Chapter 77. Your heart to admire.

"I've been thinking about you, Anne."

Everly's voice drifted across the empty reception hall of the Van Belsar estate, where Anne sat alone in the dark, waiting. She looked up, expectantly, glad that the time had finally arrived bring things to a proper conclusion.

Two days had passed since their confrontation in the village of Anders. In the time spent between then and now, Anne had returned to the home she shared with Marcis, knowing that nothing yet had been settled. She knew that Everly must surely feel the same way. So, she'd come here to wait, knowing that her enemy would soon arrive.

"I've been thinking about you as well, Everly,"Anne replied. "You're a bold one to return so eagerly for more. Normally, when I break someone, it's done so thoroughly that they wouldn't ever consider appearing before me again."

"I'll admit that you did quite the number on me," Everly laughed. "I've been beaten before in training, but never to that extent. I thought I was finished learning lessons. I feel…"

"Yes?" Anne asked her.

"…I feel almost absurdly grateful for the experience," Everly continued. "A famous warrior in the world I hail from once wept because he believed there were no new lands for him to conquer. Thanks to your little lesson, I've realized that I haven't even hit my peak. That I haven't even conquered myself. Thank you Anne, for helping me realize that Everly still has room to grow."

"Oh," Anne said. "I'm sorry to hear you say that. My hope was that the taste of defeat would dissuade you from continuing this destructive path you walk."

"Just the opposite in fact!" Everly exclaimed with a delighted giggle. "Now that I've had a taste of you, Anne, I want more."

"More?" Anne asked her.

"Oh, yes. I want everything you can possibly give me. I'm obsessed by the memory of you. Not lying. I dreamed about you last night. The anticipation kept me awake. I think you might be driving me insane."

"I'm flattered, girl. But I think I'm too old for you," Anne said with a quirk of a smile on the corner of her lip.

"Please don't say that!" Everly pouted. "I asked my father all about you, you know."

Now a sour expression clouded Anne's face. "And what did Marcis have to say about me?" she asked. "Nothing flattering, I'm sure."

"Only that he'd like a divorce," Everly said chirpily.

Anne laughed bitterly at the girl's words. "I'm hardly surprised. How unfortunate for us both that the Godwell tradition is lifelong matrimony."

"Together until death?"

"Sadly, yes."

"Anne. I figured out why you're so obsessed with him," Everly teased.

"Be careful of what you say next, Everly," Anne said coldly.

"No, no, it's okay. I understand you, Anne," Everly continued. "My dad's a parasite. He manipulates other people to steal power from them. It's an awful thing that he does."

"Yes," Anne somberly agreed. "Yes, it is."

"He couldn't stop if he wanted to, either. It's his nature! He doesn't just feed off others. The act of using them brings him pleasure. Even if it adversely effects the world, he must continue bringing chaos to his surroundings. He has to hurt everyone around him, whether he wants to or not."

"Yes," Anne repeated. "And he does it with such zeal."

"That's what attracted you to him," Everly said. "That's why you can't let him go. Because in a way, he's just like you. He's a monster in human skin. He's like a vampire. And you were hoping that he'd understand you. That with him by your side, you wouldn't be alone anymore."

Tears began running down Anne's face as she nodded but said nothing in reply.

"Were you born that way or was it something that was done to you?" Everly asked.

"I don't remember," Anne said quietly.

"But you don't like it?"

"I never have."

"Why? I think you're incredible."

"My family used me as a tool. A weapon," Anne said with even greater bitterness than before. "They never truly accepted me as one of them. I was something to be used for the aggrandizement of the Godwell name. A symbol of their unending power. My desires were utterly irrelevant in comparison to their grand design."

"You sound as though you hate them," Everly tittered. "Whoever would have guessed?"

"My feelings towards my family are complex and not something I feel like sharing with someone that I know will only use them to mock me," Anne said darkly.

"I wouldn't do that, Anne. I love you," Everly said.

"Shut up," Anne growled.

"But I do!" Everly said with the sincerity of an infatuated girl. "When I think about your long lifes spent standing in defense of the values of people you've grown to despise, my heart just swells. It swells, Anne! It really does! Because you're doing it out of duty. You're doing it out of love for the common good! That's genuinely noble! God, Anne, I think you're so beautiful!"

"Why are you talking to me like this?" Anne asked her. "I thought you came to fight me!"

"I have. I will. But before we do, I just wanted you to know how much I cared," Everly assured her.

"You don't."

"I do! Really, I do! I'm the only one who understands you, Anne. And I think you understand me just as well, don't you?"

"You're an insane child," Anne replied harshly. "A cruel girl with far too much power."

"Exactly! And by the end of this night, one of us is going to be dead. Isn't that beautiful, Anne? Isn't that the greatest thing you've ever heard?"

"No," Anne said flatly.

"I think you're a hero, Anne," Everly giggled. "What else can your resolve be called except for that? You're heroic. I'm absolutely over the moon over it! I've been waiting so long for a hero to appear in my life…"

"Stop this," Anne demanded as she rose angrily from her seat. "Stop hiding yourself from me. Do you wish to do battle or not? Let's be done with this!"

"No, no, no," Everly said. "Why rush this? We should make this moment last forever! I want every second of this encounter seared into my mind! You're so pretty Anne! I want you to be mine, forever! I'm really thinking about keeping you around after I've killed you. What do you think of that idea? What do you think of me sinking my teeth into you?"

"I think you're sick for behaving this way," Anne said angrily.

"You were going to drain me dry, weren't you?" Everly taunted. "Didn't that mean you liked the way I tasted?"

"SHUT UP!"

"MAKE ME!" Everly laughed after she appeared behind Anne. When the startled Countess turned, surprised by the sudden appearance of her foe, Everly's fist smashed into her face, driving her back with such force that she was first smashed through a marble pillar, then through a wall, into the back hallway.

After Anne regained her legs and pushed the rubble away, she saw Everly standing before her, wearing her full armor.

"Daddy told me how your powers work," Everly said smugly. "Your blood pheromones or whatever. They're anti-magical, aren't they? Reducing the strength of anyone who breathes them in. In hindsight the solution was so obvious! If I just filter my armor, then you can't get to me at all, can you?"

"If that's your only defense, then I'll simply have to peel you out of that cumbersome steel, won't I?" Anne said.

"Can you, though?" Everly asked as she raced toward Anne and began attacking her with relentless strikes and kicks. "Maybe it's due to my control over the earth, or maybe it's because of my massive harada, but Anne, I feel so light on my feet! Will you even land a blow?"

Quicker than Everly expected, Anne brushed aside a powerful roundhouse punch and spun to deliver a back thrusting kick that sent the girl flying away.

"I believe I'll somehow manage," Anne said curtly.

In response, Everly laughed. Then she called upon Titania's power of the earth and thrust her open palm in Anne's direction. The floor beneath Anne's feet swelled and bulged as though the wooden floring had become a massive ocean wave that knocked Anne onto her back and carried her forth, spilling her outside, and leaving her covered in broken debris.

When Anne finished clawing her way free of the mess, a large granite spike shot from the ground. Its sharp tip nearly caught her beneath the jaw, causing Anne to pivot unsteadily to the side to avoid being pierced. More of them quickly followed, forcing Anne to keep moving to avoid impalement. When she seemed to have escaped that danger, several heavy stones came flying fast and hard to connect brutally with her face and chest.

"This is called geo-kinesis, in case you were wondering," Everly called out to her. "With my level of mastery over the element of earth, I can control anything that comes from it, Anne. Anything."

To illustrate Everly's point, dozens of similarly sized stones floated from the ground and began rotating around her like satellites orbiting a celestial body. Then they began flying after Anne like shots from a cannon. Most of them missed her entirely, but the few that connected did terrible damage when they scored a hit.

Anne was thrown back and knocked down as the stones continued to batter her, drawing blood and tearing away at her clothing.

Now Everly began to float in the air, spinning joyfully like a pirouetting dancer displaying her skill on a stage. "Spooky, isn't it? Well, my armor's metal! Iron ore comes from the earth, so I can manipulate it too, even while I'm wearing it. How does it feel to be looked down upon from the heavens, Anne? I have a god's eye view here, and I have to say…it feels so right."

In response to Everly's taunts, Anne angrily grabbed one of the stones she'd been struck with and hurled it with superhuman force into Everly's center, knocking her from the sky in a clatter of steel.

"You're such a child," Anne said furiously. "With you endless taunting and bullying and being so satisfied and prideful of all that you do!"

"Why wouldn't I be? I'm incredible!" Everly said giddily. "Hey, here's a fun scientific fact I want to share. Did you know that lightning can shoot from the earth into the sky?"

"What are you babbling about now—" Anne began to say.

Blue light. White light. Bright nothing.

CRASH!

When Anne managed to reopen her eyes, she was surprised to discover that she was lying on her back, emanating white smoke.

"Ahhh," she moaned, temporarily unable to form any coherent thoughts or sentences. She only felt awareness by the barest degree of that word. Then the shadow of an armored form fell over her.

"You really are fun," Everly said appreciatively to her before delivering a vicious kick to the face.

Pain flared into existence and swept across Anne's body at that merciless contact with Everly's boot. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and for a moment it was like she'd ceased to exist. Was this what being in hell was like?

Was Everly's presence hell itself?

"It's not enough," Everly said to her. "Anne? Anne? Anne? Don't die."

Now Anne felt Everly's armored body on top of hers. Now she felt her armored fists coming down like hammer blows that crushed the bones of her face and tore into her skin. Relentless, merciless, destroying strikes that broke her down bit by bit, all the while Everly encouraged her to fight back.

"You're so cool, Anne!" Smash!

"I love you so much!" Smash!

"I'm on your side, Anne! I'm rooting for you! Smash!

"Don't give up!" Smash!

Over and over, the killing blows rained down. But Anne endured them, until finally, in a frenzy of unrestrained violence, Everly began headbutting her, smashing her helmeted face into Anne's with a speed fueled entirely by madness and affection.

At the end of each impactful blow, the girl would ask:

"Is it over? Is it over? IS IT OVER?"

As her head came flying down for perhaps the final time, Anne suddenly caught it with both hands. Then she screamed with an animal howl of rage before delivering a headbutt of her own that threw Everly off her and sent her rolling away.

"I'LL KILL YOOOOOU!!!" Anne shrieked at her with blood dripping down her rapidly healing face.

"You'll try!" Everly said eagerly as she ran at her opponent, eager to continue the fight, only for Anne to catch her incoming swing, pivot, and then send her flying away with a mighty throw that had her land all the way on the other side of the estate.

"Right. So that's where Sarah got her temper," Everly realized. "Okay, that makes sense."

She stood up, cracked her neck a bit and then turned to face the incoming Anne who was racing towards her on all fours like a hound after a fox.

"Hmm. I think I may have upset her a tad," Everly giggled.

Then, the fight was back on.