Ch 59: The Sun Will Rise Again

His will holding strong, Serius' strength is nevertheless at it's end. Yet in his darkest hour, he is about to be reminded that he can always rely on his faithful partner.

            Managing to summon forth his floating spheres of light with what remained of his ethereal blade, Serius swapped the broken sword to his armorless arm’s hand and raised his remaining stone gauntlet to start blowing the locusts back with sonic shockwaves while his light orbs rained out explosive beams of energy. Breaking through the locusts briefly, Serius found Pestilence floating right before him, and the villain calmly said, “By now you haven’t the strength or the resources left to defeat me anymore.” Quickly Serius launched a punch as his orbs prepared to fire at Pestilence as well, but in an instant a wave of locusts washed over Serius and forced him to stumble away blindly. Shielding his eyes with his armored arm, Serius listened as Pestilence said, “You must be thinking the same thing. Unlike the others, I take little satisfaction from dragging this sort of thing out. Accept your fate and let’s bring an end to your suffering.” 

Swooping in through the storm of locusts, Pestilence kicked the broken Aer Dominus from Serius’ hand, and as the orbs of light vanished he proceeded to hack away at Serius’ armor next, forcing him to block his claws and his sword of bone with his remaining stone gauntlet. At last his gauntlet shattered, and with it gone, the remaining armor began to break apart as well, crumbling to the floor and evaporating. As the locusts relented, Serius dropped to his knees and panted, his armor only having lasted this long thanks to the final ounce of his remaining strength. Leveling the blade of his sword at Serius as he sat there panting, Pestilence said, “At some point, all things must accept their end. There truly is no such thing as ‘happily ever after’ in this world. The Old Gods, the Observers, even you of Angelorum Lux, all of you have done nothing but delay the inevitable.” 

Slowly looking up at him defiantly, Serius said, “That may be, but that is also the very reason we fight. Never surrendering until the end, we struggle to ensure the sun rises another day, always hanging on to every last precious moment of life. I am but one of many who will stand against you, and even if I die here, I know in my heart that the end you envision will not come to pass!” Calling the destroyed Aer Dominus to his hand with telekinesis, just as Pestilence raised his sword to bring it down and end his life, Serius extended his sword’s remaining blade and used it to block, summoning his light orbs again and forcing Pestilence back with their beams as he said, “We shall make our own ending!”

            Retreating as light beams rained at him, Pestilence muttered, “Fighting against the inevitable end just to make your own? It’s such a futile, senseless gesture, one that I simply cannot understand.” Pestilence disappeared into the locust swarm once more, and as Serius lost sight of him, he called his orbs back as the locusts began to spiral around him like he were within the eye of a tornado. Exhausted, unsure whether or not he could keep hold of his blade much longer, Serius thought, “I wonder though, will I live to see the end you make, Alexander, Grey?” Resting against his sword as he used it to prop himself up like a cane, Serius was beginning to lose consciousness, but as the world before him began to fade into darkness, a voice called to him, “Hey now partner, it ain’t nap time just yet!” 

His eyes having been starting to close, as Serius heard the voice, they opened once again as he looked around and quietly said, “Fox?” Chuckling, Fox’s voice replied, “You won’t find me that way. I gotta tell ya, this place ain’t what I imagined. No good drinks at all! Still, it’s not too bad, and I got to meet some interesting people. That kid of yours is a riot!” Wondering if he could just be hearing things, Serius hesitantly said, “Amanus? Fox, what are you talking about? I don’t understand, I thought you were still dead.” Fox just smugly replied, “Not much to be surprised about there partner! You should know death ain’t no match for me, and if hotshot and the rest of us are gonna pull this off, we’re gonna need you to stick around the land of the living a little bit longer! Besides, you sure as hell can’t go down after saying something so cool, right?” 

Still slightly in disbelief, Serius reluctantly smiled and stopped leaning on his sword to stand properly as he said, “You just never stop goofing around, do you?” Laughing, Fox replied, “Damn right I don’t! Now why don’t I tell you a little secret to awaken that sleeping power within your Grand Anima Weapon?” Staring at his broken Aer Dominus, Serius said, “And what would you know of such a thing?” Eagerly explaining, Fox said, “Every Grand Anima Weapon can be reforged into a more powerful form called an Anima Entia, but the catch is that you need help from someone else to unlock it. It has to be someone who has a strong connection with your heart in the links. It’s a technique that was lost way back when, known to almost none but the Seventh Spirits themselves. Alexander actually mastered one back when he fought Grave, and it just so happens I recently picked up a thing or two about it! A guy can learn all sorts of things over here in the land of the not so lively!” 

Poking a hole in this plan, Serius said, “As interesting as it sounds, there is no one here I can ask for help with such a technique.” Smugly solving the issue, Fox quickly replied, “Aww c’mon now partner, is it that hard to figure out? We may have a strange kinda friendship going here, but by fightin side by side, we’ve come a long ways! If we didn’t have a strong enough connection, I wouldn’t be talkin to you right now! Anyways, here’s whatcha gotta do…” Listening to Fox’s directions, Serius absorbed his light orbs into his blade, and then let the broken blade evaporate. A mass of EDE forming around him moments later, Serius vanished in a burst of flames.

            Hovering behind the veil of locusts around Serius, as a thin line of light like those of the links and the light of the flames shone through the swirling storm of pests, Pestilence started to say, “Fire? What is he…?” The lights dying out, suddenly the locusts parted as a destructive shockwave emanated from the eye of the insect swarm in the form of a ring of sonic vibrations that expanded outwards, and Pestilence caught a glimpse of Serius, who had spun with two Scream of Heavens from a pair of twin arm blades which were shaped like long, skinny triangles. As surprising as his new weapons were, Pestilence could also see that Serius was clad in new armor as well. Sporting a light suit of black and silver metallic armor with no helm but instead a silver circular half mask over the right side of his face with long spikes sticking out of it, the lower half of Serius’ face was covered by a black scarf. The chestplate’s front and shoulderguards were all designed with jagged triangular shapes, and protruding from his back were long ornamental wings that looked more like jagged blades studded with circular red gems. Their eyes met only for that instant as the remaining locusts sealed the gap his attack had made in their ranks, and Pestilence quickly rose into the air to avoid his sonic shockwave as it expanded across the room. 

Coming down a safe distance away from the locust storm, Pestilence ordered his locusts to close in and swarm around Serius to disorient him as he puzzled over what he’d seen, muttering to himself, “What’s going on now? Where’d he get those weapons and that suit of armor? Wasn’t the sword I destroyed his Grand Anima Weapon? He couldn’t possibly have something more powerful…” Suddenly Pestilence’s eyes went wide as one of Serius’ arm blades severed the arm holding his bloodstained bone sword from his body, and turning his head back to stare in disbelief, he saw Serius there behind him with his other arm blade raised above his head to strike.

            Dissolving into a cloud of bacteria just as Serius brought his other arm blade down on him, Pestilence escaped certain death. His body too weak to go very far in bacteria form, as he appeared in front of Serius again just outside his range, Pestilence hovered backwards cautiously as he clutched his stump of an arm and said, “What did you just do? I don’t understand! You should have nothing left by now, yet not only have you summoned a third form of Anima Weapon, but you simply disappeared and reappeared right behind me!” Surprised he had dodged, Serius didn’t seem at all concerned, and meeting Pestilence’s gaze he replied, “What you see is my Anima Entia. Vox Ensis, the Voice of Blades.” 

Raising his right hand arm blade at Pestilence, as his armor hummed with powerful vibrations, Serius continued, “Forged in Fox’s powerful flames, this armor is easier to move in, comes with two weapons bearing powers similar to those possessed by the sword that I forged it with, and its material and structure make it even more suited to generating and withstanding sonic vibrations. Not only that, but by donning this armor, my weakened ethereal essence that was drained greatly after saving Grey so long ago in Luminosa and could not be restored even by the healing flame of the Dragon Queen herself, is finally fully recovered. With my powers now restored to their original state, I can command sonic vibrations far more precisely.”

            Quickly calling all of his locusts before him as a shield just as Serius transferred all his armor’s sonic vibrations to his arm blade and unleashed them in a practical demonstration, Pestilence barely had time to escape in bacteria form as a powerful shockwave drilled through his swarm and destroyed the wall behind him. Taking solid form again, Pestilence could see Serius had disappeared again somehow, and pulling his blood covered hand from the stump of his severed arm, after sealing the wound with blood bandages he quickly held his hand out to drip blood upon the ground and began to draw multiple rune circles as he thought, “Accelerating my body’s blood cell regeneration is one thing, but I can’t keep regenerating appendages constantly! At this rate I’ll be defeated…” 

Suddenly rising from out of the ground before Pestilence like a ghost, Serius swung an arm blade upwards and severed his outstretched arm at the elbow, and as the armless villain floated back in retreat, Serius said, “With the greater level of vibration this armor can generate, I can direct enough vibrations into my own molecules that I become capable of passing through physical matter.” As the eyes on his skull shoulderguard glowed again, Pestilence activated the rune circles he’d drawn as he said, “It’s not over yet, Child of Death! I still have a trumpcard of my own…”

Watching as Pestilence summoned up legions of rats and locusts, Serius remained quite calm, merely sinking back into the stone floor as he muttered, “Useless…” Struggling to do it as fast as possible, Pestilence began growing back his arms, and out of his arms’ stumps grew skeletal arms with hands that had long sharp claws of bone. Looking around warily while his pest army gathered around him, as some of his rats carried his reclaimed bone sword to him on their backs, Pestilence took hold of it and called out, “You have to come up eventually…” Though he floated using Corrupted EDE and therefore could not feel the building vibrations, Pestilence was suddenly alerted by his rats’ squeals that the tower had begun to quake, Serius generating a powerful earthquake from within the floor. Seeing cracks suddenly starting to run through the already damaged walls and ceiling of the room as the vibrations intensified, Pestilence realized his only option. 

Commanding them to carry him quickly, Pestilence rode his locust swarm through one of the holes in the wall and escaped into the night skies just as the ceiling of the room collapsed, the rats he’d left behind crushed by the falling debris. Phasing out of the side of the collapsing Sacred Dragonshrine, Serius vibrated his armor and emitted sonic waves into the air, and he rode the waves as he flew through the air after Pestilence. Swerving through the air, as Serius unleashed the destructive shockwaves of his Scream of Heaven at him time and again, Pestilence struggled to return fire with blades of blood, bone spikes, and balls of acidic slime. Finally, Pestilence ordered away his escort of locusts, sending them to impede Serius as he tore his blood bandages from his chest and muttered, “This isn’t working! I have to regain the advantage! I may not even survive this, but like a disease, I must mutate in order to become stronger than my opposition!” Willing his blood out of his body, Pestilence formed it into a shell around him, the diseased blood hardening in the air as Pestilence began his mutation within it.

            As the locusts swarmed around Serius, he expanded a barrier of sonic waves around his body, and then projecting more sonic vibrations from his barrier into the locust filled air around it, Serius intensified the vibrations to the point where the molecules of the air were vibrating so fast that the oxygen within the air itself burst into flames from the resulting friction just as he shouted out with resounding intensity, “Sunrise Burst!” The sphere of flame that exploded around Serius’ sound barrier incinerated the swarm of locusts, and as he rose out of the aftermath and laid eyes on Pestilence’s blood shell, he swung his arm blades and unleashed his Scream of Heaven from both of them. The shell of crystallized blood shattered as it was struck by the destructive shockwaves, revealing it was full of locusts, and the moment the shell shattered, some of them retreated with a figure hidden within their ranks, the rest sacrificing themselves to the shockwaves to allow their escape. 

The figure shrouded with locusts came down with its escort to hover level with Serius in the air, and as the locusts moved out of the way, Pestilence’s mutation was revealed. What visible skin he had left, which was mostly his face and neck, was now colored a sickly green. His Niteris Vexillifer’s gauntlets reformed on his skeletal arms, he now had green, slimy looking tentacles coming out the back of his shoulders. In addition to his human legs shrouded in Corrupted EDE, he now also had eight red and gold spider-like legs tipped with sharp claws extending from his waist. Where his chest should be, a large second mouth with rows of sharp teeth now gaped hungrily, and speaking with his humanoid mouth, Pestilence held his bone sword out challengingly as he said, “Even if I am considered to be the weakest of the Four Horsemen, you’ve done well to push me this far. To mutate in the state I was in has probably sealed my fate, so prepare Child of Death, because I intend to kill you before I die…”

            His arm blades resonating with powerful sonic vibrations, Serius let fly his Scream of Heaven as he sped through the air at Pestilence, and watching his attacks close in, he was surprised as Pestilence simply held his free hand before him. Striking his outstretched hand, the sonic waves of Serius’ attacks seemed to be absorbed into Pestilence’s body, and bursting from the gaping maw in his chest, Pestilence surprised Serius again as he unleashed his sonic waves back at him as a sonic scream. Pushed back by the focused waves of the sonic scream, too surprised to redirect them with his own powers, Serius was suddenly struck by a swarm of locusts that flew out of nowhere to ram into him and carry him crashing into the floating island where the Sacred Dragonshrine now laid on its side in ruins to the south. The locusts flying off just as suddenly as they had appeared, Serius struggled up off the grass covered ground, and then he sensed the vibrations of Pestilence’s movements and jumped back as the monstrous villain came down to skewer him with his clawed spider legs. 

Pestilence’s spider legs instead stabbed into the ground and became stuck, and quickly jumping at Pestilence while he was trapped, Serius raised his arm blades to strike. Yet he was knocked away as Pestilence struck him in mid air with one of his tentacles, and as he pulled his legs free, Pestilence willed his diseased blood out of his tentacles, the stagnant fluid seeping from glands in their slimy flesh. Gathering and crystallizing, the blood became small spheres of crystallized blood that Pestilence flung at Serius like grenades. Flipping in the air and coming out on his feet after being knocked aside, Serius strafed to the side as the blood spheres came flying through the air at him, avoiding as they struck the ground and exploded into clouds of blood red acid mist. 

Raising an arm blade as he continued to avoid the acid blood bombs, just as Serius was about to release a Roar of the Earth, the locust swarm appeared to strike him from behind while he was distracted. As Serius went bouncing across the ground, Pestilence quickly scurried after him, but Serius raised his head as he came to a halt, and seeing him coming he quickly concentrated and shouted, “Roar of the Earth!” Sensing the increasing vibrations in the ground with his sensitive spider legs, Pestilence hopped to the side and continued on his way as the ground where he’d been erupted in flames, and jumping into the air he came down on Serius again with his claws.

            Rolling aside as Pestilence tried to skewer him with his front legs’ claws, Serius was knocked into a piece of rubble from the tower as Pestilence raised his second spider leg on that side and kicked him aside, and turning to Serius as he struggled up, Pestilence opened his chest’s maw and sprayed a great stream of acid slime straight at him. Finally letting up on his acid spray, Pestilence saw no remaining trace of Serius or the piece of rubble that had been behind him, but he quickly leaped back and scurried away as rounds of Serius’ Roar of the Earth began bursting out of the ground one after another. Leaping into the air to hover on his humanoid legs of Corrupted EDE again, Pestilence secretly willed his locusts to act as lookouts for him as he thought to himself, “He’s in the ground again. He’ll have to come out soon enough though. He can’t keep vibrating his molecules to maintain his intangibility forever, or else he could have just kept it active and waited for me to die on my own.” 

Suddenly glancing to the side and narrowing his eyes as his locusts spotted Serius, Pestilence muttered, “Here he comes…” Having come out below the floating island and moved at supersonic speed to get behind his foe, Serius dropped the sound barrier he’d used to protect his body from harm while traveling at such speed and readied his arm blades to mount a sneak attack on Pestilence, seeming to be negating all audible signs of his presence. Floating aside at the last second, Pestilence grabbed Serius by the leg with a tentacle and whirled him around before hurling him back to the ground with powerful force, the impact creating a crater in the ground and stirring up a cloud of dust. Dropping down through the dust to land beside Serius as he was picking himself up, Pestilence swung his bone sword with powerful force, and as Serius turned and blocked him with both arm blades, the villain merely grabbed him by the neck with his tentacles. 

Serius tried to unleash his Scream of Heaven, but the bone sword negated his powerful vibrations, and Pestilence simply scoffed at him and said, “I thought you’d realized before that I can absorb your sonic vibrations into my body now, and even if I couldn’t, you’d have my specially made bone sword to deal with as well. Now that you’re in my grasp, I’ll just absorb your vibrations if you try to escape using intangibility again.” Raising his front spider legs, Pestilence thrust them straight through Serius armor and into his gut, and as Serius stifled a cry of pain, Pestilence said, “I’m afraid this will be your end, whether you like it or not…”

The gems on Serius' bladed ornamental wings glowing brightly, as spheres of red light appeared in the air around him, Serius said, “We’ll see about that!” Raining down laser beams, the light orbs pierced a hole through the wrist of Pestilence’s sword arm and punched multiple holes in his tentacles, and unable to keep hold of his sword with the injuries to his wrist, the weapon clattered to the ground as Pestilence pulled his spider legs out of Serius’ body and scurried away from the relentless light orbs. Quickly vibrating the nerve endings around his injuries, as his ethereal body’s wounds slowly began to heal, Serius chased after Pestilence. Weaving away from the light orbs as they fired down at him, Pestilence saw Serius coming and formed acid blood bombs from the two tentacles that could still move. He hurled them into Serius’ path, but bursting through the cloud of red mist with a sound barrier around him, Serius flew at Pestilence at supersonic speed. 

Dropping the barrier as he reached the villain, Serius thrust his arm blades straight into the mouth of the great maw upon Pestilence’s chest and let momentum fly them both through the air at near supersonic speed to crash into the side of the fallen tower, impaling Pestilence in the crater they made in the white stone wall. Vibrating his armor and his weapons like never before, Serius poured all his sonic waves into Pestilence through his arm blades as he said, “You say you can absorb my sonic waves?! I wonder just how much you can withstand?!” As Pestilence called his locusts to him, Serius detected the vibrations from their wings this time and quickly called his light orbs around them, and as they linked themselves together with rays of red light, the orbs created a barrier of red light energy to keep the pests from interfering. 

Under the strain of the sonic vibrations Serius was pouring into him, Pestilence couldn’t manage to move his injured tentacles, and unable to release the waves from his impaled chest’s maw, or even separate into bacteria due to the unstable structure of his mutated body, he could only struggle to force Serius away, stabbing into Serius’ armor with his clawed legs while using his good arm to punch away at his face. Fighting the pain, Serius focused more and more sonic waves into Pestilence, and quickly the villain’s attacks began to weaken. Struggling to speak, Pestilence said, “I don’t… believe this! My mutation… I thought absorbing your sonic waves would allow me to defeat you easily…  but instead it became my weakness…” The sonic waves trapped within Pestilence’s body causing his molecules to vibrate, the power of the vibrations became so great that the molecules separated and he disintegrated into a cloud of dust.