve absorbed his soul already. She was careful of a last desperate attack. Yet the attack didn’t come. “Why?” The Morningstar managed to wheeze out.

“Why what? You’ll have to be more precise. Why am I here? To save Selvaria. You’re just in the way. You even attacked me first. Why am I opposing the angels? I think you should know. And you don’t get to complain after the purge.” Dee obliged.

“Why would…Lumen pick…someone like you?” The Morningstar squeezed out slowly.

“Ah. That. Because you have lost the way. Most of your kind has turned away from her grace and support Nasir-Sin instead. She was the one who created you, and this is how you repay her. Even you are flirting with Umbra. Imagine that, the Morningstar almost becoming a Fallen. Did you know Umbra actually asked me not to kill you? Incidentally, I think she did that just because she knew I would do the opposite. She was wise to your little games.” For some reason, Dee was feeling talkative.

The Morningstar gave a wheezing and strained laugh. “Sorry…about your arm. Could you allow the rest of my troops live? They only followed orders.” His voice faded away before she could answer. She could also feel the soul leaving the man and entering her Domain. Dee looked at her severed arm and realized that it was still not showing any signs or regenerating. It seemed that she’d have to come up with another way, or learn to live her life with only three arms. The battle had been short but dangerous. Most of her fights tended to be that way for some reason. She’d heard about grand fights that lasted for hours on end, but that just didn’t apply to her.

Dee looked around her. Only about ten percent of the angels were still in a condition to fight and even those had suffered the effects of her spell. The surviving angels were going through the bodies and the injured, figuring out if anyone could be saved. Her companions had stopped fighting as soon as the spell hit and were gathering around her. “Yeah, I suppose I could grant you that much.” She said to the empty air. She had enmity with the angels, but she wasn’t genocidal. The fight had also helped her solidify that fact in her mind. She didn’t desire the death of all the angels. She never really did. They had a lesson to learn, but she didn’t want to perform a purge of her own. Even Hyacinth seemed to be willing to oblige when she told them to leave the surviving angels to be.

‘So how does this focus thing work?’ Dee threw a question towards Croestia. Not that she expected the pendant to have an answer.

‘Do you feel anything?’ Croestia asked back.

‘Something has changed. I’m not sure what. I think this is one of those things that will take some time. I’d hate to find out that the whole thing failed because Umbra didn’t give me proper instructions though.’ As there was very little to do on the battlefield anymore, the group went ahead towards the large seal located nearby. A magical formation of that strength and size was hard to miss.

Mit-Amen went ahead to study the formation. She had expertise in the subject, something she refused to explain, but she wanted to make sure nothing had changed. It took the Fallen a better part of the day to go through the whole thing. Both Mneventh and Hyacinth had gone to sleep, while Dee and Aurelie had pulled out something to snack on. A lot of something. Finally Mit-Amen approached the rest of them. She gave an amused side glance to Hyacinth sleeping on top on Mneventh’s head. The large black dragon had finally decided to just stop bothering with the annoying Faerie Dragon.

“Everything alright?” Dee asked as Mit-Amen got close. The leader of the angel faction had expressed her appreciation at the fact that Dee had spared some of the angels, even though she didn’t really have a reason to do so.

“Yes. We need either enough pull in the hierarchy of Paradisia to cancel the seal, or enough sheer power. I think we could go with either now that both you and Mneventh are here, but simply opening the seal would be much faster.” She was quiet for a moment. “Strictly speaking, you could be considered the new Morningstar for now. That’s not how the title is usually passed on and no one would actually agree, but the option is there and the spell will recognize the claim until a new one is officially chosen. Truthfully I’m not sure how, but…”

“Fine, let’s get to it. We have left Selvaria waiting for long enough.” Dee followed Mit-Amen’s instructions in placing some of her power into the seal in very particular ways and places while announcing her position in the hierarchy. The leader of the white faction turned out to be useful as there was no way Dee would’ve figured out the workings of such a complex sealing spell. Breaking it on the other hand would’ve taken time. The seal gave off oddly mechanical sounds as it slowly opened and vanished, revealing the presence of a simple portal.

“I think I should probably go in first.” Mneventh growled. The noise had woken him up “She’ll recognize me and won’t attack. Within her own spatial pocket, she is extremely powerful so we don’t want to fight her.”

Dee nodded her agreement and watched with interest as the enormous dragon seemed to get sucked into a tiny portal without any difficulty. Dee realized that Selvaria likely wouldn’t be able to recognize her current appearance, so she made some small changes. The halo and wings vanished, and she stored the cloak she usually wore, allowing her tails to be clearly visible. After a small moment of consideration, she also returned back to her old appearance, covered in white fur and had Croestia materialize on her chest in a pendant form. Aurelie and Mit-Amen watched Dee grooming herself without being sure how they should react.

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To say that Selvaria was shocked to see Mneventh appear on the arrival platform of her pocket dimension would be a severe understatement. She had happened to be in the garden near the platform maintaining some of the decorative flowers, so she was close by when the portal activated. She had held a certain amount of hope that the Aspect would come for her eventually, they were friends after all, but she had somewhat lost hope as the years passed. There was obviously a reason he had not done so earlier, so what had changed? She was both blissfully and woefully unaware of everything going on outside of her little corner of the universe.

Still, she was glad to see him. “Mneventh old friend!” She got close enough to pat the huge dragon on the snout. The grouchy dragon let out a disdainful snort but didn’t move away. In some ways he was just a big softy. The tiny Faerie Dragon currently sun tanning on top of his head was something new though. “A new friend?” She asked carefully.

“What?” Mneventh looked genuinely confused for a moment. He had completely forgotten the presence of Hyacinth. “Oh, that little bastard. Don’t mind her, and don’t provoke her either. She’s relatively stable for a Faerie Dragon, but I’m pretty sure that’s at least partly because we just witnessed the deaths of an entire legion of high ranking angels and the Morningstar himself. It’ll wear off.”

Selvaria raised an eyebrow at that. Just the death of a legion of angels was huge news, not to mention the Morningstar. What happened? “Did the Dragonflight go to war with the angels? Has it already become so bad that you would fight the Morningstar to the death?” During the eternal War in Heavens, it was rare to see the real big shots going all out, and it was even rarer for one of them to die.

Mneventh realized that his friend was getting a weird impression. “Hurmm, well, yes the Dragonflight is about to go to war with the angels, but that’s not really…look it’s complicated. Anyway, your daughter is here, and she’s the one who killed the Morningstar.”

Selvaria looked completely stumped. “My daughter? Little Dee? Did time flow differently outside this spatial pocket? She’s here?” She suddenly brushed off the dirt on her clothes. Suddenly she felt that it would’ve been so much better if she had worn her robes today instead of working clothes.

Her eyes were drawn to the portal as three people stepped through. Her eyes could see through them and she could recognize two chimeras and one Fallen, all very powerful. The one in the center especially radiated dominance and death. This was a person you really didn’t want to anger. She also looked familiar enough for Selvaria to connect the dots. The two cute little tails had turned into thirteen and the small girl had become a tall woman of impressive stature.

There was very little of the old Haydee left. The precocious little girl had turned into a weary and dangerous woman that could snap a dragon in two with a frown. She could see from the way Dee carried herself that the life she had led had not been easy or pleasant. Nor could it have been considering the amount of strength she had accumulated in such a short time. Clearly, something had gone awry. Still. There was something about the way the now adult woman carried herself that hinted at certain things that might not have changed. There was an air of curiosity and competence that had been there even as she was small.

Selvaria’s eyes filled with tears as she gingerly and slowly drew closer to Dee as the others gave them some space. “Dee.” She managed to squeeze out with a voice filled with emotions and gently lifted her fingers to touch Dee’s face. She actually had to go up on her toes to reach.

Suddenly a fist smashed into her stomach and drove all the air out of her lungs. “That’s for not making sure Xinglong was there to meet me when you sent me off.” The voice sounded bitter and pained.

Then she was enveloped by a pair of hands in a soft but insistent hug, soothing away the pain from the previous blow. This time the voice broke with a small sob. “This is for caring enough to try. Mother, I’m home.”

The others left the two crying women alone.