I hope I got here fast enough. The stars showed me where this Great Evil has been brought. I can feel it just beyond this stone door. It's not dark... it's wrong. Unnatural terror. My body shudders, a chill more cold than space traces my spine as my paw touches the door.
This… this evil… should be confronted by the gods, not us. One guardian alone is not enough, but there is no time to wait.
The stone groans and rumbles as it gives way to my paw. That smell... the smell of blood, tears, and decayed ether. This act. Disgusting. Bodies and soul orbs everywhere.
Carefully girding the loins of my war dress as my bare feet-paws step through the threshold. Walking into the cursed complex, I force myself to step over each of their corpses. I might be too late.
"Lady Hokulani, Guardian of Light, Bitch of the Heaven Fields." Malencia derides. "How pleasant of you to join us."
"That's Wylfen. The only bitch here is you." My snarl bears fangs.
Turning toward her sulfurous giggles; she stands upon a stone mezzanine, with Eris itself carved as stairs leading up. A larger stone; a bloody altar.
"Wow you are so rude. Here I was introducing you to my little friend!" She smiles as she looks down on me.
"Friend?" I look to where she gestures.
The person looks like a young 20th century Earth human man in formal wear. I think the human saying is tall, dark, and handsome? His wavy hair is like the chaotic rolling tides. I cannot tell what color his eyes are, they could be any color, all the colors, and none of them at the same time.
The evil chill, all this strange energy, is coming from his eyes. Not Malencia’s presence. That is not a real human.
The evil in human flesh has been ignoring Malencia and I this entire time as it examines some sort of faerie creature in Its hands.
Illuminating myself slightly, the little creature has cold pale blue skin and hair the color of the absence of light. Wings of a raven, the false human is examining the childling’s teeth and talons. No.
“Put the childling down.” My shouting radiance startles the poor baby awake. I take a stance while bearing my fangs.
“Let me go!” The childling cries out in Dimperial Umbrial language. “Let me go!” Again but in Umbrial common tongue. The little one starts trying to bite and slash their captor.
The fur on the back of my neck stands up; not in cowardice, but in facing these fears. Repeating myself in umbrial common, as Koriath taught me when we were children. “Put the childling down. Now.”
Malencia begins laughing, the one wearing human flesh shifts Its eyes to me. Both of them are smirking beyond fiendishly, yet so subtly.
The little one, the childling, looks at me, her eyes wide with fear. Corvapian pupils have a thin crescent shape, hers are like a gibbous moon. Her. I know her. I know the gravity of those ruby eyes. I… I… even held her… once. Kurai is her name.
As I look into those eyes, a memory surges into my mind.
One time, all six of us elemental guardians were gathered to seal away an entity that was eating through multiverses. Koriath arrived into battle as usual with the twins strapped to him in baby slings because it was not safe to leave them at home, even with guards and caretakers.
After the fight, he had to recover in order to fly through the voids of space safely with them. We decided to wait with him, though he fought us at first. The conversation it took to assure him that the three of them were safe with the other five elemental guardians… I can never forget the fear in my friend’s eyes.
He did ease up though, Maema, Baltin, and I got to hold Kurai. Koriath told us that Phantisma could not be held by someone other than himself, Devadas, or Adumbra without fading away. Maema made the girls toys out of asteroid rock. That was the first time in ages that the six of us were able to freely conversate and rest in each other’s company.
Koriath even played with Phantisma, I think for the first and only time. After what happened to his son, play is still something he is working on healing. I remember a squirming Kurai unraveling her swaddling in my arms and I didn’t know what to do. Koriath chuckled with amusement as I handed her back to him. I had not heard the serenity of his laughter for a long time. I thought that part of him was dead. I thought she killed it. Yet underneath all the healing, friendship, and love, he still had fear and unease within.
The boy who flew beside me in astral space, the man I grew alongside with, the friend I could always count on in and out of battle, was still alive. He was just hiding and frightened.
I once saw Kurai and Phantisma as my greatest failure, from that dawn I failed to protect him. Yet, Koriath didn’t and still doesn’t see them that way. And ever since Kurai was in my arms, I never saw them that way again.
In a splintered second that memory releases.
Now, my anger toward Malencia… for what she has done to my dearest friend and their family… Injustice that cannot be ignored, and in this cursed place, must be confronted. Stepping now with righteous rage in my heart and tears in my golden eyes, as my tongue speaks in Corvapian Old Caw. “I said let Princess Karasu Kurai go, or face the divine wrath of a Shielder of Elysian.”
Malecia’s face is now painted with vex. “How does a bitch like you know how to bark in that language?”
“I do not bark. I howl.” Fingers flexing as I summon starlight to my right paw.
The entity in human flesh puts Kurai down, but steps on her hair as she tries to crawl away. Turning his- no -It’s. Surely It’s. Those eyes- Slowly turning It’s head, there is no word for how It looks at me with those eyes.
Malencia slowly descends toward me. Every methodical step of her heels echoes, like a singing bowl straight out of the most malevolent of hell worlds.
Continuing to gather light to my forearm, then suddenly it stops. Gasping. As if her proximity has severed my connection to a warrior’s heaven. My heart pounds like a war drum against encroaching dread. My mind’s eye sees her not as a corvapian but something else entirely. Pink Crimson. Void. Dark Tendrils. Black feathers with a sheen beyond all colors of light or faith.
The evil thing drags Kurai back to Itself using It’s shoe.
Malencia’s giggle crescendos into a cawing chortle as she haunts toward my flank. Feeling malevolence encircle me. This wolf is no terror bird’s prey.
Shieldless, my bare fisted strike.
She steps aside with sulfurous smoke.
Anticipating her movement, striking there. Feeling only a frozen black mist, illuminating it into nothingness. My vision clouds as her laughter surrounds me. I take the fight with eyes shut. Several exchanges of blocks, dodges, and blows left to defend using senses other than sight. My retaliation is based on vibration.
Hearing Kurai cry opens my eyes with a radiant beam toward the human looking one as It tries to pick her up. My sight regains with the photonic purification of cause.
The Evil one then sends me a sharp look into my soul.
I’ve become It’s new target.
It steps toward me as Malencia appears behind me. Kurai rolls into the fetal position and cries.
As It descends the stairs, still staring into my being, it speaks with a voice sweetly, taunting, truly false. "Sweet little radiation. Adorable hero. You love so much. That new light god, Haelius, he calls them pests, but you protect these Umbrials? You see the good in all."
“Good is subjective and can be found anywhere. It is the divine spirit that I see in others.”
Malencia’s shadow casts from behind me, the feathers in her wings misshapen into energetic tentacles. As I turn to face her, she stands with abyssal wings spread wide, then more tendrils from her shadow cast upon me and the floor.
Shadows seizing my arms and legs. The harder I fight back, the deeper they sting.
“Stop hiding the truth behind your holier than thou complex.” She says.
“Hiding the truth?” Radiating some off my arm, only to have it engulfed again.
“I know why you really want to protect her.” She squeezes tightly with a smile. “You have always been jealous of me, and this is your newest chance to play the knight of salvation. To slay the proverbial dragon.”
“You’re delusional Malencia, I would never be jealous of you!” Another set from the shadows of the floor takes my legs as I kick a set off.
“Delusional?” The Empress of Darkness’s mouth is a crescent chasm of teeth.
The combined energy of the unified presence of these two is a maddening terror. Her malevolent delight pollutes the air.
“Do you think I can’t smell, taste, feel your envy for me? Your lust for a very particular, and might I add, married rooster?”
“What in the rainbows are you talking about?” Still struggling to break out of her hold.
Shifting my eyes away from them for just a moment to make sure Kurai is alright. The childling’s eyes are wide with terror as she drags herself toward the wall, praying to her father for rescue.
“You know what I speak of.” Malencia taunts as they both close in on me.
I focus back on these two as they haunt closer to me. I have to save her. I will not fail them, not this time. Casting my aura stronger. Not like last time.
"Evil, do you see how this little holier than thou dog craves for Koriath? She won't move on."
It does not respond in any language, It only snickers.
“That was so long ago! We were both stupid teenagers. We are both practically forty ages now. You move on!”
The poor baby back there screams, my heart drops. In my distraction, I am overwhelmed by fear. This entity- no, this Evil stands beside me as Malencia just as quickly wraps her once wings of an umbral angel, now tentacles of an eldritch kraken around me.
Smashing one set of tendrils away with a fist of full of holy photons.
Another set takes my fighting arm as Malencia reforms her abyssal limbs. My body is like light caught in a black hole. Her red spinel eyes burn with lusting hunger as I struggle against her. My light fades.
“I'll prove my case by finding the bitch's lust.” Her energetic attack is a suffocating, maddening malice.
“Malencia, the quality and quantity of your lust is second to only Evil Incarnate. I am a disciple of Amorani, you will find no such thing in me.” Struggling makes her hold sharply more painful and nauseating.
“You are terrible at lying heaven dog. I know you warned him against marrying me.” Her tentacles wrap tighter around my limbs, as if trying to search for something deeper than my flesh.
“Of course I warned him. So many people have died as true warriors that were not supposed to, because of you.”
“Still, he didn’t listen to you, did he?” She snickers as I fight against her ever tightening hold.
“He listened to his heart.” I snarl. “Koriath loves you.”
“Loves me?” She scoffs. “He told me to my face tonight that he does not.”
“Then you have pushed him away yourself.” Grunting with resistance. “Besides, you know my light would have only brought him pain if we were anything more than friends.”
"Oh, but he loves to feel pain, especially when he's intoxicated." She disparages him behind his back, while squeezing into my very fears as if they were a solid organ she could grasp.
Looking past her, remembering who I am fighting for, Kurai. The little one lashes out against the Evil One with a single tendril as It tries to pick her up off the floor.
Re-focusing my light into my breath, deep inhale. Shifting it from red to rainbow, spectrum of righteousness. A laser beam blasts from my exhale, disintegrating one of her tentacles. "The pain you have caused your family is undue!"
"Oh? What is this, Hokulani?” With a speed beyond light, a darkness indescribable, she shoots a second tendril through my beam and into my mouth.
My anger! Is it anger that empowers her? Choking as her- no word beyond Evil- energy forces its way through me. Radiating light to my teeth, my tongue, the burning of ten thousand furious stars is still not enough to sever her darkness, no, beyond darkness.
More of her feathers fall and take their new horrifying shape, setting onto my limbs as I continue to try and fight her off.
“Ah, a memory. Yes, I too remember this, the first time we met. You told me to back off. You are such a pathetic, lying bitch." She laughs again as she reaches deeper into my mind. "Oh. Now that is really interesting."
I've never met a darkness that could consume light. Not like this, she has never had such a firm grasp on me. I’ve always been able to break free of this hold. Even black holes are a part of nature, this consumption is beyond.
"Look how angry and defensive this little doggy is. Aww you're so enraged, I love it."
It hurts. I feel her tugging at my concepts of righteousness. Her grasp reaches deeper with every fiercely deliberate kick from my legs. Her tendril wraps around my heart, probing it. Trying to summon up light from my paws, another set of her tendrils sets upon them.
"Oh, you're angry because you think I don't care about Kori. Ah yes, the infanticide, the violation of matrimonial vows. The desecration of his body and soul. You know all this. Aww, you want to stop me? Here, I'll desecrate your heart like I do his!"
Radiating my body. Light bursting through my flesh from within. With heavenly grace her darkness around me disintegrates, blasting her hold off. At the last moment my light retracts to not hurt the child crying at that cursed altar.
She sends a larger set that I struggle to fight. She wraps my arms with several appendages. “You want to save Koriath and his little one. Ooh how cute.”
Burning them off of me again with righteousness. Rushing through them to try and rescue the girl.
They both laugh fiendishly together as my light fails to break through them. Evil stalks toward me. Malencia’s tendrils again take a full hold of me.
“Awe, you want to stop us.” They continue laughing in unison.
I can't be angry. I have to let go of my anger; I have to forgive her. Somehow. What does Koriath see in her? There must be something redeeming about her. Something that separates her from Evil. For just a moment, I slipped from her grasp.
Evil approaches me, as she constricts me tighter. While The Evil One speaks to me, Malencia forces my body like a marionette to kneel before It.
"Ah yes, get your power back. Forgive her. Forgive yourself. Forgive me.” The Evil One smiles with soul snuffing cruelty.
I must stand. Must resist. Still trying to call upon the might of heavens to my right arm.
The Evil One circles around me, looking down on me as my knees strain not to bend. "Fool! You are an avatar of a dead god. I am Evil Incarnate.” It grabs my chin roughly with a wicked sneer.
My knees fail me, but not my face. Staring into the eyes of Evil Itself, defiantly as long as I am conscious.
“I am why you little guardians exist in the first place. Now forgive me little hero. Find my goodness."
"She will never forgive. Watch." Malencia says as she releases me from her grasp.
Coughing on my paws and knees with my attempts to breathe in love and light.
"You see Kurai over there, she's high on human eyes. For no reason other than it is funny. Evil did not need to be summoned through a cult. I wanted to do it for fun. I knew my followers would die. I knew they were too weak to stand against anything darker than the natural worlds."
If her words are true, then I cannot forgive her. Can I even fight? If I use the full element of light, I would kill Kurai. Darker than the natural worlds? Searching them with my eyes as their choir of laughter reverberates through this plane.
"Where is Koriath? He would never abandon his childlings!" My body starts to radiate brighter.
Though her tendrils are wrapped around me, she fights through flooding her power into them. “Koriath is subservient to me.”
I keep rising up from my knees despite her hold. Her words are a hollow distraction. Ignoring Malencia breaks me free of her.
"You! Evil One! What did you do to him?" Demanding It with regain composure and teeth bore.
"I did nothing my dear. The guardian of darkness is simply fighting his own demons. He can't be bothered to save anyone but himself. In fact, all of the elemental guardians; Materi, Fire, Water, Aeol, are fighting their own demons.”
Demons? What demons are powerful enough to hold back Koriath and Atesh this long? Catha!-Has she ever fought one? Maema- and Baltin… New evils, tailored for each of them.
You good lady get to fight Malencia, my void prophet has already proven that her shadow can snuff even your celestial lupin light. Plus, you two have some history as rivals already. There was no need to waste my time and energy making a demon for you.”
Either It could not make one for me, or what they face is the same might of horror as her.
Evil now walks over to Kurai, as if I were no threat. “Now excuse me, I am going to take my newest pet home.”
Malencia tries to reach me through my anger again. This time she misses as I run at the speed of love to hold Kurai. Kurai cries and screams helplessly as both me and Evil draw near.
Shutting my light before I scoop her into my arms. I pivot us into a prayerfully combative stance. Koriath, if you can hear me; Kurai is rescued, but I cannot fight back. We need you.
"Let me go! Don't eat me! Don't eat me!" She screams, kicks, and cries.
Carrying her upright, so her head is resting on my shoulder, supporting her. Holding her tight, responding in her own language "Hey it's ok. You are safe little one. Your Aw'ddy will be here soon."
She clings her little talons to my armored robes, whimpering “Aw’ddy… on his way?”
"Yes Kurai, he'll be here soon. You're safe. I'm Lani, I’ll protect you in his absence."
Evil holds out It’s hands, waiting for me to surrender the girl. Staring me down with a leer too creepy to describe in any language that I know.
Taking a step back. Maybe they can't take her from my arms?
Malencia now marches straight toward me. Darkness seems to bend around her. The power and grace of her every step bends to her will. "You assume that my decisions on what to do with my own childling are hazardous. More proof of your jealousy.”
Wait, how are her eyes... glowing?
“Am I not also her parent? As her mother, I have made a wise decision for Kurai's future, your judgment is the hazard. Give up Kurai to Evil. Now.”
"Never." I look her dead in the eye, holding my best friend's child close.
Malencia shoves Evil aside with her wings, lunging as a theropod dinosaur. This time her wings are not transforming, she conjures no darkness.
Backing up slowly, but the wall is coming close, and I won't have much room.
Evil is watching with twisted glee. She reaches out her talons to grab Kurai from me.
Spinning, focusing light into my tail. Smacking her talons with it. Kurai flinches in pain from the illumination.
"I'm sorry, Night Princess." Drawing her closer into me, hiding her under the shadow of my chin, my head over hers.
"See, you hurt her. Put her down." Malencia struts toward me smiling as if I did not just strike her.
"No!" She can grab her from me, that means they both can. Why are they toying with me?
Malencia flies right into my face, we are a shudder from our noses meeting. The gravity of her eyes locks into the light of mine. Her words drip from her tongue as poison on a blade.
"Put her down and I'll show you how Kori likes to be kissed. In fact, you can probably still taste his wine on my lip paint." She speaks with gently parted lips and batting eyelashes.
"Back off succubus!" Gathering photons to my golden eyes, blasting them with a blinking beam at her.
"Excuse me? Succubus?" Malencia stammers as she barely dodges my attack.
"Oh my." Evil chuckles while clapping.
"I am no mere demon!" Her voice bellows with a deep fury and a multitude of voices.
Malencia raises her talons and with the fury of a quasar, reaches for Kurai at my neck. Blasting my laser at her hand. Her darkness bends my light around her.
Left arm cradling this little one. Right finally summons up my celestial shield to my forearm again. Kurai, this shield of heavens will cast a shadow over you.
Clashing.
Crushing is the smile of malevolence.
Radiating is the snarl of benevolence.
A rainbow of loving hope battles malevolent crimson bloodlust.
Evil Incarnate bystanding with pleasure as this severity has no measure.
Strength of heavenly stars tested against horrors of hell voids.
Struggling with all that I am against her. My shield breaks beneath her wickedness.
“This will be the third time I’ve beaten you. Stay down.” Her voice is normal again as she laughs.
Pivoting my body to protect Kurai from her mother's attack. Embracing to endure the bliss of death and the pain of Light’s rebirth. One paw behind summoning light as my sword, my back her shield. Amorani, let Love keep Kurai alive. To the next Guardian of Light, know that-