(Resumed) Solstice

[Em]

My vision blurred: my eyes refused to see the familiar woman before me, images of the soulless Aegis flashing in place of the image of Barbara Anneford in front of me.

But as vile and talented as Aegis was, he could never in a million years copy her voice.

"W-why...." It was all I could do not to empty my stomach onto the dirt.

My traitor of an ex-friend splayed her hands out front and smiled. "Crazy world, Emmett. Turns out not everything is in black and white."

Æther surged out of me as water breaching a dam. "There's nothing multilayered about joining the Emissaries, Barb!! Listen to yourself!"

She whistled in defiance of my protests. "Damn, kid, you've grown a lot."

"I'm not a kid, and you've lost any right to call me that after this!" I snapped my right hand out to pour my energy into it and chambered it into a punch. "My friends, the first I've ever truly met, they're in an ambush, and they're all going to die because you tore me away from them!"

Hol-.. -hy Wra... 

"Time out-"

"NO!" I tensed my lower and upper arms, azure sparks flying within and without. "I knew you were too good to be true..." 

How could I have been so naïve? After Aegis, no one even visited Charade Gin unless accompanied by someone who lived there. And Barbara just conveniently found this locale?

Or was I once again a coward who refused to see the truth? After all, Barbara never showed any of her Magick when she lived with us, and wearing the Emissaries' robes implied she was a Magus.

The answer was clear from the start. "I'm going to correct the cowardice of my past."

A slow breath left Barbara's lips. "And how, sweet Em, do you intend that?"

By doing now what I could not then. By filling my lungs, I quieted my anger, or, rather, I condensed it.

Barbara, like every other Magus in existence, exceeded me in skill. I couldn't fight such an opponent. Patrick, Ansel, Samael, Ser Linn, Jacqueline... Well, maybe not Jacqueline, but all of them were powerful fighters wielding Magick with ease. However, even if I drew inspiration from them, I could not hope to fathom even a fraction of their ability.

But I had to win; it didn't matter that fighting was impossible. I had to win.

"If I hear you lied to me, though, you're dead in your sleep." Grace's words from The Dying Canary echoed in my head to give me my answer.

If I must win and cannot fight, then I must muster the resolve to kill.

I willed cold vengeance into my arm, reimagining Grace's threatening timbre in my ears. I recreated the fear, shock, dread, bravery, courage, and resolve in her voice then to fill myself with that same drive now. I opened my mouth to chant. "Graceful..."

One strike, one effort to pierce through and cut down the enemy. Sharpen the blade into a point. Fists are too broad. Open the fist. A straight poke can deliver the sharp edge needed for finality. Permit the Æther to frost, solid as the ice that cools your drink, and above all, ignore the demonic rambling in your mind about how it might not be the right thing to kill an advocate of mass genocide in self-defence, let alone defence of others.

My left foot advanced one step, my eyes focused into a scowl, my mind filled with the pain and stench and hate of the trauma and decay and rage. I spoke but one word more.

"...LANCET!"

I twisted my hip and thrust forth my opened palm with malice. An opaque, rigid, sharp, pointed, azure talon thrust out. Before my next thought could form, it would impale itself into Barbara and skewer her heart. Guilt rushed through me even though I'd taken the correct action.

The next thought entered my mind. I felt my needle stop dead against an even harder wall. A crack reverberated in my head.

I slowly opened my eyes and saw my deadly thorn of Æther caught against her soil-skinned hand.

She wasn't even bleeding: in a show of utter superiority, she had chosen to take my killing stroke head-on and blocked - not parried - it dead in its tracks.

My Spell sublimated away that instant. My fingers jittered, as well as the rest of me.

A frown wrinkled on Barbara's face, her eyes losing half their glimmer of light. "You strike to kill with such pitiful resolve? Hmph. You really are a failure of a man."

"I'll show you resolve!!" Magick rushed from every pore of my body, blazing in rage. "SAPPHIC! GUARDIANESS!"

I called the passion in my heart, and it answered. The Æthereal Lady Of War bloomed from my bosom, drawing forth her twin swords.

I levelled my gaze toward Barbara, who was in a far more interested-looking stance by now. "VIPER OFFENSIVE!"

The Womanly Image I conjured flowed into the Sabres, sparking them alive and stoking their brilliant shine. My arms pulled back, forcing my shoulder blades against each other like a bow under full draw.

I loosed the tension in my hands at the apex of the strain, and both swords flew at once to their target, detonating violently on impact.

Viper Offensive is an all-or-nothing attacking manoeuvre pouring all of Sapphic Guardianess' energy into one focused attack. An obvious problem appears when dealing with multiple opponents or even a clever enemy like Barbara, against whom I should use Sidewinder and sequentially deploy the two Swords with variable strengths.

However, I was not thinking clearly, and the blowback threw me well afar, coughing up a small amount of blood for my trouble. Thank goodness it was mild.

I took three swift breaths in rapid succession before routing what remained of my Æther into Strengthening my body throughout.

Then, I charged. I had hoped that the Guardianess would have sufficed, but I knew in my heart that it would not. Nonetheless, I had figured that it would at least fatigue her a little, seeing as it was my ultimate last resort, or "Trump Card", as Selene had put it when she helped me with its- no, Her, design.

A punch to my gut sent me well away from her and dashed my hopes. The unscratched Emissary of Total Salvation stepping out from behind the dust disproved them completely.

[Emmett]

"Damn, Em! I'm impressed!"

I kicked off into another charge, focusing my will on my legs to deliver me there and my fist to crack her skull. "Don't patronise me!!" No way in Hells did she legitimately think I was impressive.

An uppercut vaulted me into the sky. Lightning smote me back down. "Compared to the weakling you were in Charade, this is legendary! But it's not enough!"

Of course, it wasn't enough! Nothing ever would be! I pulled my right leg back, compacting my Æther into a sphere centred on the insole.

Killing didn't work, and neither did Strength. Determination, then.

I opened my mouth to chant the name of this also-stolen Spell, but-

"Some Magi will use self-harm to artificially strengthen their Magick." This time, the voice was Ansel's, and if this Spell didn't do something...

"I do not ever want to see you go that route." ...I would have to resort to something like running Lightning through myself.

Shame welled in my eyes. I could not put a name to the Spell I so clearly plagiarised from Ansel when he put so much care into me.

Instead, I threw the kick with a fraction of a heart, an oblong spheroid arcing toward the insurmountable bitch before me.

Barbara stood still and let the failed attack dissipate against her robe. "To think Chairman Aegis sought to bring you into our fold..."

Oh, so she was going to force me to betray everyone I'd ever loved?! I swung my hand hard against my chest, right atop my heart. 

"But you're weak, Emmett."

I hissed and directed Æther into my inward-facing palm. Barbara's right. I am weak. I don't even have an Element. If Aegis brought me into the Emissaries, it would be trivial for him to dominate me with Mind Magick.

"You are nowhere near the kind of man Chairman Aegis deserves within his vicinity!"

I poured all my hatred, cowardice, fear, arrogance, and childishness into the Spell bubbling atop my heart. She was going to abduct me, to turn me into a mass murderer just like her. I couldn't accept that. I would sooner die than hurt the people I loved again.

And with no chance of escape, the only ethical move in this situation was to kill myself. At least then, I could never turn evil.

"So out of truest loyalty, I swore on my Magick that I would kill this sorry mockery of men."

Checkmate, Barbara. A victorious grin flashed. Barbara had sworn, on her very Magick, that she would kill me! If she were to fail, then she would lose her Spellcasting forever! And if Emmett killed Emmett, that meant Barbara didn't.

And if Barbara couldn't use her Spells, the late Emmett took an Emissary down with him.

I coerced the baleful Spell I'd aimed at myself into crackling Lightning, bellowing a defiant shout and willing myself torn aside. I relaxed, welcoming the victorious embrace of death.

Sharp pain and death did not come.

Instead, my hand pulled away from my chest right before the suicide bolt came to fruition. Because of this, the new target became Barbara Anneford, and she yelped, having taken a hit straight to the face.

A hit that she redirected.

[Em]

Something in my heart stirred.

Even after Barbara betrayed us, even after she separated me from my friends who needed me, even after reminding me just how little of a man I would be for the rest of my life, hearing her pained cry plunged a knife in me.

Barbara The Traitor threw her head back to her forward glare. "Really? Cowardice?"

I blinked.

"Men are supposed to be brave."

That word. Men. It burned, scathed, even.

I could not abide it. "I... am no man."

The moment I uttered that sentence was the moment a wall of Æther crashed into me; I flew a considerable distance away. "Well, you certainly fucking act like one!" shouted its caster.

I grunted and threw a directed bolt of Magick with a straight punch in the style of Patrick's meat-and-vegetable technique.

It bounced back and swept me off my feet.

It was all I could do to shunt my will to my spine and protect it against the azure stalagmite erupting below.

I kicked my foot high and slung an azure crescent outward.

A hand seized and swung me by it far away into another tree.

The pattern continued. I would recover and attempt an attack, and Barbara would trivially retort. A punch met a curved shot. A ranged attack fell to melee. Melee fell to Lightning. No matter what I did, Barbara would counter with a superior version, as proven when I would attempt what she performed and she'd oppose that too, sometimes with something novel and sometimes with the same move that failed when I'd used it.

At any point, she could have killed me. Someone with as much raw power as she did had to have an Element if not an Aspect.

Then, why?

To take me to Aegis.

But she said she would sooner kill such a man, which was to say, kill me, to the point where she would Swear against her Magick.

Was she lying?

Possibly. Definitely.

But something in me cried that she didn't. And that part of me would not let go, refused to let go. I tried to force it away, but it stuck.

I didn't have enough willpower to force the thought away. To think I ever could fight against such power as Barbara.

Such delusion of Wer do not thee befit-

My body lifted into the air again.

Delusion? Wer? I was quickly losing vision from how badly I was being beaten. I didn't have time to answer the sighing voice I was hallucinating.

As a new concussive burst of Magick knocked my skull aside, the voice of my closest friend and mentor sang amid the ringing of my ears: You don't push your Magick out.

My body relaxed at once. I was soaring again, limp as a leaf in the wind.

You open your doors-

I felt myself dive to the ground. My hands clasped the soil below, Magick flowing freely through and around it.

A comet of Æther thrummed from behind.

My hands pushed with preternatural strength and precision, my body swimming through the air above to clear the attack. One song-beat later my toes kissed the ground.

I turned to face Barbara, a shining blue filling the lids holding my eyes shut.

Her laugh met my ears. "Finally ready to fight, Em?"

I pushed more Æther into my Shroud-

Wrong.

What?

You are deferring to your Spirit, your subconscious Astral self, appealing to your hidden wisdom to shape its energy how it wishes. 

However, keep in mind at all times that Prayer is fundamentally a request-

Then what does my subconscious Astral or whatever want?!

The Aura around Barbara cried in pain-piercing thought. I relaxed my facial expression, focusing my hearing upon it. I was expecting disappointment, anger, contempt, anything that would move Barbara to take the actions she did, to hurt me the way that she had.

None of it. I had found sorrow, misery, resignation to fate, regret, betrayal, captivity, and the longing to die-

Power rushed from and through me. I opened my eyes and faced my friend trapped in captivity under the guise of freedom.

She widened her stance and froze all emotion from her face. "So we fight in earnest."

"Who did this to you." Not one trace of emotion coloured my voice. Contrary to what one might expect, it did not feel cold to me, though it certainly sounded as such. No, my voice felt hard and relentless, solid as the steel that shapes a shield.

"Em." Barbara went for that sympathetic dip in her tone. "Hon, it's like I said, I joined the Emissaries of my own volition. Again, it's not black and white."

"Perish the lies, Barb." My mind and heart harmonised in that instant. "I know you. You're kind, cheerful, protective. You're the sole woman in Charade Gin who so much as gave me a chance after we were struck off the map. You brought renewed life and vigour to Charade, and now you seek to join the man who decimated us?!" My left hand raised, and a thin smallsword not unlike the Sabres the Guardianess wielded, emerged from my Shroud to fit it. "I say again. Who. Did this. To you."

Barbara spat a glob of saliva onto the dirt by her foot. "Does it matter? We do not fear such spineless men as you."

I closed my eyes. "Let me clarify something."

A chuckle. "Alright, shoot."

Show thou her thy Truest Self.

"I am no man."

[Emmalynn]

I opened my eyes. My body filled with a deep power. "My name is Emmalynn Sinclair."

At the fall of that final syllable, the Æther enshrouding me compressed and then roared into a beautiful silver shine.

Barbara lowered her arms and tilted her head as if perplexed.

"I am the daughter of the late Sophia and Arthur Sinclair."

I felt a pull from my heart, and my bones creaked just a hair. 

I heard a foreign tongue reminding me to hold my focus, and I did, pushing aside the obvious question of how I could endure what had to be Ætheric expenditure tens if not hundreds of times the cost to conjure Sapphic Guardianess.

Whatever: I was not about to knock an honest gift now.

"My parents were lost to the Emissaries of Total Salvation when I was but thirteen years of age. It was the worst day of my life, and my lifelong friendship with Patrick Peterson was also burned to a crisp."

Barbara moved to speak, but I raised my blade, cutting her off with the change to a double-handed grip. "You, Barbara Anneford, are my friend, forced into a horrid position by these very same Etsies, who then hold you captive with their reputation."

I stepped forward and bent my knees about a fourth of the way. "No more."

Barbara's eyes started to widen.

"I will not stand idle and let you be chained down. I will sunder those chains, and when the masses strike for your head, I will fend them off. You may have sins for which you must atone, but you will have that moment, that space of time."

Her body shivered slightly.

"And when you are safe, I will set forth and bring an end to the Emissaries of Total Salvation myself. I will rectify as a woman my unforgivable cowardice as a man!"

"Em, do you even-"

"I do this because I refuse to be a waste of space. I want to atone for my sins, for leading Bryce Peterson to his death and for my insolence toward Jacqueline, Patrick, you, and everyone else."

Another crack in my mind.

"This sword will not harm a single hair on your flesh, yet it shall unmake whatever coercion they placed on you."

I tensed my muscles. It would be a single leap and a cut, and that hideous robe would be gone forever.

Barbara's voice stammered. "Emma, you can't!"

"I can and I will. Sollun, no, Taikur entire, will know peace once more. Thank you, Barbara, for everything. Now, let me be useful for once."

A third crack.

I breathed in and exhaled with total deliberation.

"Low Tide."

I stepped and glided forward, swinging my sword down on and through Barbara. True to word, the blade passed through Barbara herself harmlessly, but the Emissaries' Robe upon her blazed into nothing.

My silvery Æther faded away, and I looked up to a surprisingly naked older woman whose skin contrasted starkly against my own.

Barbara's eyes warbled in tune with a smile on an awestruck body. "I... I told you you'd prove them wrong."

I smiled back and nodded. "You.. sure did..."

Barbara's arms roped me in embrace the moment my legs started to give out. "Heavens and Havens, Em! What happened to you?!"

I did not respond. I was too busy trying to stay in the hug.