Slowing Down

"Don't tell me... you're already slowing down? That's only two of you, what about you two?" Fico asked. Her eyes turned back toward Ellie and Moon, slowly rotating around her to get the jump on her.

"Whatever you knew as strategy, you must forget when fighting a Deity. We are beings of pure, strategic irony. Your ability to surround me, thinking it does anything, that's what is making you lose. If you people are to take the brunt of Sky Asterio's sins against Eirikr and The Old World, you must forget what it means to be humans, and start to become Asterios as well," Fico muttered, peering over to Tavian and me.

To become... Asterios...

This girl... how was she capable of so much? I thought Illya was the strongest at the time, but the level of strength in the people we haven't met yet has been skyrocketing.

Turning us into Asterios? What does that even mean? That old name... that kid's name...

Tavian flipped his saber. He was usually very analytical and reacted to the situation according to the best outcome, but here? He just ran in...

And it worked.

The sabers clashed together. Fico dropped her claws and a large golden saber came out of her wrist instead. The clash took place and a loud noise screeched out, but neither of the two reacted. I couldn't keep up with what the two were doing, so I nodded in affirmation and ran toward Fico as well.

We both clashed with two different sabers toward Fico, and Amera threw another Chakram once more.

Before it reached Fico, it was outlined and flying wildly with white strands shooting out from the blade. It looked like white strings for show, but when it hit Fico in the back and cut halfway through her shoulder down to her stomach, I knew they were strands.

Dante, with a white saber, stabbed into Fico's knees and cut them off.

Her wings were keeping her afloat, and when they charged downward, I got a short glimpse of the past when she flew up to me in the air.

I planted my purple saber into her wings and tore it down so she couldn't get any air, but we were all pushed back once more from the shockwave they still created.

At a standstill, with different levels of power now, Group Orion stood valiantly while panting at an equidistant point from Fico.

"You said we had to become Asterios if we were going to take the brunt of Sky Asterio's sins... to forget what it means to be humans, and instead be Asterios. What exactly is your plan here?" I asked her.

Fico slowly regenerated her body with golden strands, wiping blood from her outfit, while walking toward me. I held my purple saber up, but she didn't stop her stride.

"You are fighting for his sake, are you not? That's why I'm fighting you, and not fighting him. You're taking the brunt of his sins, aren't you?" She asked. She stopped moving once she was about ten feet away from me.

"My goal, as the leader of Quake, isn't to destroy this city! No... not yet... I'll admit, all that stopped me from doing so previously is the fact that I had no way to tell if this city housed Sky Asterio... I made it clear before, when I first met him after all this time, that just because Eirikr wasn't hunting him, doesn't mean I wouldn't. No, the reason I haven't leveled this city is that I can't kill Sky Asterio. That's not my goal. It's to subtract him from things that bind him to this planet. It's to get him up into space, steal his abilities, and give his vessel to Eirikr. You people... I'm not here to spare you, to surrender to you, I'm here to kill you. All of you," Fico said.

Claws started to violently pop out all around her body. At a certain point, I couldn't get close to her without taking a few small cuts.

"You're sick in the head... we won't let you win here. We won't let you take Sky, not after all he's done for us," Tavian told Fico.

"I wish you understood that it's not me that's sick in the head. You are housing a person of remarkable descent. A person who was feared by his very name in the past... and you defend him. All of that time, when Zeal was prissy about who awakened on that Isle, do you think it was for no reason?" Fico said.

It couldn't have been possible that she knew about all of this stuff, could it...?

"Zeal knew... I know... Eirikr knows... we all know above you and above everybody else, that this world had ended the second he woke up. Quake originated from the idea that we make one last effort to make the Earth shake... but that's not right. We make an effort to stop it from shaking. To stop it from disrupting the natural order. To subtract Sky Asterio from the equation... that's our goal. It's been our goal since we were first created four hundred years ago," Fico explained to us.

"To subtract him from the equation... is to kill all of us? You're not going to just take him? I know for a fact that's bullshit, and that something else is going on here," Moon muttered from our right-hand side.

"Dani Asterio, The Goddess of Wrath... Illya Asterio, The Deity... Faith Asterio, The Daughter... those people alone... they would follow us, even if we went to the edge of the universe. That's because Sky Asterio has already started the one thing he's good at... recruiting loyal soldiers," Fico said to us.

"I've heard enough," I said out loud. It shook me to my core... that's not a sin... that's a trait of a good leader...

"You've heard enough because you're convinced? Or, because you can't live with the truth? I'd like to know in advance," Fico asked me.

"I can't... I can't believe the words you've said when I've been with him on the battlefield. That's not Sky Asterio... Sky Asterio isn't that person you're talking about," I said to her.

"We will see, won't we?" Fico asked me with a slight head tilt.