Lila & Mirror vs Nuxta's forces
The smell of burnt flesh was nauseating. All she could feel in the field were the burnt corpses of cultists, and a few more cultists still charging to their death. A real carnage happened there. Luckily, whoever did that was on their side. The guardian stood tall behind the soldiers. The king's power once again saved the city. The guardian was undeniably strong. It was the last stand of the city, an unsurmountable obstacle to any potential intruder. Or so they thought.
Since the situation was apparently under control, Lila calmly walked in the direction of the soldiers to report what happened in the forest she was before. The number of cultists attacking dwindled as the time passed, what was once a brutal onslaught now was reduced to manageable numbers, that battle seemed to be won already, but looks can be deceiving.
A strange cloaked figure walked towards the soldiers, ignoring even Suleykaar, like it was nothing. Walking with an tired pace, like it was an old man, he cackled. Aside from the staff he used to walk, Lila could feel no other weapons on the old man. What was he doing?
The scene that followed was simply terrifying.
Raising his hands to the sky, the cloaked figure started to float, not needing its staff anymore, as it fell to the ground.
“Our lord adorns his armor. For the battle has just begun. WITNESS YOUNG AND OLD A TRUE CHILD OF OUR CREATORS!” he spoke, pointing to the armored guardian with his old and wrinkled fingers.
Lila couldn't understand what was happening. By the screams of the soldiers, something was happening with the guardian. They yelled in terror, screaming to everyone get away from it.
Black tentacles got out of the guardian, slaughtering anyone unlucky enough to be near the guardian. That was when Lila finally realized what was going on. Somehow, the cultists took control of the Guardian. A weapon strong enough to decimate the city of Sunfire by itself.
With a loud roar shook the ground, coming from the guardian, but there was something different with it. As Lila approached it, she felt that it wasn't the same guardian. Its form had changed. It was still the same size, towering over the soldiers, but its form was sleeker.
“Master.. I am unworthy.. WE ARE UNWORTHY!” the cloaked figure said, bowing down in front of the new, corrupted guardian.
“Your road is commendable one. Rise my trusted servant.” an elegant voice came from under the corrupted guardian's armor. Lila didn't know who that was, but it was obviously an enemy. The cloaked figure, which was unarmed a second ago, now wielded a scythe in its hands.
What could Lila do? Beating a guardian was simply an impossible thing to do alone, even for her. Neither Mirror nor the King were there. The only ones who could possibly maybe stand a chance against the guardian, as they knew its secrets.
Although Lila couldn't beat the guardian, she wouldn't simply stand there without doing nothing or flee. She still could do one thing.
As the cloaked figure and the corrupted guardian talked with each other, Lila grasped her scythe with one hand, her scythe resting over her shoulder as she put the other hand into the ground, assuming a crouched position, just like a predator about to pounce.
"Its the first time in a long time I need to use my powers..." she thought to herself, licking her lips.
Her muscles tensed up, her senses became sharper than ever, she could feel every single smell and sound on the battlefield: the soldier's nervous steps, heartbeats and sweat as they ran away from the guardian, the stench of burnt corpses, the weird smell coming from the corrupted guardian and the elegant voice echoing inside the amor, the blood... The amount of information Lila was receiving that moment was overwhelming. Her blind eyes darted from one side to another, responding to every smell and every sound she heard.
Tightening her grasp on the scythe with all her body tensed up, she dashed forward, her body slowly fading away from vision.
Her steps were inaudible as she dashed through the battlefield, dodging from the soldiers who were running away. Her blind eyes wide open, she was completely focused on her target. As she approached the cloaked man, darkness filled the area like a mist. Those inside the bubble felt their vision becoming darker and darker, until they could see nothing but a pitch black darkness, their senses dulling out, as the sounds and screams from the battle became distant, until they were nothing more than whispers.
She needed information. She needed to know what was happening, how they took over the guardian and what could be done. Luckily, there was one way to obtain such information... Lila knew what she needed to do, as she licked her fangs.
Still invisible, she pounced on the cloaked figure, with her mouth open and her fangs wet with toxins. using the point of her scythe, she would throw the old man's head back, exposing his neck. Using her legs to immobilize his arms by jumping on him and her free hand to take a firm grasp on his shoulder, she would sink her fangs on his neck.
By drinking his blood, she would be able to get some information about what was happening.
Although she was told by the Seraphim that drinking blood was a bad thing, she couldn't restrain her predator side for too long, especially while she was under combat, where her instincts became sharper.
"Its been so long since I drank fresh blood!" she thought to herself, her fangs dripping with toxin. Her blind eyes were focused on the man's throat, her face blushing, lusting for blood as a tingling feeling of pure excitement ran down her spine.
That side of her was a side only Mirror knew. That terrible grin, her lust for blood and meat, her black, blind eyes fixed on her prey...
That was the last thing many of her prey saw, the eyes of a predator and her expression of excitement as she drank their blood.
The only moment when she was allowed to let her predator side run wild, the only moment where she was away from the eyes of the Seraphim...
Away from anyone who would call her a sinner or a monster... When she was hunting, everything else didn't matter.
The snow fell. Small waves of flurrying frost sprinkled onto the field and met the remaining flames that withered in the empty black ash of what was a lush field of grass and flowers. Again a cold breeze waved inward with unnatural pace and encircled the mass of land that the remaining warriors all held fast in. The Vrondi soldiers kept their focus on keeping the giant woman away, her 14 foot height putting her above any of them. She bashed and clawed away at the barrier that continued to form layers beneath the breaking ones.
Soldiers continued to fall periodically from exhaustion, their vibrant glow fading away as they merged with the dark from the failing moonlight. The captain stepped forward and placed a hand on the barrier. “This won’t hold for long…” His soldiers looked to him with concerned faces. “I will hold this one back. Conserve what little energy you have.” He looked at a device on his wrist that held an orb within it. It flickered with strange red lights before multiple red lines and a single moving one began to appear on its surface. “Our morning light will soon be here.” He glanced to the edge of the mountain scape and saw no twilight as of yet.
His blade was then pulled from his side and was flipped effortlessly into his right hand. He leaped into the air, his feet having a glowing outline as it did so and leaving behind air pressure beneath him. “Animus!” A few soldiers shouted as the man soared and ran up the side of the barrier. He flipped once reaching the very edge and came down to the woman below. The captain’s name was Animus, a young warrior for the Vrondi elites who went up high in the ranks and showed undeniable loyalty to the Vrondi King and the Taxis.
His body began to be engulfed in light and glowed brightly. The woman below saw this and reacted by throwing her hands up to block the blinding light. Animus then shot downward with unnatural speed and met the arms of the woman with his blade. The impact roared and sent the woman falling down with her left arm still midair. Animus was already on the ground and charged at her. She hissed violently and emerging from her jaws was a cloud of green mist that moved like smog. Animus fell back with a flip and avoided the slow moving smog. He lifted his shirt above his mouth. “A Basilisk…” He grunted with unease.
“M-master… Help..” Riryoku’s frail voice squeezed from his vocal cords such words that conveyed his helplessness. However, a red circular glow emerged from beneath his hood in the shape of an eye. “No… I must make the greatest use of master’s power.” His head moved and the black ooze dripped onto the ice. But as it did so it froze into place. ”There’s nothing you can do…” Spoke Mirror with a serious yet uninterested expression. He looked to Lila. “Channel your soul into your blade and lop his head off.” But before Mirror could turn his head the ice around the neo guardian began to crack. Mirror’s eyes narrowed with a glare at the snapping ice. ”This bastard…”
”One must not fear when carried by my father’s will.”
Echoing with a stern silvery voice into the minds of Lila and Mirror was the man within the guardian. The ice crackled slowly. Then it broke all at once as the guardian’s new form seemed to flex its arms outward. The ice shards flew around like chunks that crashed around the field in both small and large sizes and a large shard falling and killing a few cultists and a few more having to be blocked by Vrondi soldiers. “Lay down your weapon child…” The voice spoke once more, but its helmet turning down with unnatural speed to look at Mirror and Lila with a red glow beneath the helmet and within its darkness. The blow from a large ice shard cracked the ice beneath Riryoku and it revealed that his body was frozen entirely beneath the ice. He laid there, his cloak solid and underneath was his black ooze all hardened. “D-damn you… Mirror..” Winced Riryoku as his head struggled to move.
“We are on the same side. Seraphim above all others, those who seek to undo this are to be annihilated without discrimination. Then and only then will this world know peace.” The armored body of the man waved his hands with opening arms as he spoke. His gestures suggested compassion and a willingness to be submitted to like a conquering king. Mirror scoffed at this and spat on the ground with displeasure fuming from him. ”But you don’t mind killing other Seraphim to get your way? I hate these contradictions.” The cold wind began to encircle Mirror and Lila. A flurry of ice and snow soon summoned around them both and Lila could feel a slight cool breeze from it but it was nowhere near as harmful as it was outside of it. It also allowed lighter movements and slight glides.
Riryoku’s frozen body began to crumble beneath the cloak like black snow. “M-master… I cannot fight. Please. Once more I wish to aid. You…” As he said the last word a black aura began to emerge from his body like smoke. His body cracked beneath it. He raised himself up with his scythe. He was much wider than before and his feet were no longer visible beneath the cloak. His ooze was frozen like snow and could not move it seemed from his position. However, his arms held onto the scythe with fluidity but not the same as before. He wavered left and right a bit but his movements remained simple and slow. Mirror lowered his body. “He’s all yours… LILA!” As Mirror spoke her name she shot forward and his body began to turn into clear ice like a sculpture. It shot forward like a bullet and crashed into the leg of the ice guardian.
The ice layered around the left leg and accumulated a huge chunk of ice that formed around the leg from the impact point. The leg broke free effortlessly and shattered the ice into the air. The ice shards moved like it had a mind of their own and whirled around the black armor until it formed into a Dragon from combining shards that grew in size rapidly. The head of the dragon was above the guardian and looked down on him with glowing cyan eyes. Mirror's voice could be heard echoing throughout the field as a blistering cold waved outward. “ZERO!” The dragon almost roared with Mirror’s cry of rage. The wave of ice brought about the freezing of the guardian once more by layers of ice. Except for this time, it had a frozen dragon sculpture around its form.
“MASTER!” Cried Riryoku as his body could not move, but he remained vigilant to parry Lila’s blade as best he could. She would also find it strange his lack of breathing, blood flow, or heartbeat.
"It tastes so bad... but..." Lila thought to herself sucking the blood out of the frail, old cultist as a torrent of knowledge, thoughts and emotions invaded her mind, coming from the gelatinous, strange blood.
Darkness… It is merely the absence of light. But its properties have been realigned to meet the needs of petty beings with momentary lives. To rewrite the laws of this world should only be done by the creator and his rightful children. a monotone voice echoed through her head. The entity the cultists called "Lord" had almost completely taken over the Guardian. The biggest and most powerful weapon, the last line of defense the city had against invaders, was now turning against them.
Lila was trying to concentrate on the things she felt, searching for information on the old cultist's blood, but it was hard... even if the blood tasted awful, it was fresh blood. It was so long since she had fresh blood...
Lost in her own excitement and lust for blood, only fragments of the information reached her. A slave... no, a peasant coming from Nero... Hunger, obsession... Pages coming from a book to summon an entity... "Keeper of the Gate"... An unimaginable power...
The thoughts and feelings coming from the old man's blood were hazy... mixed with Lila's own feelings, swirling and shifting amongst a sea of excitement, bloodlust, pleasure...
Maybe that was one of the reasons why the Aion didn't let Lila to feed herself. That aspect, that unique trait Lila had was both a gift and a curse. The blood wasn't just nourishment for Lila... It was knowledge, it was pleasure... Lost in her feeding frenzy, she took a few seconds to realize what was happening with the cultist's body...
His flesh was dissolving, slowly becoming a black, liquid, merging with the black blood that was already below them, creating a bigger pool.
His tattered cloak, was now midnight black after touching the strange black blood.
Shortly after, he raised from the black pool, unscathed. Reborn by the unknown black liquid. His form was now as corrupted as the guardian's. Slender, with clawed feet and with a strange aura around him... Grasping his scythe with both hands, ignoring even Lila's Eclipse, he swung it, aiming for her skull with a speed and agility which would be impossible if he was in his old form.
Caught off-guard, surprised and confused about the black blood, Lila wouldn't be able to dodge his scythe. The only thing she could do, was use the shaft from her scythe and her bladed gloves to guard the blow, but even though, she could feel that it was no ordinary blow. Even if she blocked it, it would have quite the impact.
Lila waited for the impact, but oddly enough, it never came. Instead, a familiar freezing wind and sensation took place.
Ice... Lila said to herself, as she felt a figure she knew very well approaching them.
"What did I say about feeding Lila?" Mirror said, approaching her. The hooded cultist was frozen in place, still alive, able to breathe and talk, but immobilized.
"These bastards have killed too many of mine... This ends here. Lila... Get ready." Mirror said, with a serious tone.
Lila was told her entire life that feeding was a bad thing, but ironically enough, they knew how she hunted her targets. The Aion knew very well why the others called her the Seraphim's Hunting Beast. Once she tasted the blood of her target, escaping her was impossible.
"Yes... Mirror." Lila said, with her voice trembling from excitement. She was unable to even try to hide her feelings. With her face blushing red and an excited grin on her face. Maybe other Nayu wouldn't find that sight as unsettling and horrifying, but for most of the other races, it was the face of a monster.
Grabbing her scythe with both hands, maintaining the Eclipse spell, she assumed a low posture, almost crawling on the ground, ready to attack. She was only waiting for Mirror's command. Mirror himself knew how Lila's combat style changed after she tasted blood....
--
Animus backed away from the smog. It was clearly deadly as the grass curled and froze like a stone before being engulfed by the miasma. His eyes narrowed at the sight of this and then quickly shot up as he watched the parting dark green smog convey to him and those behind him the woman that spewed it. She looked down with glaring eyes at Animus.
Her severed limb was within her intact hand. She lowered her stub and raised the end of the cut arm to meet the flesh of its missing part. The crimson that flowed met and merged the two pieces together and then the blood stopped flowing. Animus and his soldiers looked at this with awe on their faces. Bringing his head down he gritted his teeth with an intense will growing within him.
"Not here. Not yet." As he growled these words his entire person began to grow brighter. He flipped his blade in his hand and pointed it to the woman. His blade flashed a bright light that blinded her. Her voice screeched and she backed away into the cloud of poison. Animus leaped back to the barrier and ran up it's side to rejoin his soldiers.
Once he landed the poison cloud met the barrier and crawled up it slowly. The clawed hand of the woman gripped the barrier through the smog which frightened a few soldiers. Her tongue then met the barrier and she slid it across it's surface. A trail of her clear saliva ran down it. Her voice let out a long sigh, a look of pleasure upon her face.
"Mmmm... Your souls look so delicious." The Basilisk Queen stated in delight.
The soldiers looked back and saw the dragon ripping cultists apart that were too foolish to escape. They wondered if it was feral or not but either way it aided them the best it could.
Lila was only waiting for Mirror’s order to attack, but when she was about to kill her target, the thing inside the guardian, spoke. His voice echoed through Lila’s head.
“We are on the same side. Seraphim above all others, those who seek to undo this are to be annihilated without discrimination. Then and only then will this world know peace.”
Side? Which side? For Lila, there was never a side. She did only what she was told to do. They marked a target, and she killed it. It was simple. Lila never understood the concept of peace. She was raised to be a weapon. Peace was something completely opposite to her nature.
The calmness she felt before striking a target, the excitement from the hunt and blood… Could that be considered peace? After all, she felt at peace during those moments...
”But you don’t mind killing other Seraphim to get your way? I hate these contradictions.” Mirror answered, spitting on the ground and summoning a cold wind around them.
Contradictions? She couldn’t understand where those contradictions were… They were weapons too, right? A warrior feels at peace when doing what it was trained to do its entire life, right? Then the only way these warriors can know peace is by killing. Why was that wrong?
“He’s all yours… LILA!” Mirror said, attacking the guardian.
It doesn’t matter. She didn’t understand their logic. She didn’t need to. The only thing she understood right now was her desire to kill her target. The hunt was the only thing that mattered to her at that moment.
“As you wish, Mirror.” She said, with a twisted giggle. Her muscles, which were tensed up all that time, released all that tension in a split of a second, sending her flying towards her target. Differently from before, her movements weren’t gracious and calculated, instead being extremely feral. She moved without caring about how she looked, or if her movements were correct or not, she was like a beast. Her eyes were fixed on her prey. Her entire world now was resumed to her and her soon-to-be dead prey.
With a blindingly fast movement, she swung her scythe, aiming at his neck.
As the blade sliced through the air its blade met another similar to its own. Riryoku grunted from the blow as his widened and partially frozen form cracked underneath his cloak. The dark aura remained and escaped from beneath the cloak where his feet once were. The outer edge of his cloak where the darkness seeped out of began to show a pool of slow-moving black ooze. He was slowly defrosting.
“This child! She has the hunger of a dragon within her. Is she a prize from your war on the bloodied throne?” Words flowed while he swung his scythe. He did so after flipping it down and bringing it straight up at Lila.
A prize from the war? Bloodied throne? Lila didn’t understand those things, they didn’t matter… The only thing that mattered right now was that he was still alive. And that irritated Lila.
Instead of blocking his scythe, she simply disappeared in the shadows with a twisted giggle, both her body and her blade becoming one with the shadows.
After a brief moment, her blade appeared, emerging from the shadows, almost like cutting it. Her body followed shortly after in another lunge, aiming to cut Riryoku’s arm.
His aged voice let out a groaning yell as his arm was cut off. It fell to the ground. His other hand held onto his scythe. His body lowered itself by the cloak widening even more and the ooze below it being retracted into the cloak. The ooze held the broken slush of previously frozen sludge together to reform his body to it's previous thin form. His severed arm returned to slush underneath the cut sleeve that laid as a cloth next to him.
“D-damn you..” He attempted to rise to his feet but seemed very frail as he did so. “Your savagery cannot harm me.” He muttered as the ooze dripped from his stub and then form into an elongated thin arm and hand. “I will never give in…” His body flattened rather quickly as he returned to slush. It moved to Lila’s side before he rose up above her and brought the scythe downward on her head with a loud cry.
Savagery? Why does he say that word as something bad? The tiger shows savagery when hunting its prey, it's both natural and beautiful. If you have to kill, what’s the harm in at least liking to do it?
So what if he kept growing his members back? He feels pain, doesn’t he? She just needed to keep cutting him.
Lila was indeed surprised when he tried to attack her. He still had the strength to attack even after all that? What was that man? Why he was turning to that weird black liquid? Many questions rose inside Lila’s head, which was already fuzzy due to the bloodlust, excitement, and joy for the hunt.
The scythe hit Lila, but it offered no resistance, instead, passing right through her body, as she slowly and gradually faded into the shadows.
“The moment I drank your blood, your fate was sealed. You are my prey.” she said, with a twisted giggle, her voice a mix of excitement and threat.
Lunging towards the old man once more, she swung her scythe in a clean horizontal cut, aiming to cut him in half. A silver streak in the absolute darkness from her ‘Eclipse’.
The familiar rattle and audible pop of the shattering core gave way to Mirrors failed attempts to hold his for at bay. Only with the crumbling of his coating did he return to form defiantly in front of the enigma. It pushed with a rested hand on ice that hugged its legs and sent shards and boulders of ice several yards away. "Your defiance is being noted." The once elegant voice now held distorted anger. The red eyes beneath the helmet gave an intense glow before the being gripped the silver spear. "Be not ignorant. I am Nuxta, the second born."
Mirror looked up at him with a glaring expression. His body, clothes, and all were emitting mist from the frost forming on him. "You talk too much. You have ZERO-" As Mirror spoke ice and snow began to form around Nuxta and crawl up his armor. "chance of getting me to listen to YOU!" Mirrors hand raised up and they clapped together. The cold winds blew outward from the source where a mass of ice was summoned around Nuxta once more. This time the ice was twice as thick and it all was shaped like a cone.
"The entire point.. is that you won't be going anywhere."
Hearing a chirp Mirror turned. He saw the light of the sun slowly meeting the horizon and giving illumination to the fine scales that reflected its light from the young dragon. Mirror's eyes widened at the sight of something so feral yet adorable. It was in line with Lila and her savagery. The sound of Riryoku being cut In half in the background.
------
Lila & Virais
Lila's last attack sliced not only Riryoku, but her 'Eclipse' ability as well. Inside the Eclipse, amongst the pitch black darkness, where no light escaped, only a silvery streak lit the area for a brief moment, cutting the darkness itself, the light from the battlefield mixed with a vivid, crimson red blood coming from Riryoku, came from the horizontal cut made by Lila's scythe. The cut in the eclipse bubble slowly got bigger, until the bubble was no more.
It was almost ironic... Her, a creature born from the darkness, using a scythe given to her by Seraphim to banish her own kind, to cut the very thing that makes her a Nayu, the darkness...
The second she cut Riryokuk, she knew something was different. She smelled blood in the air. Not the weird, ooze that seeped from Riryoku's wounds, but real, fresh blood. Giving in to her instincts, she immediately dashed towards Riryoku's body, but when she tried to grab it, her hand met only blood and ash.
Both her hand and her scythe were dripping with his blood. She trembled in ecstasy for a moment, licking the fresh blood of her clawed gauntlets and the blade of her scythe, enjoying every single drop of it. But it wasn't enough... Most of the blood fell on the ground, mixing with the foul ooze.
Deep down inside, Lila knew that the ooze was connected with the one they called 'Lord', and if she drank too much from it, he could even be able to control her just like he did with the other cultists... She knew that, but even still, she was kneeling down, in front of that pool of black ooze mixed with blood. She had tasted that ooze before, she knew it had a horrible taste and smell, but she could still smell a faint scent of blood coming from that pool.
Lila slowly extended her hand, almost touching the pool, but grabbed her hand with the other, fighting against her own instincts.
The same girl who was fighting with an incredible ferocity and bloodlust a few moments before was now kneeling down on the ground, hugging her scythe with both arms, in a defenseless posture. She was fighting against her own bloodlust, against the beast inside her.
When Lila drinks the blood of her prey, there is no turning back. The adrenaline, the joy from the hunt mixed with the ecstasy, taste, and scent of the blood were intoxicating. Since Lila was raised by the Aion, surrounded by Sol and Seraphim, which treated hematophagy with the highest contempt, she never had someone to teach her how to control her own instincts...
Virais was dashing about the field of battle, lunging and blasting away with rather small, but accurate firebolts at anybody who got too close to the big, magic, darkness bubble thingy. Really in his mind, it was weird to just join and fight a cause that you knew nothing about, but it was what he sometimes had to do in the search for answers. Not to mention that answers were incredibly hard to get from a destroyed city and populous.
Leaping from the most recently slain cultist that who's neck he had torn clean from his body with sharp, and vicious teeth, he extended his wings to glide off towards his next foe who was unfortunate enough to get a pair of twin firebolts to sail at him. From there, their numbers seemed to be thinning to the point that he could have a moment to look around and gather an idea of what is happening. It was in that moment that he saw the giant dark bubble of shadow fade away and the strange-looking girl falls to her knees in seeming pain.
Glancing around with his long neck he saw that things were relatively clear given that they were in the middle of a battlefield. Now his next biggest concern was the wounded girl. Keeping low to the ground he started leaping and running over bodies, burms, and stray arrows that threatened to perforate his hide. One of which got quiet close and made him give out an involuntary, "Mwrup!" as well as a dive behind a dead body to avoid any follow up shots. Though after a brief moment of the coast being clear he returned to his beeline for the girl.
When the gap was finally closed he ran up to her, joining her in the pool of black and red but paying only attention to her, letting out several concerned, "Chirrup! Chirrup! Mrrwa!" Noises as his head coiled and snaked trying to see what was wrong, before diveing under her arm in an effort to try and break that death grip she had on her weapon. Though as his nose tried to burrow into the crook of her elbow he was letting out softer, more gentle noises in an effort to try and snap her out of whatever trance she was in.
As the small dragon approached her, he could see her fangs and hands, dripping with fresh blood. Her face wasn't that of a young girl, but the face of a predator.
"Blood... Hunger..." she mumbled before he approached her.
The sudden approach of a small dragon caught Lila off guard, making her turn her head sharply at the small creature, but before she could react, she understood by the noises the dragon made that he was friendly, and meant no harm.
Its sudden display of affection really surprised Lila, since it was rare for someone to care about her.
"Blood, fresh blood..." the voice of her hunger invaded her thoughts, clawing on the back of her mind, as she looked at the small dragon again, licking the blood off her lips and fangs.
For a brief moment, she kept gazing at it with predatory eyes, losing the grip she has on her scythe, and extending her clawed gauntlets towards the little dragon, the sharp fingernails reflecting the lights from the battlefield.
I won't let it control me... she interrupted herself, sinking her fangs into her lips. The sharp wave of pain made her regain her composure.
Looking at the small dragon again, she slowly extended her hand, touching it lightly. She was rather unsure of how to react to that display of affection.
"I-I'm sorry... I'm not... exactly myself at the moment..." she said, stopping her hand just before touching it, and breathing deeply.
"You don't know what I am, do you? To approach a beast with such kind eyes..." Lila said, looking to the small dragon.
"I don't wan't to hurt you..." she said, looking away.
"I am nothing but a weapon, a hunting beast. I was not made to love or be loved."
Virais heard and understood most of her words and even through her strange emotional rollercoaster and the subsequent predatorial gazes that she gave him he pressed on, nuzzling at her arm to try and tuck his neck under her held tight arms so that he could make her give him a hug.
Though as she started to soften and lighten up, using real people's words with a much less threatening and mean voice he only picked up his actions, nuzzling instead at her arms at her exposed face. Using his small and a bit rough snout to and cheek to smear the blood on her face all over his own and vice versa was given how he still had quite a bit of blood on his own fangs from his last kill.
The final straw was when she started talking nonsense about not deserving love, which is unacceptable, and in response, he let out a rather loud and high-pitched series of, "Mrawa! Mrrwa! Chrrua! Murrp!" right into her face, clearly bothered by her self hate as he then returned to his relentless nuzzling.
Lila couldn't help but giggle kindly at the small dragon. He didn't seem to care about who or what she was. And somehow, he seemed rather bothered by what she had said before.
"I see... So you are no stranger to blood" she said, letting him get through her arms.
"You are the first one that really cared about me..." she said, gently caressing the dragon.
Something about how the small dragon was acting towards her made her heart a little softer... Maybe it was its kindness or innocence... Years and years of being treated as a tool made her heart grow harder, her feelings duller, even making her forget that she was still a young girl. But for a brief moment, she forgot about that. About her training, about her orders as the emotions are long forgotten gradually showed themselves.
She tightly hugged the small dragon, without saying a word. Although it wasn't able to see it, she was smiling...
Virais accepted her hug as her arms relent, letting him press his nosy snout up to her chest and up her body towards her shin, wiggling away to show that she was ok and things were gonna be ok. He couldn't see into her heart to find how cold it was and what was happening to it, but he felt better knowing that she didn't look like a crazy killer anymore. Which was always good.
As the fight continued around though he nosed his way up to her face where to nuzzled her cheek again. Rubbing his rough nose against her perhaps a bit obnoxiously before he started to pull away from her. His mission was done and he found that she wasn't physically hurt and now she was mentally ok.
That in turn meant they could return their attention to the raging war around them before anybody got some murderous ideas and decided to come and kill the defenseless duo. Still facing the girl he wagged his tail and let out a confident, "Marraw!" before turning to the fields of war with a snarl and his teeth barred.
"Yes... The blood still flows, and the battlefield calls us." Lila said, shaking her head as she slowly regained her composure.
"Thanks. Thanks for worrying about me. My emotions ran wild for a second there... I'm sorry." she said, smiling at the dragon as it wagged its tail, turning to the battlefield.
"If the situation was other... It would be easier... feeding, I mean... But I cannot drink this black, foul and corrupted blood... There is something in it... Something wicked..." she said, looking at the black ooze with a disgusted face.
Virais gave out a resounding, "Chirp!" as she spoke of being herself again and of course against that disgusting blood. Though now was the time for action and not a moment too late as a few cultists strayed into the fray with the new pair of friends. He was quick to act, bolting over to one with his claws held out, raking and digging into his flesh as he bowled the cultist into the ground to chomp at.
Before long his first kill in this skirmish was made and he looked around for another, selecting one out of a group that was heading for Lila and taking a swift intake of breath before letting fly a fire bolt to strike him in the face.
Lila was surprised when she saw the small and cute dragon breathing fire on its enemies. She smiled quietly. That little dragon was very similar to her. A cute and inoffensive body, hiding a monster underneath.
"I see... You're the same as me then, right?" she asked, looking to the dragon, surprised.
Taking her scythe and grabbing it with two hands, she simply walked forward, with an elegant and calm posture, extremely different from the feral and aggressive posture from before.
A pair of two cultists ran towards her, in their suicidal attempt to kill their target, without even an ounce of self-preservation. Lila simply looked at them and continued walking in their direction.
The cultists jumped on Lila as they got nearby her. Their swords pointed directly at her. But before their feet could even hit the ground, a silver streak cut the night as Lila swung her scythe in a clean arc in front of her, cutting the cultists in half.
Virais continued on his path, running and leaping around Lila in support of her much more skilled efforts. He could fight, sure, but he was nowhere near as vicious and graceful of a fighter as her. Instead, he kept up his flames and firebolts, shooting and blasting away around her until the hordes of mad cultists were thinned.
Every so often he'd look at his new friend and let out a confident "CHIRP! MRRAW!" Which was his way of saying, 'good job!' and 'keep it up!' But as the fight carried on and he looked around to see the state of the battlefield it honestly looked like they were winning now and before long the number of enemies was thinning to laughable levels. They had this one in the bag!
Running back over to Lila he braved the killing field she set up around herself in order to wag his tail fiercely and let out a playful "Mrrwara!" to her, mostly to let her know that they were winning because she seemed too busy to notice in his eyes.
As Lila continued fighting in the same elegant posture she heard the confident sounds the little dragon made. It certainly knew how to take care of itself, spitting flames on cultists with a confident air.
Coming near her, she growled playfully, waggling its tail near her. Taking a second to look around, she realized that the number of cultists attacking was getting lower and lower. But the victory was still not that close. They still had to worry about the guardian which Mirror was fighting against. She trusted his abilities, but still...
"It's not over yet." She said, gently caressing the small dragon.
"Not yet..." she said, looking to Mirror. She wanted to do something, but she really didn't know what to do against such a thing.
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