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[IC] Regalia Page 3

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Hidden 7 days ago → 7 days ago Post by Silly
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Silly Summoning Shenanigans

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[Location] Food Stands
[Time] Sunday, 07:30
[Interactions] @Aeolian @vietmyke @Mirandae

As she was greeted by Laura, Nia found herself surprised by the reaction of the Regalia, as her eyebrow rose up in shock, as a wordless ‘Wait, is this real?’ crossed her mind. She found her attention fixated on the blonde, as she appraised her. A global superstar acting like a starstruck fan around an obscure relative nobody, it was… surreal. Did Nia have an influence outside of her own circles? Or was this an act, all part of Gaia’s charm, a crafted interaction to create an intimate connection between the pair of them? She quieted her thoughts, suspicions, and settled with a sense of acceptance, ‘Okay, this happened.’ she thought to herself. She smiled pleasantly and bowed her head in appreciation, “Thank you for your kind words.” Her purple gaze lingered as their eyes met for a long moment.

Nia smiled as Cécile had arrived and joined them She reached out to take his hand and squeezed it, as she welcomed him. Her gaze lifted as they met with Bastions, and gave him a sly wink as she noticed his protective attention over her cousin. As he spoke, she nodded toward him as she looked to the sky when prompted, “It is rare for those on the path to be so displeased.” She couldn’t help but feel the urge to place a soothing hand on his arm, a protective gesture, when he appeared frightened. The idea of her once cute little cousin being a Regalia was a hard concept to grasp, and she needed to be mindful of her actions and not to overstep.

Akamu appeared to quickly take charge of the situation, and a smile rose to her lips, impressed. If her calmness was a good trait, then his natural leadership in a crisis was certainly an excellent one. His words and actions were more than for a photo opportunity, and she found herself wondering if she had ever misjudged the man. She nodded as she went to follow his instruction. Her original goal here was simple: to gather information. This situation was best left to the Regalia, who were better equipped to protecting the civilians.

Pandemonium soon broke out. There was a chorus of shouting as people appeared to flee the harbour in haste. Laura was quick to notice the disruption, as she expressed her concern about something happening down by the docks. The throng of people began to move hurriedly away from the location, whilst others gathered around various regalia for protection.

Gleaming, dark carapaces scurried up from the ocean onto the harbour. These creatures that seemed to resemble monstrous larva swarmed, and they forced themselves into nearby buildings, and stalls, seemingly in the search for food. The people fleeing them were the most tempting targets, as they attacked, their claws and pinchers ravaged and tore into their flesh. Gunfire erupted as the security personnel adopted a defensive formation. Their enchanted weaponry cracked loudly as their shots tore through the creatures’ carapaces, leaving behind a minor roadblock as new monsters crawled over the fallen to take their place in the advancing tide. These creatures were numerous, they were legion.

Nia stayed close to Laura as the latter began to transition. Her curiosity got the better of her, as she watched the transformation of the Regalia first hand, and witnessed her grow larger and bloom majestically as she took on the divine form of Gàileadh. Soon, they were enclosed within that protective barrier with the surrounding families; the air filled with the scent of pine cones. Nia smiled warmly to the others under the Regalia’s protection, as she seated herself down on the ground, and gestured the others to do the same, comforting them within this little walled garden amidst the terror outside that waited outside.

Nia’s gaze lowered as her irises were filled with witch-light, as she surveyed the battlefield. Multiple Regalia were taking action now, some transitioning into Dominant forms such as fearsome armoured warriors, whilst others acted to save people from the oncoming tide of monstrous locusts. She gently used her influence as a mist began to descend along the harbour, the wisps being scattered subtly so to go unnoticed as an insignificant change in the weather. She was not certainly interested in the limelight, but she couldn’t simply allow innocents to perish due to her inaction. Breathing slowly, she quieted her mind. The mist began to concentrate around the outskirts of the swarm, where the stragglers attempted to avoid the Regalia’s wrath.

A family, slow to escape, saw the mist as an opportunity, a chance to hide, but it was too late; one of the creatures followed them into the dense thick fog. As the children screamed, the mother clutched her son, the father pulled on the daughter’s arm, as they broke through to the other side. The mist obscured their view as the father tripped over an unseen object, as the daughter cried out, “No, Daddy, get up!” as she tugged fruitlessly at his hand. “Jessica, run, you have to run!” The monstrous larva’s piercing screech sounded right behind them in the mist, which threatened to break through at any moment. Suddenly, a loud crack echoed, and the creature let out a yelp like a kicked dog. There was a deep rumbling growl followed by a furious crunching noise as pink droplets sprayed out of the mist like rain, which covered the family. When the mist subsided, nothing remained of the creature but the splatters where the creature had imploded.

Nia dabbed her nose with her sleeve, as she noticed a slight bleed. She hoped she didn’t need to be in this protective shell for too long, as the battle continued to rage outside.
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Hidden 4 days ago Post by Teyao
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Teyao

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[Location] Landow, Estren
[Time] Sunday, 07:30 AM, September 15
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He leaned against a small fence as he watched the creatures appear over on the beach. For a moment he was tempted to close his eyes and enjoy the sound of gunfire and screams but the reality was that he couldn't afford to do so, this was an unknown enemy who for all he knew was hiding a long distance weapon capable of killing him in a single blow.

He was also watching with interest as the corpse painted woman faced the newfound enemy. For all her talk it was obvious she was determined to do something about it, her eyes clearly working properly now as she struggled to her feet. There was a feeling of smugness rising inside him, he had not been wrong after all, she was a fighter.

The feeling only simplified as some of his earlier guesses were confirmed, she really was a Regalia after all.

He didn't recognize the Dominant but that was no surprise, for all his Master had been determined to teach him the general workings of the world theology was not a subject the old man had delved into outside Ifrit. Guess that proved there was still more to this world he had to see.

Similar thoughts crossed his mind as he continued to observe the events unfold, a minor sense of satisfaction at the violence happening in front of him.

Not that he was idle either.

At his side lay his drawn sword, held tightly to his palm and hot enough to melt through flesh. Getting hotter too as he channeled his dominion over fire in it.

Then when it reached some unknown threshold he cut the flames and allowed the blade to contain the heat inside it without adding more.

Then he threw it.

The moment the sword left his hands he was moving behind it, following in its wake as it sailed through the air before slamming point first into one of the monsters about to devour some helpless civilian. The hit managed to stun the monster long enough for him to impact against its head with all his might, driving the sword further in as he made his best effort to Cauterize the wound. He had fought a monster capable of regenerating before so it was better to take care of them quickly, usually battles of stamina were in their favor.

Behind him he could hear the man scream and run with renewed fervor, from what he had observed of this man that was in line with his character, he was one of the first to run and even pushed other people in his attempts to escape.

A battlefield was no place for a coward.

At some point, the monster stopped struggling but whether it was dead or not he couldn't be sure as more and more of its brethren marked their displeasure as they approached him with clear hostile intent.

His Master was right.

This Festival was interesting in all the right ways.
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Hidden 3 days ago Post by vietmyke
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vietmyke

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[Location] Food Stands, Landow
[Time] Sunday, 07:30 AM
[Mentions] @Mirandae @Silly



Any sense of calm and rationale was quickly destroyed as some untold number of strange creatures appeared. A flood of man hungry piranha-spiders or crabs, creatures seemingly hellbent on doing nothing but devouring anything that lived. People screamed, gunfire rattled through the air, their reports echoing off the buildings and filling the air with a near deafening din. Akamu tensed as he watched an unfortunate group of people too close to the harbor get devoured, and began to bound forward. Behind him, he could feel and smell the scent of Laura transforming into her Dominant form, and glanced over his shoulder to nod at her. Extending around her was an aura or barrier, both calming and quieting the uproar around them- a haven for the innocent. The woman who had joined them seem to be doing something too- her eyes glowing, but Akamu had little time to decipher exactly what she was doing, now was not the time to be thinking- it was time to act.

The noise resumed as the Regalia crossed the threshold of the barrier, people swarming past him as they rushed for the safety of Gaia. Their combined security details had already formed a defensive line, firing at the swarms as the Captain directed fire, and another beckoned civilians to safety. Unlike Laura, Akamu couldn't rightly transform in such cramped quarters at this- not without risking the lives of innocents. He'd have to make do with what he had around him for now. Heavy hands slammed onto the ground, walls of earth and stone raising around the barrier. Wide enough for the security personnel to climb up onto and use as a vantage point to fire at the monsters without catching civilians in the crossfire, with gaps in the cardinal directions for civilians to stream through. With how the creatures moved, Akamu doubted a mere wall would stop them, but it would at least slow them.

"To me!" Akamu bellowed, his booming voice cutting across the roar of gunfire and screams, encouraging both civilians and remaining Regalia and security to rally towards the shelter Gaia had created. "Away from the harbor! This way!" He cried out, even as he leaped forward towards the oncoming horde of monsters. Heavy feet slammed onto the ground, dozens of chunks of stones lifting into the air as he did. A clenched fist condensed the chunks into razor sharp shards before launching forward into the monsters. Another heavy stomp sent up more chunks of rock and stone, this time flying to Akamu to cover his body in a sort of rudimentary armor as he began to wade into the chaos, grabbing a fallen man and tossing him towards the barrier- he could apologize for his lack of gentleness later, for now he had to stem the horde. Reaching down, Akamu grabbed a fallen claw hammer from a discarded toolbox. He hefted the tool in his hand for a moment before plunging it's head into the ground, drawing out heavy rectangular chunk of stone as he yanked it back out of the ground. Good enough.

One of the crab monsters leaped at him, razor teeth gouging into stone as Akamu caught it on his forearm, his other armored hand roughly ripping it off of him before throwing it onto the ground, a stone covered foot stomping through its chitinous shell. A second lunged at him, sent flying like a baseball as Akamu batted it away with a heavy swing from his new weapon. Now appropriately armed and armored, Akamu charged into the thick of it- not seeking glory or battle, rather he sought out those that had not yet been able to flee to safety. Though not as recognizable, with his face now covered in stone- it was hard to imagine it was anyone else but the Regalia of Titan as a stoneman stormed forth.
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Hidden 3 days ago Post by CaliforniaState
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CaliforniaState Biologist

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[Location] Landow, Estren
[Time] Sunday, 07:30 AM
[Interactions] N/A


Camilo continued to eye the festivities, finishing the skewer, nimbly spinning the metal rod in his hand. Against his better judgment he kept finding his gaze hovering back to the tiny group of dominants bolstering in number. It was odd to publicize yourself so much, make yourself so readily available to the public eye just for some illusion of grandeur. Dominants might have been invincible, but the same pleasantries weren’t extended to family members or loved ones. It was more of a projection than a founded belief for Camilo. He hadn’t even been a regalia prior to having his family taken from him so what if he did have the power before then. Thoughts like that would soon make him go mad and fester an aversion to the rest of the dominants he encountered in his wake.

Gravel crunched undertow finding its purchase on the concrete. He propped his hood up, fished out some sunglasses from his pocket, and did the bare minimum in concealing his face. Touring through different tents with food and marketable paraphernalia he caught himself stopping just before spying a woman caked in a mask of skull face paint. She was speaking, or perhaps berating, another younger man, both unsurprisingly armed. His mouth creased in a frown, knowing he had entered the scene rather naked. At least almost naked. He prodded the tip of the skewer with his finger, testing the sharpness of it and whether or not he could rely on it if need be. It wasn’t too dissimilar to a needle of ice that he had sunk into so many before this. This should be no different.

Just before he drew close enough to eavesdrop on their conversation, there was a disharmony of screams loud enough to pierce through the loud murmur of the crowds just above the harbor. Camilo’s confusion was warranted when the reaction of the crowd closest to the overlook turned to terror and found themselves forming a wave that crashed back onto the confused onlookers who had not seen the source of dismay. Camilo worked his way through the crowd, having to claw his way through the stiff junction of panicked civilians. An aggressive shoulder check hit square into him, knocking his glasses off, shattering underfoot of the stampede. Swimming on, he ducked into an alley with a drainage that led to the harbor. His gait stopped immediately, frozen in place but not by Shiva, but by the grizzly image of white sand turned red.

Camilo studied biology in his time in school, there was even a time where he had originally planned to study that instead of the political science degree pushed onto him after military service. From what he did remember, it was his section on invertebrates. Arthropods being the family he most enjoyed: crabs, lobsters, scorpions, spiders. *Crabs*, the horde tearing into the flesh of men, women, and children with their chelipeds were a nefarious perversion of the crustaceans he remembered. In his inaction the other dominants had already begun their proaction in saving the people that so dearly worshiped them. A chill ran down Camilo’s spine, he could feel Shiva’s hand pressing on his shoulder. The cold radiated all throughout his neck and arm, she was silently imploring him to take form and help the others.

It was still too soon, still too many people that could get injured if he wasn’t careful. Instead he turned back to the soldiers firing off their rifles, barely making a dent in the ravenous reforming beasts. Through the corridor his gaze met one of the beasts that lunged at a soldier boring into their chest with red tooth and claw. Camilo gripped the skewer and began running towards the soldier, by the time he made the clearing the body was already limp, gear soaked crimson. He scanned for a moment, finding the crab once more and tracking its movements. A man, geriatric in age, had planted himself stiff in the middle of the shrines, eyes closed, head bent, hands pressed together in prayer, completely unaware of the demise racing towards him.

Camilo spun around and whipped the skewer at the crab, unfortunately it simply bounced off the hard carapace. He sighed, not really surprised at his lackluster weapon. His eyes scrawled around him looking for something else, the rifle. He took off in a sprint, grabbing the rifle and cocking it back, keeping his eyes fixed on the crab. Kicking off the ground he launched himself into the air, in direct line of the voracious creature. With mouth agape, Camilo fired the rifle into the soft palate of the otherwise hardened creature. An explosion of fluids and chitin covered him as he fell, leaving only the disciple continuing to believe dogmatically in his dominants. Perhaps in reverence to Camilo in this case.


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Hidden 2 days ago → 2 days ago Post by Aeolian
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Aeolian Proud Fujoshi

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[Location] Landow, Estren (Food Stands)
[Time] Sunday, 07:30 AM
[Interactions] @Silly@Mirandae

The meteors had begun to fall with more frequency now, their fiery descent like a herald of doom as they hissed through the morning sky, striking the ocean with sickening force. The impact sent great columns of water exploding upward, shimmering beneath the haunting glow of the shattered heavens. Every tremor that reached the harbor seemed to reverberate in Cécile’s bones, the ground beneath his feet trembling with a warning too ancient to ignore.

Cécile stood frozen, watching the horizon where sea met sky, feeling the wrongness of it all coil tightly around his fragile hummingbird heart. He could feel it, too—the slow, creeping terror that had begun to unfurl like a dark bloom. He had barely registered what the other Regalia and his cousin said when a scream split the air.

His blood ran cold as the sound tore through the quiet. It came from the harbor—harsh, shrill, full of unbridled panic. His eyes snapped to the shoreline, his heart pounding as vulgar shapes burst from the churning waves—cosmic insects, grotesque, their carapaces glistening under the fading light of the falling stars. They billowed forth, exoskeletons slick with seawater, spilling onto the shore in a terrifying flood. Their mandibles clicked hungrily, legs scuttling with an unsettling speed.

So many teeth. They were so unnatural, not of this world.

Cécile’s heart leapt into his throat as the tide of cosmic abominations poured toward the crowd, skittering over the docks, crawling up the food stalls, smashing through wooden stands with a hunger that seemed insatiable. The creatures tore at everything in their path.

“Nia!” Cécile called out, his voice strained with panic, but the chaos around him swallowed the sound. People screamed. The crowd surged like a living thing, bodies pressing against him as they fled in terror, knocking him to the ground. He glimpsed his cousin, just for a moment, as he righted himself on his arms. She had fallen under the protective dome of Gaia, the strength of her magic so strong, he could smell the pine from where he was and it almost soothed him. But the tide of fleeing, terrified souls swept them apart. He was left stranded, cut off from Gaia's safety.

As a strange mist began to form nearby, Bastion grabbed Cécile by the arm, pulling him up and away from the stampede of people.

"Hopekeeper!” Bastion’s voice cut through the din, rough and urgent, "We have to go, now!”

But there was no easy escape. The creatures were everywhere, scuttling closer, their movements almost too quick to track. One of them lunged, tearing through a nearby stall with a sickening crack, the wood splintering like bones. Cécile stumbled back, his breath coming in short gasps, fear threatening to paralyze him. Blood splattered the ground as they ripped apart anyone too slow to escape, their grotesque forms bathed in the light of distant fires.

The stampede of people made it impossible to get far as they moved—the crowd pushing, stumbling, screaming—trapping them in a nightmarish press of bodies. Bastion, realizing they couldn’t escape, whirled around, his gun already in hand. He opened fire, the sharp crack of bullets barely audible over the deafening screams. The creatures shrieked as they fell, but more kept coming, their bodies twitching as dark ichor spilled from their wounds.

The air reeked of salt, smoke, and blood. Cécile, trembling, clutched at Bastion’s cloak, hiding behind him as wave after wave of abominations surged toward them. He wasn’t a fighter—he had never been in danger like this. He sent out a silent wish to ether, to be back on his island again, to be with his fragile, innocent höpes. The world around him felt too loud, too chaotic, each scream and gunshot hammering against his mind as it began to fray at the edges.

Cécile's chest tightened as panic set in. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hands rising to cover his ears in a desperate attempt to block out the horror unfolding.

This—this horror—was beyond him.

But his fear had triggered something else. He felt the stir of magic within him, wild and uncontrolled. His astral butterflies appeared around his delicate silhouette in a flurry of shimmering wings, materializing out of instinct. They swarmed around him, protecting him, reacting to his growing terror.

“Hopekeeper!” Bastion shouted over the chaos, still firing at the oncoming creatures. “You need to transform!"

But Cécile couldn’t hear him. His mind was too clouded, too overwhelmed by the fear that gripped him. He could feel Bastion calling his name again, but it was distant, muffled, like a voice underwater. The astral butterflies spun faster around him, their light dimming and brightening in rhythm with his racing heart. His vision blurred, his thoughts scattered, lost in the storm of his own noxious dread.

Finally, Bastion grabbed him, shaking him. “Hopekeeper!”

The world snapped back into focus, and Cécile blinked, dazed. He could hear Bastion now, the urgency in his voice cutting through the haze, “You need to transform!” Bastion repeated, his voice hard, commanding.

“I—I’ll try,” Cécile stammered, his voice weak as he nodded. There was no confidence in his words, only a desperate hope. With trembling hands, he knelt on the ground, his fingertips touching softly against his temples. And he began to utter the prayers he had memorized and uttered long before. Six prayers Anima had taught him to recite when in need of her power. His lips moved silently, forming the words of The First Prayer.

"o' mother whose brilliance lightens even the darkest of skies,
favor this ground for the fulfillment of thy eternal journey. Anima!"

Nothing.

The magic, the transformation—it wouldn’t come. He could feel Anima’s presence, a nebulous warmth, but it was like trying to grasp smoke. Cécile squeezed his eyes shut, his prayers growing louder in his head, willing his Dominant form to surface. The world continued to unravel around him, and his body remained painfully human. The Second Prayer.

"o' cherished one, gilded with the purest of hearts,
bring down thy final libation to guide these wandering souls to rest.
Anima!"

But still—nothing. The Third Prayer.

"eternal wisdom, ever true and undefiled,
grant these swanson sinners before me the majesty of thy judgement.
Anima!"

She still wouldn't come to him. Why wouldn't she heed his call? These were her fucking prayers!

His heart raced faster. Cécile tried to focus, his eyes darting around, wild and searching, but the panic kept creeping in as his prayers went unanswered. The Fourth Prayer.

"o' dreaming mother from distant regions,
stretch out thy tenebrous wings and lead my enemies to their eternal slumber.
Anima!"

After the inaudible last syllables of his fourth prayer seemed to fall on silent ears, Cécile witnessed something truly horrific.

Through the blur of movement, he saw them—a group of children, running, their small bodies barely able to keep pace with the terrified adults. Blood streaked their clothes, and a teacher—her face pale with fear—tried to shield them from the advancing horrors. Cécile’s breath caught in his throat as the creatures descended upon her. The teacher screamed for them to run as they tore into the poor woman, her body falling in a twisted heap as the abominations descended upon the defenseless children.

Something inside Cécile snapped. "No!"

He couldn’t transform—he couldn’t—but he could still do something.

With a surge of will, he sent his astral butterflies forward, his mind latching onto the abominations with a single, desperate command: "Protect them."

Cécile's blue morphos, luminous and ethereal, swarmed toward the creatures, their delicate wings brushing against the grotesque forms in a dazzling display of azure light. As the butterflies touched and landed on the abominations, they began to falter, their movements slowing as they collapsed, one by one, into a sudden, unnatural slumber. And then they began to twitch.

As if under a spell, the sleeping, cosmic insects turned on one another, ripping each other apart with savage brutality. Limbs were torn from bodies, mandibles clashed, and onyx blood splattered the ground as they destroyed their own kind.

Cécile could feel the vile emptiness of their minds as he infiltrated their subconscious. It was sickening. Their thoughts, their dreams—if they could even be called that—were hollow, a void of death and hunger. No rational motivation, only primal instinct.

The strain on Cécile’s mind was immense. His consciousness stretched thin, split between too many minds, too many horrors. He knelt there, unmoving. He didn't dare break his concentration, his eyes distant as his mind was tethered to the creatures, keeping them at bay, forcing them to destroy each other in a brutal cycle.

But it was too much. His body trembled with the strain, his magic pulling at him. His breath came in shallow gasps. Cécile’s magic would falter soon, and perhaps his frail body would too. He knew he couldn’t maintain it for long, but he couldn't stop, not yet. His butterflies continued their assault, driving the abominations to tear themselves apart.

The transformation would have to come later—if it came at all.
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Hidden 14 hrs ago → 14 hrs ago Post by TokyoPewPew
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TokyoPewPew

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The luckiest were a mile inland, filming the lanterns and the comets and the sunrise from their third-story tenement windows; beyond earshot of the gunfire, the screams of the devoured inaudible. They learned of the disaster through the blaring of a radio, or the impersonal, flat-cadenced droning of a TV reporter standing in front of an emergency broadcast, scanlines striped like neon seersucker; any live feeds too shaky, too frantic to convey the gruesome details. They went back to bed, or back to making their morning chai who didn't traipse over to a neighbor's shed, or a cellar, or whatever door of whose locks and hinges they were so assured. They waited for the prank-drill-false-alarm to be over so they could return to their rubbery eggs and their weekend morning reruns, blithely oblivious to the devastation wrought mere streets away.

Next in fortune were those standing the food lines; and waiting to use the bathrooms and taking photographs at the shrines and souvenir stalls. Though they, themselves, had heard the screaming, seen the gushering of the water as heaven's fires struck the harbor, Etroi had seen fit to spare them the sight of bodies washing ashore, chewed and broken. Pink scum buoyant atop frothing, blood-thick tides. Tasting the panic of the throngs, the hired guns were quick to take positions along the dunes, forming the first meat-wall between hunter and prey; the horde and its panicked, bleating food. And the Regalia, already mobbed by their camera crews and their gormless, adoring lickspittles—to them the stragglers flocked all the fiercer, trampling and crushing each other to have their guarded place at a god-chosen's side. Yes. Comfort and consolation abound for those who just minutes ago had been stuffing their mouths with deep-fried sugar, and their brains with carnival games. The assurance that they were important, and precious, and cared for—the perverse pleasure of watching others die to save them—for some these flowed bountifully. But only some.

What comforts, then, to those treading the harbor, clamoring the beach?—with no clean distance whereby to observe the horrors as bystanders, and no sweet words from a do-nothing Dominant cooed into their ears, no healing residues pumped into their capillaries—and still worse, no way to reach these things except over the piles of the writhing dead, and through the knee-high, brackish blood-water, and over the no-man's-land of the horror-scuttled sands—what had they done to deserve such disownment where others had been claimed, why abandon them when so many others were rescued? Gaia's chosen burgeoning a green sanctuary up from beneath the asphalt, and stroking the fur of so many of her huddled children; and before her, the cool composure of the gunmen; but before them the featureless sand, utterly devoid of shelter, a hundred feet which may just as well have been a league......No avenue existed for these forsaken souls but to run regardless of the futility. And run they did, hunted and swarmed, dragged down by two, then four, then ten of those scuttling horrors snipping their hamstrings and Achilles heels first, then their carotids.

What solace to the fleeing, the terrified, the chased, the felled, the eaten-alive?—that one or two wayward Regalia dashed for the waterline to have the glorious moment they'd thirsted for?—that the meteors had to stop falling, that eventually the heavens would run dry of torments to cast down on them and the pitiable earth?—or that a lone woman stood the sands, her sword floating from her scabbard, her resolve silent, furious, and unquenchable?

Her skin a-clad up to the elbows in liquid metal, the stuff condensated to her hands like a quicksilver dew, she continued to pray. To invoke. A human wick dipped in molten steel, every moment it solidified thicker, further up her extremities. It reached up to her hips then, and the sockets of her arms, clasping, clenching, biting her flesh in its austere embrace.

From the urgency in her eyes and the trembling in her uplifted hands the fleeing masses knew her for an ally. No one would have had reason for such fear who had played a hand in this—whose thousands of ravenous allies slithered up the beach. They fled and they knew not to stray too near, lest the imminent residue slowed their escape, or the radius of some devastating attack expanded beyond her control; still, they fled past her, behind her, wanting her between them and the sea. Some drew near enough in their flight to see her painted face in detail. Her tears resembled the hellish waters from which they had managed to trudge: salt diluted with blood.

And still that massive sword hummed in the air, wielded by a hand immaterial, or perhaps by naught; and any moment then she should have reached to pluck it from the air, or it should have returned, terrier-like, to her expecting hand, that she-knight who by then was almost entirely metal, with but a face emerged from between the two hinged jaws of her helm and gorget, and a naked breastbone around which the ethereal armor continued to close—spreading across her like a mildew. But then it happened. The slender blade, that curved sliver of shadesteel, a god's toenail clipping given hilt, yawed in the air. It aimed true. And thrust forth by some unseen power, it impaled itself through the Regalia's spine, through her heart, out the other side of her shattered sternum. She stumbled forward a step, blinking at the protrusion in her chest which dripped and glistened with her life-stuffs, gasping for air which leaked out of her ere it could quench the burning in her lungs. Her last breath creaked out of her like the snapping of a dry branch over one's knee; and her final strength, failing in her legs, sent her plummeting to the sands.

Usually Beth died in callous silence, but this time—this time as the darkness swallowed in around her she was sure she heard screaming. The screams of those who, if but for a single moment, had placed their faith in her. It was oddly comforting.

Witnesses knew not what to believe. Had a Regalia just taken her own life, devoured by her own despair? Had she had her own powers sabotaged, subverted, turned against her? Or more frightening still: had she just lost an unseen battle against a hidden foe, invisible hands knotted and wresting for control over the vicious weapon? Either way, writhing and sputtering her last was the woman in the eerie corpsepaint, her defiance brief and futile, her little body draining upon the blade like a tuna bled for market. Those few who had believed in her fully abandoned her then, kicking sand into her face in their mad, desperate scramble up the dunes, even stampeded over her, anything, everything to escape before those beaks had scraped her clean, and those glassy eyes had scanned the trees, and those chitinous legs had clicked forth in pursuit of their next course in a voracious, neverending feast.

They had reached the body before long, washing over her like a ruptured seawall, like bursted riverbanks. Few people spared her any thought by then, enraptured by their terror, frenzied and bestial. But those who did, in a final gesture of mercy, now wished her dead; as the carapaces mounted her body, and the mandibles set to work, rasping, ripping.


But something was not yet dead beneath that mound of claws and teeth and stomachs.

Two, three, six concussive blasts launched the insectoids skyward, and skidding across the sands, and in all directions, their bodies shredded into a strange, fine dust, their legs curled up dead against their ruptured thoraxes. And in the same spot as where the girl had fallen rose something else, like a black flame reborn from her pale ashes. Something immense and hulking. Something unwhole.

Still sloughing pieces of her from its many orifices—bits of hair and lip and half an ear leaking from its helm, skin shedding placenta-like between the joints of its vambraces, the girl entirely parasitized by this demon dwelt within her—the entity stumbled to its feet, sprawled, stretched, a newborn foal testing its legs, a freshly-laid insect testing its wings. One of arm and one of eye—already maimed and chewed by those creatures despite its thick, gleaming cladding? Or was this a mutilated god, a crippled one they now witnessed? Regardless, of the girl it coughed and vomited the last, its voice like the gnawing of beaks against wind-stripped bone, its limbs groaning like the chains of hell. Its gorget glistened with her liquefied insides, but in its helmet shone an impenetrable darkness, a darkness which allowed only that single eye to pierce it. An eye like the spark flown from a baleful fire. An eye bright with cruelty.

All along the tips of the dunes, breaths were held; reticles were trained, unsure of this monster's allegiances. Until, hilt still jutting from its back, and wet, red tip from its bosom, the infant god turned toward the sea.

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