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saladloveMeaning I'm really busy today and barely edited this. Oops.
Chapter list: https://tanadin.dreamwidth.org/650.html
Map of Kaldriel: https://i.gyazo.com/332b0c0172dcc60acb46
Rough map of Hatu: https://i.gyazo.com/ea4f9f51b9dc7b9d8b86
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Reaper
Akrar, Kaldriel. November 12, 2277. Time instance 842N.
Lucy paced the streets of Eldar, dread weighing her down and anxiety gnawing at her heels. Something was wrong today, and she could attribute it to a lot of factors, but there had to be something she was missing.
First off, Twelve was gone, leaving them without a leader for the moment. Everex, Starren, Kaldric, and Tavren had gone with her, removing almost everyone who could make the team keep any kind of sanity. Second, there was a battle raging over on another continent, one where people she knew- including her parents, and Tac who wasn’t exactly her parent but might as well have been- were participating.
And third, no one had seen Solace since the eleventh. She’d been missing for almost twelve hours now and Lucy was starting to worry. She reached behind her and ran her fingers up and down a few inches of her scythe, reassuring herself that she still had a weapon to fight against… whatever with.
A chill sank deep into her bones and she froze, its heavy presence eerily familiar. It called her, a silent feeling, and departed, directing her in the direction of the Akrar hellgate before fading.
Ujhinduru wanted her for something, and she wasn’t about to turn down the being she’d sold her soul to. Lucy braced herself for the worst and followed the feeling, approaching the hellgate and stepping through unchallenged, although not without trepidation. She didn’t know much about Hell, but she was pretty sure it would be uncomfortable, as she was human.
But then, as the energy of Hell washed over her, she remembered:
She was also Deathsworn.
The hot, dry air hummed around her as she stepped out onto solid red stone. Several demons stood around, guarding the portals and playing various board games that she didn’t recognize. She glanced around at the various gates and decided that she had no idea which one she wanted and just decided to approach a demon.
Lucy walked right up to the biggest, scariest demon there and looked him dead in the eyes while asking to be directed to hellgate that would take her the closest to the Ruby Gate. He raised an eyebrow and pointed. She nodded in thanks and walked away without a backwards glance, stepping through and feeling relief when Kaldriel air filled her lungs.
The first thing she noticed about South Karavia was how hot and humid it was.
The second thing she noticed about South Karavia was the stench of blood that she suspected wasn’t always here.
The third thing she noticed were all the screaming fragments.
Lucy flinched at their screaming and shouting as they descended down on her, whipping circles around her and howling various cries. Sheva flitted back, closer to Lucy, and almost phased right through her in an attempt to avoid the fragments. Lucy covered her ears but she couldn’t block it out, couldn’t block out their-
“Oh, you leave her alone!”
Lucy’s head snapped up and her eyes locked on the approaching cyborg- a two thousand unit, if memory served. As she approached, Lucy quickly recognized her as Fall, the strangest cyborg she had met so far that had insisted that there was something about Lucy that drew them together.
Remembering Cap’s suspicions, Lucy watched with interest as most of the fragments broke away from her to circle Fall. Fall stopped, gritting her teeth. “Go away! Go away! We can’t help you! Nobody can!” They screamed louder, making Lucy cringe and Fall bare her teeth.
“GO AWAY!” A pulse of dark energy blasted outwards from Fall, dispersing the fragments it hit and making Sheva yelped and zip out of the way. Fall’s forearms both immediately locked up and one of them started sparking, and her robotic eye started clicking and struggling to move properly.
Her remaining eye widened and she stumbled back, staring at the empty air around them. “Wh-what? What… what did…”
“Fall!” A second cyborg bounded over to them. “Fall! What happened? What did you do?”
“I… I don’t know!” Fall looked down at her malfunctioning hands, fear evident on her face. “I j-just wanted them to stop.”
“Who? Wanted who to stop?”
“The fragments! You can’t see them, Neves, but I can, and-” Fall looked up and jerked her head at Lucy. “So can she. Right?”
“I can see them,” Lucy agreed, stepping closer. “And according to Cap, it’s not a common thing. It’s usually just amongst the Deathsworn.”
Fall froze, the word striking something deep within her core. “Deathsworn?”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s not ominous.” Neves crossed his arms. “Look, Fall, I don’t understand what you see, but we need to get you to someone who can fix you up. I… How did you use magic if your dampener is on?”
“I don’t know.” Fall shivered. “It’s broken, now. Maybe it wasn’t on. Maybe it…” She looked back up at Lucy. “What do you know about this?”
“Not much. I’m just… I… I think you’re Deathsworn. Before you forgot everything, before you became a cyborg, you sold your soul to Ujhinduru. Cap thinks so too.”
“Deathsworn…”
“I’m only here because Ujhinduru wanted me to be here.”
“Who the hell is Ujhinduru and why do I feel like he’s an edgy bastard?”
Lucy shot him a look. “Don’t call the reaper of souls edgy.”
“Wow. That’s not-” Neves interrupted himself with a squeak as the temperature around them dropped and their shadows lengthened. The area around them darkened and they could all feel a presence among them, standing beside them on invisible claws. High-frequency magic shrouded their surroundings, and there was a quiet click as Neves switched on his magic dampener, trying to limit the damage. He hissed quietly at the undoubtedly unpleasant feeling, but Lucy was barely paying attention because the shadows were condensing and Ujhinduru was there.
She couldn’t see him, not really. The vague shadowy figure was all she could make out, but the longer he remained, the clearer and clearer he got, as if shifting into focus. Neves could only see a dark shape, she knew, but she and Fall could see him as well as he could be seen.
Eight feet tall and covered in dark scales that shifted and adjusted like shadow, Ujhinduru was an imposing figure even before you saw the scythe or his natural weaponry. His tail ended in two long, curved blades and his horns were long and sharp. Knifelike claws gripped the scythe tightly, its blade a dark iridescent that made Lucy’s soul hurt just by looking at it. Ujhinduru’s eyes were black and sunken back, and the darkness under his eyes made him look perpetually tired. Wings folded tightly against his back with curved spines extending from the end of each bone.
His jaws, as always, were firmly shut, the chain around them bound tightly and dangling a short distance, making soft jingling sounds as he stepped towards them.
Neves’ mechanical eye spun and readjusted over and over, trying to comprehend what he was seeing, but Fall and Lucy only watched, transfixed, as Ujhinduru came to a stop directly in front of Fall.
“Remember.”
The word blazed in their minds and he let go of the scythe with his right hand, slowly reaching out and tapping Fall on the forehead with a claw. A wave of black and blue washed over her body, fading quickly and leaving her cybernetics repaired and changed, faintly blue in what little light there was to see by. Fall fell to her knees immediately, holding her head in her hands.
Ujhinduru’s head swung around to look directly at Lucy, black eyes boring into her. He said nothing, shifting his gaze to behind her. His eyes narrowed into a slightly glare and Sheva grinned sheepishly before he looked away. He took a step back and gripped his scythe tightly once more. His wings spread, he flapped them, and vanished into smoke. The darkness faded and the temperature slowly returned to normal, leaving them alone by the hellgate.
Neves switched off his magic dampener and knelt by Fall’s side. “Fall. Fall, are you okay? Fall, what happened?” He looked up at Lucy, distrust clear in his eyes. “What was that?”
“That,” Lucy said quietly, “was Ujhinduru.”
“What did he do to Fall?”
“I have no idea.” Lucy knelt down as well, putting a hand on Fall’s shoulder. “Fall. What did he do?”
“I remember.”
“What?”
“I remember. I remember who I was before I was a cyborg.” Fall slowly lowered her hands and stood up, the others following. “I was Akiko Casper. I swore myself to Ujhinduru and all I killed, I killed in his name.” She flexed her fingers, watching the light play off of their bluer surface. “They broke his laws of death and had to pay the price. I was caught by authorities and managed to escape for a time, but I was eventually captured and sentenced to death. Before they could execute me, the aliens attacked. I couldn’t escape and became one of the first two thousand units.” She blinked a few times. “He’s given me the gift of memory, but he’s also…”
She spun around and made a hand gesture. Her natural eye glowed red, only for a moment, and the tree she was faced was sliced in half by a slash of darkness magic. A wicked grin pulled itself across Fall’s- Akiko’s- whoever’s face and she turned back towards them, satisfaction gleaming.
“I was one of the best of the best, and Ujhinduru’s seen fit to restore me to that so that I can teach you.” She put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, but then her confidence flickered and her head tilted. “I just… need to figure out who I am first.” She stepped back, withdrawing her hand. “I’m…”
“You’re Fall,” Neves offered.
“Yes, but I’m also Akiko. I’m… I’m two different people. They’re different, Neves.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Lucy assured. “I know you will.”
“I know, I just-” Fall froze, her eyes widening. “I’m not… I’m not even human.”
Neves’ eyebrows show up. “You aren’t? But only humans are made into cyborgs, aren’t they?”
“I’m essentially human. Look.” Fall turned around and put her back to them, then started to pull off her shirt. Sheva and Lucy exchanged glances and Neves just looked extremely uncomfortable as she pulled it up, up to her shoulders and revealing her back and the scars she had questioned but never mentioned.
Two scars ripped down her back, almost forming a ‘V’ from her shoulderblades down to the middle of her back. They looked old, white with age but too traumatic of injuries to heal.
The implications didn’t register in Lucy’s mind and she struggled to find a meaning behind it. Neves’ gasp drew her attention and Fall turned back around, pulling her shirt back down.
“You were an angel,” Neves said numbly. “But you fell.”
“I did. I fell because I could see the dead and they didn’t trust that. I became Deathsworn and they threw out of Heaven. My wings were useless, so I removed them to blend in.”
“You removed them yourself?” Lucy felt sick at the thought. Removing one of her own limbs…
“With magic, yes.” Fall shivered. “I… would have rather not remembered that.”
Neves sighed. “Fall is a more literal name than we thought.”
Fall snorted. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”
“So… Fall, Akiko, whatever you want to be called. What happens now?” Lucy tilted her head and Sheva crossed her arms, remaining uncharacteristically silent through this entire process. She’d looked almost nervous when Ujhinduru showed up, but it didn’t explain right now.
“I don’t know.” Fall flexed her fingers again. “I… I think I need time to figure out who I am, now. This… should never have happened. A cyborg should not remember who they were before.” She shivered. “I just need time.”
Lucy nodded. “Time is one thing that I do have.”
~~~
Solace was pretty sure that waking up was the worst thing she’d decided to do all day, and that included flying into a group of hostile angels.
Because, you see, when she woke up, she had to remember that she did that and then got the great joy of seeing Scott look at her with an amused expression that told her that he knew that she did that and got her ass handed to her.
Which, in the grand scheme of things, was really the worst part of this fiasco.
“Hello,” Scott said cheerfully when he saw that she was awake. “Good job flying in alone and losing.”
Clash shot him a look. “You do the same thing.”
“Okay, wow, no. No I don’t. I win.”
Clash sighed and directed his gaze to Solace as she sat up. “The fastest way to get you healed is to take you straight to the Plane of Fire and have you transform there. With an elemental or two lending you energy directly, you should be safe.”
“I don’t like that ‘should.’ That ‘should’ is a very suspicious word.”
“I’ve never done it and it’s dangerous, so yeah, should.” Clash looked a bit sheepish. “Or you could stay here and heal far slower, forcing you to remain out of combat.”
Solace grimaced. “I want to fight. I’m not going to sit on my ass while everyone else has fun.”
“It’s not fun,” Clash protested, but Scott grinned.
“She’s pretty cool. I think we can not disown her. Although, she did just lose...”
“Scott…”
“Oh, fine.” Scott rolled his eyes. “So are you two going to run off to the Plane of Fire and leave me here?”
Clash looked apologetic. “Sorry. But you’d burn to nothing immediately upon entering.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I can get some quality time with my poptarts.”
“Poptarts?” Solace tilted her head. “What’s that?”
Scott looked offended. “How do you not know what poptarts are?”
Solace crossed her arms. “I got to Kaldriel, like, a week ago, dude. I learned English in three or four goddamn days. Sit the hell down and tell me what a poptart is.”
“It’s the best thing in the world. Except me. And maybe Clash.”
“I am not better than poptarts.”
“You’re maybe better than poptarts.” Scott grinned at him, showing sharp fangs that reminded Solace that he wasn’t human. “Probably better than some, at least.”
“Stop flirting in front of me. It’s gross.”
“Like you’re any better. I heard you threw yourself into Everex’s lap while Tanadin was talking to him.”
Solace rolled her eyes. “Boo hoo. Like I care. Aren’t we supposed to be going somewhere?”
“Yes.” Clash cleared his throat and got to his feet. “We have a train to catch.”
Scott leaned back in his seat. “Have fun lighting yourselves on fire in a healing way or whatever.”
“A train?” Solace got to her feet. “There’s a train leading to the Plane of Fire?”
“Kind of. There’s a train to the Infinity Cascade, and that’s where we’re going. There, we’ll find the portal we’re looking for.” Clash’s eyes flickered in excitement.
Solace grinned and followed him out the door.
This was gonna be great.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 12:21 am (UTC)Seems like Fall has high level Deathsworn powers if she can disperse fragments.
The word blazed in their minds and he let go of the scythe with his right hand, slowly reaching out and tapping Fall on the forehead with a claw. A wave of black and blue washed over her body, fading quickly and leaving her cybernetics repaired and changed, faintly blue in what little light there was to see by. Fall fell to her knees immediately, holding her head in her hands.
Ujhinduru’s head swung around to look directly at Lucy, black eyes boring into her. He said nothing, shifting his gaze to behind her. His eyes narrowed into a slightly glare and Sheva grinned sheepishly before he looked away. He took a step back and gripped his scythe tightly once more. His wings spread, he flapped them, and vanished into smoke. The darkness faded and the temperature slowly returned to normal, leaving them alone by the hellgate.
WOW! Fall just got a full cybernetics upgrade in less than a minute.
Also Ujhinduru doesn't seem to happy with Sheva, almost as if he was saying "WTF are you still doing here?".
“I remember. I remember who I was before I was a cyborg.” Fall slowly lowered her hands and stood up, the others following. “I was Akiko Casper. I swore myself to Ujhinduru and all I killed, I killed in his name.” She flexed her fingers, watching the light play off of their bluer surface. “They broke his laws of death and had to pay the price. I was caught by authorities and managed to escape for a time, but I was eventually captured and sentenced to death. Before they could execute me, the aliens attacked. I couldn’t escape and became one of the first two thousand units.” She blinked a few times. “He’s given me the gift of memory, but he’s also…”
She spun around and made a hand gesture. Her natural eye glowed red, only for a moment, and the tree she was faced was sliced in half by a slash of darkness magic. A wicked grin pulled itself across Fall’s- Akiko’s- whoever’s face and she turned back towards them, satisfaction gleaming.
“I was one of the best of the best, and Ujhinduru’s seen fit to restore me to that so that I can teach you.” She put a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, but then her confidence flickered and her head tilted. “I just… need to figure out who I am first.” She stepped back, withdrawing her hand. “I’m…”
So Fall was not only an assissin but acted as a sort of grim reaper for Ujhinduru? She says she killed in his name and took out targets who had broken the laws of death. Also she's a darkness elementalist? Nice.
So now Lucy has someone to teach her how to be a Deathsworn, once Fall has reaffirmed her identity.
“I know, I just-” Fall froze, her eyes widening. “I’m not… I’m not even human.”
Neves’ eyebrows show up. “You aren’t? But only humans are made into cyborgs, aren’t they?”
“I’m essentially human. Look.” Fall turned around and put her back to them, then started to pull off her shirt. Sheva and Lucy exchanged glances and Neves just looked extremely uncomfortable as she pulled it up, up to her shoulders and revealing her back and the scars she had questioned but never mentioned.
Two scars ripped down her back, almost forming a ‘V’ from her shoulderblades down to the middle of her back. They looked old, white with age but too traumatic of injuries to heal.
The implications didn’t register in Lucy’s mind and she struggled to find a meaning behind it. Neves’ gasp drew her attention and Fall turned back around, pulling her shirt back down.
“You were an angel,” Neves said numbly. “But you fell.”
“I did. I fell because I could see the dead and they didn’t trust that. I became Deathsworn and they threw out of Heaven. My wings were useless, so I removed them to blend in.”
*whistles* Did not see that twist coming. So now we know of 3 fallen angels who are on our side.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 04:45 am (UTC)-Observing Anon
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 01:06 pm (UTC)*screams at the sky* FEAR US HATU! FOR WE HAVE MANY MANY BAD ASSES IN OUR RANKS!
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 06:52 pm (UTC)yeah ujhinduru isn't fond of ghosts who stick around, and she doesn't even have unfinished business, she's just... here??
She's not a darkness mage. Angels cannot have darkness powers- that's all Deathsworn magic. Her assassin/grim reaper thing is all Deathsworn stuff. Lucy has the exact same potential and duties, it's just she's a novice and has little expectation placed on her.
Cataclysm technically isn't a fallen angel. He didn't have his angelic power stripped from him, he was just pushed into Hell. THAT is why he's so dangerous- he still has his residual angel magic, ex. memory sharing. Terok and Fall can't do that.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-04 06:53 pm (UTC)angels are far more magic than demons in their makeup. You can strip an angel of its angelic magic in a certain way to make them shitty-winged humans but you can't do that to a demon, as they're far more ""real"" than angels, if that makes sense. They are what they are while angels are more magic than existence, if that makes sense. They're higher frequency so shit gets weird, and it's also why anti-magic pulses don't work on them.
no subject
Date: 2017-02-05 12:35 pm (UTC)I know that now, but I type the comment as I read the chapter so that's what I thought at the time XD
So Lucy will only grow in bad ass potential, I highly approve of this.
True he was kicked into the pit as a full fledged angel by his pissant of a brother. Cata is the most dangerous bad ass.