"Since this is both the first and the last fight you'll ever face, try your best to relish it."
As the dagger's ends elongated, they exploded with sparks, pressed harshly against the downwards attack. He combatted it with an inhumane force of muscle, repelling back as he launched streaks of electricity at Altair. Arrows continued to rain down on the two, although the ones not completely eradicated by the heatwave only bounced off the man's platemail.
One after another, sparks flew over in Altair's direction before he guided the dagger's tip to the center of the spikes, ready to pierce and break through them.
Restrained by the four sparks Luther had rooted earlier, Altair did his best to counter the bolts of electricity thrown his way, occasionally flinching and shaking his head when one would slip past his guard and jolt into his brain. The arrows in his back were growing more painful, his wings cringing inward every time the wounds pinched his nerves. His breath was labored as he dodged another streak of lightning, scuffing his knees hard on the charred ground before exhaustedly getting to his feet again. Reaching up, he pulled his sword from the air once more, calling out in Abyssal speech- a language unable to be written in commontongue. Under the hellish command, the dark clouds above them roiled and howled before raining jagged shards of burning stone down upon them. As Altair's energy lessened, so did the broadness of the storm, restricting it to a ring encircling only the two engaged in battle.
The rumbling of soldiers in the distance was growing closer, and Altair's mind raced with panic and adrenaline as he looked around.
Taking a deep breath, he let out a batlike shriek and a pulse of energy, one of the last that he had, rippling through the ground towards Luther and stirring the thick layers of ash into the air. As a veil of smoke and smog rose between the two, Altair seized his moment. Crouching down and swooping hard with his six wings, he launched himself into the air and out of confinement. As predicted, the spark traps ignited the moment of his escape and sent up their wall, and Altair closed his eyes and accepted the inevitable.
With a loud zz-zzZZZZZZZT, the archdemon crossed through the scorching electrocution and crashed to the ground a small distance away.
Despite the falling of the stones from the sky, there was a numb silence under the fog as Altair's body seized and he gasped like a fish out of water. His wings convulsed and thrashed wildly, his skin sizzled and smoked. Lying on his side, he cringed into a ball as he violently shook and spat up a mouthful of blood and esophagus. His eyes were melted, and he ducked his head into his chest as his organs shut down in temporary defeat. He could only hope for a moment's respite as his consciousness slipped away and his broken body began to regenerate.
His exhaustion was obvious. It came as a surprise to the guard, expecting Hell's last defense to be something worthwhile. Outside of his initial attack on the Abyss and a killer heatwave, to the guard, it felt lackluster. He hadn't even pulled out all the stops, either. But he knew that the sound of soldiers left him without options, further trapping the archdemon in a corner. Beneath Luther's mask, his face reddened at the thought. At the man's struggle-- as stone plummeted down upon them.
What his sparks hadn't caught and destroyed, his weapon swung and combatted. A few shards slipped by, bending his armor as he stumbled back. The smoke and smog made it impossible to see for a moment, the strands of electricity offering him the only bit of light.
And yet, he could hear the buzzing of his trap against the archdemon-- scorching his skin, burning his bones.
"Caught you... yet again."
He coughed, waving away with smog as he searched for air. Unlike Altair, he hadn't a pair of wings to fly out of the smoke with. He wheezed a bit, squinting behind his mask as he searched for the archdemon, well aware that he couldn't have gotten far by the shock. Tiny ripples of sparks ignited his path as he walked out of the dense fog, the small legion of soldiers rushing up to the scene. They stood at attention, noticing the uniform of higher-quality than their own. Only the captain of their squad knew anything about his position, however.
"How far... did he flee?" Luther coughed, shortening the dagger's length.
Pointing over the wave of smog, the captain replied. "Sergeant Ocellus, sir. The target was last sighted flying east."
"Leave him to me, then. Report back to the Castle of his detainment by Admiral Caeli. Possible lethal force administered at first sign of noncompliance." He ordered them, waving the squadron off as he embarked back into the cloud of smoke. He strolled through it, not hastily, but not carefully, either. By the time he emerged from the thick of its center, he'd removed his face shield, retching up clumps of ash.
Cold eyes resembling that of the ocean deep scanned the horizon, settling onto the body currently amid a full reboot. A neat little trick of his.
Taking a singular step over to his former comrade, he halted. A wave of a memory, or perhaps a vision flashed through his mind as he was filled with new knowledge. That of the Creators, and that of who watched the scene unfold.
He gripped at his wrist, which felt like it'd been crushed and reassembled in mere seconds. And yet, he began to approach the archdemon once more with a singular dagger in his opposite hand. The other had been strapped to his side, its electrical charge completely expended over their duel.
"Nice try, kid. You... really had me going for a minute... Hey."
Finally having neared the demon, Luther gave him a kick to the side, watching to see if he'd stir.
"Allllltair."
Swashing up saliva and ash from his mouth, he spit at the defeated creature before him.
"You wanted attention, didn't you? Well, this is it. You're getting some of the best kind."
Crouching down beside the injured beast, he readied his dagger with one hand, and covered his reddened face with the other.
"I'll come... visit you in the castle when I'm the new Marshall, alright?"
There was a quiet stirring of air as Altair's hand lifted weakly and wrapped around Luther's dagger and the hand holding it. His wings were twitching as the blood began to flow in his veins again, one slow heartbeat after the other. "P-Promise..?" He muttered. Suddenly, his hand clenched onto the admiral's with all the strength he could gather, and he pulled the dagger down into his stomach- the admiral with it. His wings wrapped tightly around the two of them like a cage, and in the pitch darkness Altair brushed himself closely against Luther as he rose from the ground. "Because 'I've got some new ideas I'd like to try on you'." The archdemon hissed maliciously with words he'd received before, keeping the dagger securely lodged in his stomach as he used his other hand to grab a fistful of Luther's hair. Wrenching the man's head back, he latched onto his neck with his teeth and bit down as hard as he could, ripping through flesh and muscle and vocal chords without mercy. Pulling back, the muscles peeled away in strings and he grinned through the bloody mass in his mouth. "'So good.'" He garbled more familiar words, spitting the mouthful of flesh at Luther before throwing him back and unlinking the wing trap.
Altair was a stumbling, ungraceful disaster, but he was alive as he, without waiting another moment, jumped into the air and took flight. His wings moved awkwardly, and he plummeted between the strokes, but he wasn't looking back as he flew higher and higher- as far as he could get from the ground, from Limbo, but most importantly, from Luther. Holding the open wound in his stomach, he muttered, "S-Still here, babe." weakly to the air, hoping his beloved was watching him.
He wanted to scoff as the dagger plunged into the archdemon's stomach. Compliant to the end. It was a fitting demise for the kid, gone out with a bang. But to turn five thousand years into an endless duration of suffering, it was too good. Is what he figured, until he himself had been caught in a fly trap, stuck to the weakened archdemon.
Fiercely, he struggled and thrashed about the winged-cage, however he was completely stuck. Sharpened teeth pierced through his skin, tearing and ripping flesh, muscle, and veins through his neck. Blood splashed about, drowning his armor with a crimson haze as he choked, clawing the air at Altair's takeoff.
Watching the sky close off around the archdemon, he felt his own consciousness fade. Slowly, it washed away into the sea of souls for the fishermen to catch, drowning, and falling deeper into the known abyss.
Meanwhile, the gargoyles searched the sky for the attacker, finding nothing. Troops banded together to sort through the decimated castle, while elite squadrons set out in search of Altair and his supposed captor. Fishermen snatched souls left and right, some carrying four or more at a time. They were the only ones to seem truly merry at the occasion, whistling to their own tune as the attack came to a close.
[attr="class","mouths1"]Complete pandemonium. The likes an unspeakably valuable painting might try to capture. Any bystander would think twice before believing what they could see; that, in the midst of sheer destruction, a flume of semi-solid gold would surge through cracked streets and crumbling structures, the savvy and informed knew instantly the responsible party. Surfing a tide of precious metal, Ginza controlled the direction and flow of golden transport with surgical precision. Each of her arms extended to gently pull out of the air or rubble an important relic. Her grains of sand in the playground of devils, she thought of them. A large rampart collapsing ahead of her desired path found itself shrunken to dollhouse-size and flicked away harmlessly bu one of Ginza's many hands; the Spaceshattering Lance's ability to downsize obstacles, if not outright warp them into themselves, was not to be understated, hence why she'd save it first. Shrinking down her precious relics caused her undue stress, but so did this entire situation! She could indulge in some convenience, surely. Plus, the feeling of having eons' worth of legendary items contained in a small satchel almost made her giddy.
After snatching the Electrified Crown from between two crushed shelves, Ginza halted her captive tidal wave in front of the castle grounds. What was once a pleasant courtyard, used by many as an elegant recreational park, sat split in two, divided by a fissure that went down for-- she wished not to think about it. "Is anyone still feeling chipper enough to ask me for a favour? Quick, while I'm feeling generous. And stationary," she asked with a sigh. Another rampart crumbled to nothing in the distance. Picking out survivors from rubble hadn't occurred to her until now but, with the majority of her favourite relics recovered, she supposed some golden noblesse oblige was in order and extended into the wreckage some feelers from the golden chute she stood atop.
A sharp gasp stirred the thick, smokey air as Leviath woke with a start.
Lilith.
Shuffling under the heaps of stone and wooden planks pinning him down, he let out a ragged scream of frustration and concern- despite the immortality of his soulmate.
"LILITH!" Coughing, he reached up and tenderly touched the crown of thorns that had been driven into his skull by the plummeting ceiling. He chose to leave it there for the time being and started to push the rubble off of him piece by piece. "My Lord!" The king could hear the Fishermen calling nearby, but they were a few dozen feet higher than where he lay far beneath the towers. Lilith. Lilith. Lilith. He knew she was alright- she was always alright. No one could kill her but he. And yet, the idea that someone had hurt her, for even a moment, was unbearable to him. The greatest of all sins to commit against the kingdom, and absolute torture to the king himself. The disobedience, the gall, and the betrayal Altair had carried out was beyond calculation, and the wrath Leviath now harbored was unlike any he'd felt for an age.
* * * *
Hearing Ginza speak up, a nearby soldier approached her. He was nothing special through a demon's eyes, just an average imp that had, over the years, acquired a position in the castle and grown in the ranks to a low captain. His name was Cyrilo. Despite being entirely replaceable, Cyrilo was a good soldier that cared for his men and had earned their respect.
The man was flustered and his armor was smeared with dark blood from his comrades as he glared up at where the Treasurer was perched.
"If it so pleases My Lady," He started sourly, "There are countless men under the stone, they need rescued and if you'd like to do something remotely useful, you'll get your hands a bit dirty and help us down here NOW!"
[attr="class","mouths1"]"Ask and you shall receive," Ginza said with a grimace which failed to match her level tone. Hoisting the Electrified Crown onto her head (which involved a brief balancing act between it and her usual head ornamentations), the demon let her mouth hang open. A flat sheet of molten gold poured forth and, before descending past her ankles, splayed out in all directions. Azure sparks from the relic atop Ginza's head leapt to and fro, integrating with each tendril of gold. Satisfied, she closed her mouth and watched the independently mobile lengths of precious metal descend into the rubble, searching for all traces of bioelectricity.
In mere minutes, every still living trapped individual within a sizeable radius found a soft, gentle arm wrapping around them for hoisting towards safety; pliable gold expanded where necessary to push out large pieces of debris or expand small crevices. Ginza huffed and wiped a bit of melted metal from her lower lip with her nearest hand. All too happily, she extended that arm out for Cyrilo to view at a respectful distance. "There, dirty as you like. Now, what happened? Stick with me now, I must move about if I'm to sniff out survivors even deeper below."
The wait was pure unadulterated agony to pull Leviath from the rubble. She knew, just as he, that he couldn't die. He would eventually heal and recover, revived from the collapse. Rising to extend orders to the soldiers who circled around them like flies. Harmless yet annoying, as they could get nothing done. Until she could wrap her arms around him, she agonized over his currently unknown state.
"LEVIATH!"
Covered in dust, Lilith worked beside the Fishermen to dig deep into the rubble, yelling out his name. Broken bones slowly mended themselves together, ejecting small pieces of stone and dust from her extensive wounds. As soldiers began to arrive, their immediate orders were that of retrieving the lord, listening for his yell several stories below.
Approximately a half hour had passed from the destructive first wave, yet the remaining columns continued to rumble and slightly shake. Stone was heaved up and away from the scene, leaving Lilith to desperately listen for the voice of her other half.
"LEVIATH! Can you hear me? Leviath!"
Although she completely lacked in strength compared to the soldiers and fishermen which surrounded her, she grit her teeth and tore into the mess below, desperate to retrieve her only solace in their lonely world.
The king's eyes narrowed against the falling dust and debris as he shifted and kicked stone off of himself. After straining against a wooden beam crushing against his ribs, he stopped when a low rumbling shook the rubble. More dust settled into his hair, forewarning another collapse.
"Ah-?" Looking up, Leviath flinched as heavy loads of splintered rafters and bricks came tumbling down onto him with a crash. Blood spurted from his crown that jutted downwards through his skull and into his brain. The king went limp and fell under the weight, dying again.
Meanwhile, Cyrilo was nodding in gruff approval at the madam's assistance. "Don't stop now." He said, urging her on.
[attr="class","mouths1"]Something felt off to the treasurer. Not the screams and not the wailing, but something off. Something switching off, then on, then off. "My talents and likely your talent are best used elsewhere," murmured Ginza to the Electrified Crown. "And you as well, you can watch and nod closer, if you please," she huffed at the prominent captain. The deluge of golden tendrils froze before rerouting back inwards to Ginza. On their way up, they lifted and disposed of the largest and most difficult pieces of rubble. Now, the guards could do what she could, in a more primitive manner at least. As far as this feeling of something being off, the guest list of the venue came to mind; who hadn't yet been accounted for, just from looking about? Who would be accounted for instantly, were they here and not, of course, still further below.
"Hunt. There's a trophy to be found, alive. And dead," Ginza hummed before removing the headwear relic and snapping it in half. Bright blue sparks coursed through the crown and galvanized it into a long, flat ribbon of electrified metal. She releases it and hoped it might clear a path straight to Leviath. Loose bolts of lightning began boring into the ground as the ribbon slowly sped up in slicing through the wreckage towards one particular individual.
Over a hundred floors of rubble and thousands of souls to collect. Lilith herself had only fallen halfway down, and almost all of the Lord's regenerative abilities focused solely on her form's half. Ginza and her soldier were nothing more than miniature dots as she squinted down the gaping whole of Limbo's strongest building, mixed with the smoke of the initial debris. Sparks ignited a greater sense of worry for Leviath, to which she took a step back from assisting the fishermen crew.
Only a bit of focusing would identify his location, the link between the two inseparable, even by distance. And soon enough, she locked onto where he lifelessly laid, somewhere between the strikes of lightning through smoke.
"Take me down."
The Lord commanded to a nearby fisherman, who grumbled in response. Nonetheless, he obliged without objection, throwing down a large piece of stone before hoisting his hook against one shoulder and lifting Lilith to sit atop the other.
"Don'get comfy, miss."
A moment's warning before jumping straight down into the fray below. Navigating through stories, Lilith could eventually make out through the pathway Ginza created straight to her other half.
As the fisherman landed, the woman had already jumped off, quick to dash over to reunite with Leviath. She fell to her knees, carefully lifting his body up after the pieces which bound him practically disintegrated.
"My eternity, my love." She cried, holding his limp body to herself. Hands desperately grasped at his thorny crown as it tore through skin as she ripped it out and away, gushing more blood onto the two. "We're together, we'll survive."
Soon enough, the fisherman careened over to the two, battling away potential threats to the two lords. A duty saved for guards, yet fell on some of Limbo's last resorts.
A simple wave of the hand was enough of an order for the soulless being to drop his hook and carefully scoop up the two, hauling them out of the dust, rubble, and thunderous path.
The air was filled with shouting in all directions. Captains ordering their troops up and down stairways, courtiers yelling for help in the rubble, servants calling out desperately to hear of the Lord's whereabouts.
Leviath was nothing but dead weight as the fisherman carried the king and queen to safety and settled them on the stone floor of a sturdy level. Quickly, guards came rushing to their aid. As his head rested in Lilith's lap, Leviath's skull slowly shifted and cracked itself into place. His brain twisted and fused back together and, with a gentle stir of movement, his golden eyes flashed open.
"My Lilith-..." The king muttered, looking up at her through hazy vision and blood-matted hair. He made a feeble attempt of sitting up but leaned on her when his arms shook. "You are well..?"
As he spoke to her, a few members of the council approached them and bowed, each of them dirty and disheveled, with tears in their clothes. They waited silently for orders, honoring the quiet moment between the two halves as Leviath regenerated.
As soon as his skull's skin weaved over its former cracks and gashes, the woman gently ran her fingers across it, assuring that it had healed in full. She'd been careful not to tug at the hair matted with blood, but she had to make sure he was healing. Anything to make sure he'd be alright, even if it was a given for the lord of the underworld.
When his eyes opened to meet hers, a small wave of relief flooded over. Her reassurance.
"Yes, my dearest and only, I am fine."
As her other half failed to sit up, she cautiously shifted him upright before wrapping her arms around his frame.
Experience dealing with the two halves taught the councilmen well, as no heads flew off at that moment to helplessly tumble down the tower. Not immediately, having been soothed by Leviath's voice. Having barely turned her head to meet her underlings, she commanded to them orders. They needn't respond to her, so long as what she required was completed in full. The Lord could issue them specifics later, once he was well enough. He knew of their names and duties-- she could hardly care less.
"Secure the threat, then reinforce the gateways. All non-militant demons and fiends are to assist in repairing the Castle while every imp is on lockdown to their quarters. We want a group investigating the outburst."
Gazing back to her beloved, she tenderly grazed his cheek with the back of her hand, emotionally pained by his complexion.
"Summon Caligula," Leviath said from where he'd rested his head on Lilith's shoulder. His voice was ragged and nigh above a whisper, and a few men drew closer to the two in order to hear him properly. "Sir-?" One of the soldiers asked, taking his helmet off and wiping blood from his forehead.
The king clutched onto his queen tightly as his ribs painfully reset. "General Abattoir," He spat, forcing his voice louder, "Summon him to court immediately." Instantly tired from the effort used to speak, Leviath pulled back and pressed his head against Lilith's, murmuring to her weakly. "He's gone, Altair is gone, I know it. I must find him." He lifted a hand and cupped her face affectionately, "I am so sorry I let him do this, my darling. The filthy dog will be put down. We will feast on his head." Bringing her closer, he bit her ear playfully in an attempt to cheer her up.
Nearby, a courtier was picking up the king's crown and cleaning it, while a few medics awaited the Lord's summoning.
