Chapter 24: Transmutation
“Next time why don’t you try blasting him before the unnecessary life-affirming speech?”
Yokai had regained her strength and was watching Phantasia with a narrow, envious eye. With a grunt that almost sounded congratulatory, she skipped across the rubble to the collapsed base of the tower and lifted her arms into the air.
“At least now he’s finished I can get on with things,” she said.
Phantasia wondered what the other faerie was on about, but was breathing too heavily with exertion to question her.
Then she shivered, a dread feeling washing over her. Even thought the Patriarch had been defeated and his dark power purified, there was still a great deal of negative energy permeating the ruins. Negative energy that was beginning to move in a familiar, frightening way.
A bulbous black mass of shifting corruption seeped from the cracks, gathering form into largest leansídhe Phantasia had yet encountered. Of all the things to be here! Its presence must have been masked by the very darkness it consumed. With her power drained, all she could do was hope for another timely intervention.
But the leansídhe didn’t attack. Once it had gathered its full force, it hovered, its irregular form swaying in the currents. Then it began to implode without reason. Something inside was affecting it, but the darkness was so thick Phantasia was blinded to it. The shadow shrank, the corruption compacting to a point that yanked at the leylines like a rock disrupting the flow of a river.
A crystal. A red ruby that glistened with anger and hate, pride and passion. It floated for a second, then fell into Yokai’s welcoming palm.
“What’re you staring at?” she asked Phantasia, “This was the perfect place to forge a fire-element crystal!”
Phantasia picked herself up and shook her head, white hair flying about her face. She wanted to pretend everything was just some crazy dream or hallucination brought about by overworking herself, or even that she was trapped in a leansídhe’s illusion! It would help everything make sense!
“Oh, I get it!” said Yokai, tossing the crystal in one hand, “You wasted the water-wraith, didn’t you? Good job we got plenty of back-ups with you around. Then again, he did warn us about you,”
There was only one possible way to explain this.
“You’re behind everything!” said Phantasia.
“Everything? That’d be nice.” Yokai chuckled. “Nah, this place was mine and Apeliotes’s joint; I had nothin’ to do with those other ones,”
“But you know who did!”
“Oh yeah, sure,” She yawned. “I wouldn’t get involved, though. Not that you won’t. Hell, you’re as much as part of the plan as these Godhand idiots were,”
Phantasia felt herself trembling, her fists clenching tight at the thought of another level of manipulators trying to control her actions and the lives of her friends. “I won’t let you get away with this!” she cried.
“Yeah. Whatever.” said Yokai, before shooting off into the sky, a flaming bolt that vanished beyond Phantasia’s senses before she could even think of a reply.
~ The battle is over at last! But who is Yokai working for? ~
~ Next: Phantasia confronts Rembrandt Payne! ~
Chapter 24
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man, that was a wicked battle!
it was quite sad reading briefly about wotan and payne’s past! and sadder still that wotan is dead, i was starting to like him!
haha, i had no idea yokai would turn out to be the bad guy!! there were so many hints to her being harsh and mean because she was a fire faerie that i didn’t see it coming!
wicked stuff, onto 25! XD
ah yeah I loved the way you described the patriarch’s demonic form too! there was a lot of power being thrown about there! indeed, an epic clash!
Wotan divided by zero.
Except he physically divided by zero, causing the fae to remain unharmed. XD