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Fate of the Beloved Scattered around the floor were shards of dark glass. Vincent Zeng, currently human, stood in the narrow upper floor hallway of his house. On the other side, two Ragnarok soldiers were holding Alice Zeng. Two other soldiers stood near her carrying rifles. Motarius, in between Vince and the other Ragnaroks, dashed forward, his silver sword ready to attack. Vince let the flames swallow him, and the Dark Fiend of Fire emerged. He held out his hand to shoot a fireball, but then hesitated. "No," he thought. "I might hit Alice." Motarius reached Vince, but instead of slicing him, he smacked him with the hilt of the sword, sending Vince through the wall and into Alice's room. Motarius dove through the hole, following him. The Ragnaroks walked up to watch the battle through the hole, dragging Alice with them. "Pathetic!" Motarius laughed arrogantly. "Don't worry. You don't have to fight me if you don't want to. If you surrender yourself peacefully, your sister will be set free." "Then, what?" Vince asked bitterly, climbing to his feet. "You're going to study me, and when you're done, kill me?" "Consider the alternative," Motarius replied thoughtfully. "Once you are either captured or dead, you're sister will be free. Until then, she's our hostage." "And you Alliatus think you're so self-righteous," Vince shouted. "You're nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites." "Not hypocrites," Motarius replied stoically. "It is better to let one innocent die than to let the Dark Fiends kill millions." "You bastard!" Vince screamed in rage. "So, what will it be?" Motarius asked. At that moment, Alice desperately shouted out, "Vince! Run away and forget about me! It's not worth it! Just run away!" "No," Vince yelled. "I'm not running away." He looked up toward Motarius with angry eyes, "If my destiny is to die, I'm going to kill you first!" As Vince charged in, Motarius sadistically shouted back, "Then, I'll kill you!" Vince threw his flaming fist toward the Mystic, but Motarius blocked with his sword, then replied with an upward swing. Vince hopped back, but the tip of the sword struck his torso. As Vince was knocked up into the air, Motarius jumped up and gave a downward swing onto him. In reaction, Vince caught the sword, then kicked off it to roll to the side, dodging the attack. The sword, instead, hit the floor, splintering the wood and tearing the carpet. Almost instantaneously, the floor collapsed. Vince and Motarius dropped to the kitchen in the first floor. Motarius landed on his feet. Vince landed on his back. Quickly, Vince rolled up from the floor as Motarius plunged his sword down. As he pulled his sword back out, the wooden floor splintered. Vince threw fireballs at Motarius, but he simply held out his left hand and formed an unpierceable shield of light. Vince threw more fireballs, but purposely missed Motarius. Instead, they hit the stove behind the Mystic, blowing them up. However, Motarius used the force of the explosion propel himself toward Vince. He slashed, but Vince ducked and rolled out of the way so that he slashed the refrigerator open instead. Vegetables, meat, and beverages came spilling out. While Motarius was distracted by the edibles, Vince quickly put his hands together to fire a blaze, but before he could, his arms were pulled back by threads. Yellow threads wrapped around his major limbs and his body, tying him to invisible points in the air. Wherever the threads touched his hide, Vince felt a burning sensation. With holy energy, the Angelhair Snare slowly dissolved his body and ate away his lifeforce. Vince tugged and struggled to escape, but the strands were strong. To worsen the damage, Motarius, his clothes stained with orange juice, repeated fired bolts of holy energy at Vince. With each bolt, a wound was left in his body and Vince groaned in pain. Then, Motarius charged in with his sword. Finally, after tugging incessantly, Vince's arms came free. He leaned to the side to dodge Motarius's lunge. Then, he punched Motarius's face with his flaming right hand while he grabbed the silver sword with his left. Quickly, while Motarius was still stunned by the punch, Vince cut the strands away and hopped to the other side of the kitchen. Motarius regained his composure, but Vince had gained the sword. Yet, Motarius did not look at all worried. In fact, a smile had crawled onto his face. Vince stood there, carrying the sword, confused. Suddenly, the sword glowed bright blue. It's shaped change, and suddenly, it was no longer a sword, but a woman. She was a very beautiful woman, her blue eyes delicate, her blond hair reaching down to her waist. On her body, she wore a pale blue dress of silk to compliment her own grand appearance. Yet, she wasn't one of those timid little damsels in distress. With a few swift punches, she broke free from Vince's grasp. Vince tried to put up his arms in defense, but the blur of blue sleeves and blue shoes pummeled him against the broken fridge. Finally, Vince let off a shockwave of flame, but by then, the woman had already hopped to the other side of the room, into Motarius's arms. The Mystic and the woman kissed passionately. Then, the woman changed shape again, becoming the silver sword in Motarius's hand once again. "What the-- who the hell was that?" Vince asked confusedly. "Ophelia," Motarius replied, lifting the sword so that Vince could once again see the faint engraving of the name "OPHELIA" on the hilt of the sword. Motarius looked down toward his sword while he spoke, "My beloved Ophelia. Her soul inhabits this sword, and every once in a while, she can become human again for a limited time." He raised his head to face Vince and continued, "Fourteen years ago, shortly after I finished high school, I became a Priest at a nearby Alliatus temple. I met her there, Ophelia, my beloved. She worked as a Priestess there, working side by side with me a lot. We saw each other a lot, and I started talking to her on a regular basis. We grew close. Within a year, we had fallen in love. We were virtually inseparable. Soon, the other guys starting pushing me to propose to her, but I was afraid, afraid of pushing her too hard and too fast, afraid of marriage, for I was so young back then. "Eleven years ago, I finally proposed, and we were engaged. However, shortly afterward, our temple was raided by the Shadows. We fended off most of them, but one man, a powerful Dark Mage, made it into the Inner Sanctum. I fought him with all my strength, with all my magic, with all my valor, but he was much too powerful. Before I knew it, I had fallen, heavily wounded, on the floor. The Dark Mage prepared the final spell to finish me off. At that moment, Ophelia threw herself in front of me and took the hit, sacrificing herself to save me. As she fell, I frantically grabbed a fragment of silver that had crumbled from the walls during our battle and guided her soul into it, in hopes that I could preserve her. Somehow, I made it out of there alive. I think the other guys came in and rescued me before the Dark Mage could finish me off, but after that, the temple was completely annihilated. "You, Dark Fiend, can barely begin to understand how distraught I was from losing the love of my life. I took the silver fragment that housed her soul and forged it into this sword you see in my hands. This sword gives me the strength I need to fight. Our love, the love between Ophelia and me, symbolized by this sword, gives me more strength than any Holy Ritual. With this sword, I became a better fighter than most Paladins and a better mage than most Priests. I became what the Alliatus High Council would have considered the ultimate Mystic. "With my newfound strength, I began hunting down the Shadows and killing them off one by one. I founded the first order of militant Alliatus, whose single goal was to eliminate the Shadow Religion from the face of the planet. You see, Shadows are destructive by nature. Not only do they try to topple the current order of the world, but in the process, they bring great pain and suffering to innocent people. I would know from my own memories. That is why I must kill all the Shadows, not because they worship Skias, not because they want to restore Chaos to the world, but because they massacre people, they tear families apart. Many have lost a loved one to the Shadow, and I will make sure that doesn't happen any more. "You see, that is why I am so militant, and that is why I must especially destroy you, Dark Fiend!" The last two words, "Dark Fiends", were spoken with a bitter emphasis. Finishing his story, Motarius held out his hand to summon the Angelhair Snare. The yellow strands came out of the skies again and bound Vince. "Do you surrender yet, Dark Fiend?" Motarius asked bitterly. Vince faintly heard his sister cry out his name, but he simply said, "No, I will never surrender." "Then, die!" Motarius shouted. The enraged Mystic charged in with his sword, ready to slash Vince in half. "Is this the end?" Vince thought with sorrow. "Have I--have I failed already?" "Vince! No!" Alice screamed. "No, don't die!" "I can't die now," Vince thought. "No, I have too much to live for: my friends, my family, Alice, Tina, and most of all, Stephanie." Then, he said aloud, "I will not die, Motarius!" In the next instant, his whole body was burning. His arms were free, and they were up in air, grasping the blade of the silver sword between his palms. Motarius grunted as he tried to pull the sword away from Vince's grasp, but they wouldn't budge. Motarius seemed to give up, but then his hands began glowing with bright white light. The silver sword began to glow a bright blue, and they burned in Vince's hands. Motarius pulled back, pulling the sword from Vince's grip. He then charged back in again to attack. The sword swung, leaving a trail of blue light behind it. Then, the yellow strands around Vince's legs finally burned away, and he sprung upward as Motarius shot past below him. As Motarius, a blue swirl of swinging swords, tore down an entire wall, Vince, a flaming mass, tore through the ceiling. A large portion of the house's architecture collapsed. The four Ragnaroks standing on the second floor fell through and crash-landed on the ground. Alice, on the other hand, was caught by Vince, who let the flames subside to avoid accidentally frying her. Vince fell to the ground, holding Alice and keeping her safe. Landing on his feet, he made a dash for the front door. One of the Ragnaroks climbed to his feet and began firing at Vince. Vince did his best to avoid the bullets, but one hit him in the leg. Another hit Alice in her left shoulder. She screamed, but Vince didn't have time to stop. As he crashed through the front door, he shouted back toward Motarius, "I rescued my sister and still escaped alive! Looks like you lose, Motarius!" As Vincent ran down the street, one of the outer walls of his home came crumbling down. Motarius stood there, sword in hand. "I wouldn't be so confident," Motarius replied, stoic again. "Go check on your friend Stephanie, and you'll see who the winner is." Vincent paused and turned back to watch as Thalloric Motarius retreated with the other four Ragnarok soldiers. Alice climbed down from Vince's arms. They stood there, staring at their mortally wounded home. After a few moments, Vince looked to Alice and asked, "You got hit. Is your shoulder all right?" "I'll be all right," Alice replied. "I think we should check on Tina and Stephanie." Vince looked to her. "I think they're in trouble," Alice explained. Vince just replied with a nod, and the brother and sister ran off. The Chen residence had been even more badly damaged than the Zeng residence. Entire walls had been blown out. The roof had collapsed. All the windows had been broken. The door had been shattered into pieces. Vince, human now, and Alice ran in through one of the holes. There definitely had been a struggle going on in there. He saw slash marks and bullet holes all over the walls and floors. In addition, some portions of the wall were coated with ice. Ice fragments littered the floor in this room. Vince and Alice walked up the damaged stairs and into Stephanie's room, but she was no longer in there. On the floor by her bed lay a pair of broken glasses and a blue ribbon. "Vince?" It was Tina. She staggered in through a hole in the wall. "Vince, they came. Guys in gray suits and this one guy who had this robot ninja. They came in and tried to take away Sister. The white lady turned into a Dark Fiend and tried to protect us, but then they took her, too." Tina collapsed into Vincent's arms, crying. "Vince, they say that if you want Sister to be safe, you need to surrender and turn yourself in. I want Sister to be safe, but I don't want to lose you either, Vince. But you have to go get Sister back! You have to!" Vince comforted the crying girl. Hugging her, he said, "Don't worry, Tina. I'll get Steph back, and I'll come back, too. Both of us are going to be safe. I promise." "Tina!" a woman's voice cried. "Who are you talking to?" "It's Vince, mom," Tina shouted back. Tina's mother and father came in through another hole in the wall. Mr. Chen yelled, "You! Vincent! This is all your fault! They came here to take away Stephanie just to get to you! Because of you, our house is destroyed and we might never see Stephanie again." He walked up to Vince and tugged Tina away, smacking Vince hard in the process. "No, wait, please," Tina pleaded. "Vincent's a good guy! He didn't mean for this to happen. He wants to go rescue Stephanie from those guys. Please!" "Tina," Mrs. Chen said. "Vincent is a bad person. All of the Dark Fiends are." She glared at Vince. "Those guys who came, they were the good guys, but sometimes the bad guys do bad things and things get taken away." "There's a war going on between Alliatus and the Shadow," Mr. Chen said. "I don't want to get caught in the middle again, so we're moving away--far, far away, as far away from Vincent as we can." He glared back toward Vince. "Don't even think about following." Tina's parents walked up to their badly scratched car and stuffed Tina in. As they drove off, Tina cried back, shouting, "Vince! Vince!" Tears flowed down her face like water down a mountain. After the three Chens had driven away, Vince turned around and kicked a wall in anger, breaking yet another hole. "Damn it!" he shouted, letting loose his rage. "Vince?" Alice asked. "Those god damn mother-fucking Ragnaroks!" Vince yelled with rage. Then, with quiet bitterness, he continued, "I'm going to go rescue Stephanie, and while I'm at it--" His next words were said with a deliberate slowness and bitterness. "--I'm going to kill Motarius!" "Robert!" Vince shouted quietly, perched on top of the Ginns residence. Robert Ginns, Vince's half-Asian friend, opened a window below him, then looked up and saw Vince. "I'll meet you on the front lawn in a minute," he said. Then, he closed the window and disappeared. Vince hopped back down to the ground, where Alice, holding her left shoulder, waited for him in the front yard. After several seconds, the front door opened and Robert popped out. "Sorry to keep you waiting," Robert said apologetically. "No, you were pretty fast," Vince said. "Anyways, if you haven't heard, the Ragnaroks pretty much wrecked my house and Stephanie's, and Stephanie's been captured, and Tina's parents took Tina and moved really far away." "Ouch!" Robert replied. "I need you to do something for me," Vince said. "I'm going to go rescue Stephanie tonight, but it's too risky to bring along Alice. Ragnarok might come for her, too, so I'm going to leave Alice here. Protect her for me, all right?" "Sure, no problem," Robert replied. "That's what friends are for." "Also, if the Ragnaroks do come," Vince continued instructively, "take Alice to your car and just drive away. Keep her safe for me, all right?" "No problem," Robert replied. "I'll take care of her for you." "Thanks, Rob," Vince said as he slowly walked away. "Good luck rescuing Steph!" Alice shouted back while waving right arm. "Good luck!" Robert added with his own wave. Vince waved back and disappeared into the street. |