Crystalline Chaos

by Gabriela Voelske

  After final deliberations between the leaders over exact details of the intended plan, the order was issued to march. The resulting battle cry resounded through the air, pushing the army onwards. It became obvious when they came close to the outer wall surrounding the spires that the defending Nightmares had bolstered their defences hastily. Crude extensions and stone spikes surrounded the exterior, a result of earth magic being used to manipulate the ground. As such it would be simple to undo, but it would slow them down and leave them open to any ranged attack while the mages worked.

  The mages surged forward and lined themselves up behind the initial flank, using their own magic to dismantle, obliterate, manipulate and otherwise dispose of the spiky wall. A few used the time to erect barriers around the waiting army. While magic was ineffective against the Nightmares directly in a pure form with a few exceptions, it could be used to protect against their projectile attacks. High pitched screams emerged from the inside of the wall, no doubt emanating from Banshees hidden within the complex. Due to the distance, the effect was much reduced, but they would have to be dealt with swiftly as they moved into the walls.

  As the spike wall was broken down, two massive forms leapt from the surrounding waters towards the waiting group, smashing into the army with their long, solid legs. The forms were familiar to the demons but the angels were tense; it was the same type that had held the door to Shadekeep wide open. That one hadn't been actively aggressive, however. The two now stood over them posed a risk based on their size alone; one well-placed leg could easily kill a human and badly injure one of the others.

  "Aim for bulbous sacs on its head," Kaiser shouted, grabbing onto the back of the closest one and using his weight to pin the creature to the ground. When the second saw what the demon was doing, it reared up and brought its front legs down in an attempt to crush the demon's skull or stun him, hoping to release his grip on the other one. He manoeuvred back as much as possible without letting go, but the leg still hit his head firmly. The other one narrowly missed Iomor who had been moving to take down the disabled creature. Kaiser grimaced; his head was throbbing and he could feel blood starting to run down from his forehead. It would not be enough to stop him, just enough to anger him.

  Lurching his body forward, he reached out and clamped his hand around the nearest sac on the pinned creature's head before exerting a crushing force with all the strength he could muster. The creature screamed and flailed, but its legs had already had their movement severed by the back lines of the army, leaving the front line to focus on preventing anything breaching, even if it was difficult for them to ignore what was happening behind.

  Iomor, who was rather unamused by his near squishing incident, had scaled up the aggressor's leg and glided onto the creature's head, poised ready for attack. It did not appear to be paying much heed to him; its focus was still intently on its struggling companion. Before it could launch a secondary attack, Iomor drove his blades deep into one of the fleshy sacs, causing the creature to violently jolt back, resulting in the two back legs colliding with the front line. Those hit fell forward, winded by the surprise blow, only to be quickly hoisted back up to reform the line if their injuries were minor. The blip in defence was enough motivation for the waiting creatures, however. As soon as the knocked down angels and demons had been pulled up, they bore down with flaming scythes, supported by the ferocious cutting winds provided by the garrisoned Banshees. Armour held strong against the cutting effect of the Acromantis's scythes, but the flames heated up the plating, severely burning the flesh below. What skin that was exposed was snapped at by the conjured wind, tearing open clean wounds.

  Blood dripped onto the frosty ground, a mixture of black and scarlet liquid, along with broken shards of carapace as weapons danced into the crystalline lifeline of the Nightmares. The line surged forward, aiming to turn the tide on the offensive and push the creatures back towards the spires.

  * * *

  Ciel scanned around; considering they were to be marching soon no one was overly worried, or on the other side excited. Perhaps that was the difference between the army his father maintained in the East, most of the vocal soldiers were younger and eager to prove themselves. The only thing these demons were eager about was coming back home afterwards, as they had nothing to prove about themselves.

  "Not what you were expecting?" a voice inquired from behind; the sudden interruption to his thoughts caused him to flinch. He turned around to find Amnur behind him, who was chuckling at his reaction. "Did I startle you?" Amnur teased; the demon was high spirits. It was unsurprising to Ciel. After all, this was the best attempt they had at retrieving his daughter.

  "Possibly, I had expected those here to be a bit more eager," Ciel sighed, his shoulders slumped down as he turned his back to Amnur, gazing out over the snowy bog land. Amnur smiled and patted the dejected demon on the back, coming up level with him.

  "Fighting is only a necessity, any pleasure from it has long since been lost from those who live here." The kid was naive to what those in the West had endured, but he couldn't fault him for it.

  The full population of the West was starting to become apparent to Ciel as the last preparations were made for the assault; despite only being three named settlements in the swamplands there were a fair few demons in front of him. Along with the humans, they had a formidable force, potent enough to launch their surprise attack with brutal efficiency. Crono had assumed that Sebastian and the others would march at dawn, giving them the most amount of daylight to fight in. No one wanted to be pitted against those creatures in the dark of night, more so when they would be out in the open.

  "It would be nice if we were going on a little bit more than guesswork," Amnur huffed; Ciel gazed down at him and replied with a smile, garnering a raised eyebrow.

  "We'll be fine; I trust you'll be torching anything that comes near?"

  "Now you're talking my language," Amnur laughed, stretching his arms behind his head. He did wonder if Ciel was truly that comfortable with him; he had once been close to Sebastian before the full details of his role as Court Mage became public knowledge. Then again, Amnur would be a hypocrite to judge Ciel for his own family relations, perhaps the boy in front of him was willing to look past everything he had been told. Either way, he hadn't forgotten how Ciel had first reacted when he found out who he was. Although fear is vastly different to anger, both were still negative reactions. He felt a need to explain himself, to explain why he had killed innocents, without sounding like he was creating excuses. The thought chain must have been taking a toll on his mood, Ciel appeared worried all of a sudden.

  "I need to explain something to you," Amnur spoke up with a stern tone. Ciel straightened up. The young demon was taller than his older counterpart, but he showed every intention of listening to him. Amnur accepted his silence as permission to continue, not that he had much intention of stopping. "Your grandfather was determined to have me subservient to him," he groaned. The memories were painful to recall; he had long since tried to bury them with little success. "The first time he turned up on one of my assignments and massacred the villagers I had been trying to spare, then he butchered my parents after the second incident of insubordination. After that, he decided to cut off any support I had by making my deeds known."

  Ciel wasn't sure how to react to what he was being told. He could tell from Amnur's whole posture the pain of the past events. The demon wanted to comfort him but had no idea even how to start.

  "You're strong, though, why did you never stand up to him?" he blurted out; that wasn't quite the best way to comfort him, but Amnur didn't react to what he said.

  "I did, he damn well nearly killed me," he admitted, tugging back the edge of his newly donned leather armour to reveal a raw scar leading down from his shoulder. Ciel mentally slapped himself. Of course Amnur wouldn't just sit there and take his grandfather's aggression without a fight, but it was odd that such a thing was unknown to him. His father wouldn't omit such a detail.

>   "Only Dumon knew the full details; of course he threatened to kill Dumon if he informed anyone else," Amnur remarked, seeing Ciel's confusion on the matter. It satisfied his curiosity but still left a lot of unanswered questions. He stood there unmoving for a moment, before putting a reassuring hand on Amnur's shoulder. The demon was pleasantly surprised by the move, from what Ciel could see.

  "Don't get me wrong though; hurt my daughter and you'll seriously regret it." It became obvious to him just what Amnur was implying; he knew about his feelings for Sakura, though it surprised him that he didn't outright reject the idea. He didn't know enough about their relationship, Ciel was very close to his own father but he knew that he wouldn't react well when he told him.

  After a moment of deliberation, he reacted to Amnur with a respectful bow. He had no intention of crossing the demon. It would be a rather detrimental experience on his health; he'd rather keep his skin un-burnt as well.

  “So that’s where you two lovebirds got to,” Crono spoke up, attracting their attention from each other. He was now fully dressed in armour; it was a change from the assorted cloth and fur clothing he had worn previously. However, it still mainly consisted of leather, with metal used sparingly as defence for the most vital regions of his body. Ciel had noticed the lack of metal used for armour and just generally, it was probably another difference between the two regional factions. Most of the metal for the East had been imported from the South and a long time previously, the North. Since then they had recycled what they had; only trading for more when supplies became too old and unworkable. Everything in modern times revolved around equal trade, it was a far cry from when the nations used to work together and supported one another.

  “Are you ready for this?” he enquired, casting his gaze down at Ciel. The demon was rather unarmoured due to not having taken any with him when he had departed from the East. They had managed to salvage him some leather from currently unworn and more ragged armour, but they had little to spare at the time being.

  “It would have been helpful to get Drake some armour, but something that was strong enough to injure him like that in the first place would just tear through anything you could have provided,” Ciel groaned; the wounds his friend had endured had shaken him. Something that powerful could easily kill them without much of a second thought; now was not the time for doubt, however. Their support was required; backing out now could make the difference between life and death for the Isles.

  “You mean something akin to what Kaiser is normally forced to wear,” Amnur interrupted; he had seen him wearing such a suit before. It was certainly as protective as it was impressive, but the demon hated wearing it. The reduced dexterity of his hands often made it difficult to strap on and equally as problematic to remove later, without the problem of overheating him. Larger demons such as Kaiser, Drake and Crono normally maintain higher body temperatures. When the weather is regular they can find the combined effect too warm. Someone addled by the heat hardly makes for a good combatant in battle, even if their raw strength wasn’t reduced.

  Ciel merely nodded, he knew providing such a thing would be impossible for them on short notice. The height difference between Drake and Crono was too great to attempt to quickly salvage anything, without the difference in builds.

  “He’s not willing to sit it out, so he’ll have to last with nothing,” Ciel replied, hopefully in a confined battle situation such a monstrous creature as before would be less likely to appear. When space is limited and a space has to be protected, one would prefer to have multiple, smaller units than one larger unit. Or at least he hoped he would be correct on that, their opponent didn’t appear the most logically minded when it came to battle strategy so far. Unless he really didn’t expect them to mount a proper comeback, in which case he had severely misjudged his opponents.

  “Not that I’d feel too comfortable with not having him around, either way,” he added in. He relied on that demon too much sometimes, not that it was something that Drake minded.

  “Everything’s ready now, we just need to depart,” Crono remarked, taking a deep breath. “We’re leaving those who remained behind rather thin on numbers, so we’ll need to be hasty in our fight.” It was evident he was not too keen on the idea, but swiftly dealing with the source problem would cut out the likelihood of putting the others in danger. He gestured over to the waiting crowd, there was no point dallying any longer. Amnur took a casual look over; Abel and Na-ri were easy to spot from the others, without their taller than usual height, they looked rather underdressed for the weather. He wondered how they were comfortable giving the biting cold, even with his fire-based magic he’d rather not be out in the cold any longer than he had to. The same applied to Drake, but that was more out of the inability to provide him with anything to wear.

  Ciel gave a respectful bow to both of them and walked over to join up with those that were waiting, making a point to meet up with Drake before they started marching.

  “He sure is eager,” Amnur chuckled, “not that he’s the only one.” Crono let out a silent sigh. Amnur was beyond eager, which was obvious. Considering the severity of the weather alone, he wondered how well Sakura would hold up. If she had been out in the open this whole time, the possibly of her surviving was minimal, without everything else to consider. One thing Crono knew was that Amnur would never cope with her death, but it was painful enough to force himself to remain positive, even if it was only as an appearance.

  “If you’re all that eager, then we should be off,” he replied, giving Amnur a nudge forward. The demon needed no prompting, however; he stumbled with the force before marching on, beckoning for Crono to follow. He shook his head and smiled, he couldn’t fault Amnur’s resolve at least.

  * * *

  Despite the bitter cold, the journey was uneventful; the wind had since relented, gently wafting past them as they went. It would be a relief if it were not still freezing on their faces. The one thing it did offer them was increased vision, their surroundings were now clear to the naked eye. Not one Nightmare had been spotted so far, the dark bodied creatures should stand out against the pure white snow, as much as they probably stood out right now.

  “I would take the assumption the East has already started,” Ciel puffed, his body was starting to become numb. It longed for the warmth of battle or anything that was a far cry from this.

  “That would be a logical explanation,” Amnur agreed, he was up the top of the marching line, pulling in close to Ciel. The mages had been split around the group, mostly for defensive measures. He had made the point he was going to be in lead and none wanted to question him on it. Ferdan and Lauri were around the middle, keeping up morale when Lauri wasn’t cursing Amnur under her breath. Drake was also placed around the middle, with his height allowing him to potentially see more than others and his strength for negating a flank if one should occur. Crono was at the back with Na-ri, much for the same reasoning. Abel had volunteered to also be at the forefront of the force, his knowledge of the terrain allowing him to direct them towards their target without getting lost.

  “You would rather not consider this some extravagant game,” Abel chimed in; the sigh that emitted from Amnur affirmed his statement. No one knew the true extent of that chaos mage’s mind or even his intentions. His stock of Nightmares would eventually run thin, but the locals of the Central Isles would likely be run thinner still by that point. It was generally assumed that there were far more varieties of them then they had seen so far, each potentially much more dangerous than the last. “I still query how he had the mana reserves to manage this,” he continued, “such a feat as this would require extraordinary amounts of mana.”

  “It would be a suicide attempt, regardless how this ends,” Amnur answered, blasting some of the oncoming snow with conjured flames, providing those behind with a short lived pocket of warmth. “The body cannot endure copious amounts of mana,” he clarified, but Ciel’s confused expression indicated that he did not understand.


  “You mean he would perish regardless?” Ciel spoke up; such a thing was overly hopeful, though, without those creatures potentially being even more dangerous when not controlled.

  “Excessive mana is a slow and painful death unless he overdid it and just completely overwhelmed his body,” Amnur replied. If the latter were to occur he would have expected it to happen by now. The only risk now is if he pushed himself that far when threatened; the amount of destruction he could cause would be unthinkable. “Take it from someone who knows personally, kid,” he remarked, before going quiet and allowing the subject to drop. Ciel noted how Abel didn’t question anything, accepting everything at face value, as if he knew what he meant. He wondered if Amnur had known someone who had succumbed to such a fate, or had witnessed it in some other fashion. Excessive mana would be notable visibly on the body, or so he would have thought. His knowledge on anything magical was rather lacking, something Solomon usually tried to correct. Tried was the accurate term, why he hadn’t given up on him by now was beyond him. Not that he wasn’t interested; it just made little sense to the boy.

  The impressive crystalline towers were now within sight, their conversation had made the time pass quickly and Amnur’s random spell barrage had stopped them from freezing entirely on the way over. They paused someway behind to assess the battle situation, before charging in ahead of themselves. The eastern side appeared far less snow covered, a fact which irked those who had been putting up with eternal snow drifts, but it did allow for a clearer view of the situation. A spread of black dots covered one-half of the Isthmus, whether they were Nightmares or demons they were certainly numerous. Brief glimmers of light emerged from between the mass, potentially from the sun striking the armour of combatants, but also that of magic. From here the internal ring that surrounded the towers appeared unbreached, or only been freshly done so. It appears they had arrived in perfect time and unannounced to their opponent.