Chance

     Siti and I made our way through Arx’s bastion. We no longer bothered with kicking our way through the heavily-defended gates, but opted to vault over the walls that were besieged by angels from above. The soldiers were surprised by our presence, but didn’t bother to fight us as they had more pressing enemies. The angels, however, saw our existence as another potential target as they cast arrows of light in our direction as they did against the soldiers. They weren’t difficult to defend against; the falling angel corpses were more of an obstacle than the intended attacks.

     We reached and stood atop the outermost wall overlooking the oncoming army. The ground angels were larger and more heavily-armored than those in the air and in spite of their siege, they didn’t seem to bring any proper way to bypass the gate. No catapults, no battering rams, not even any large hammers. They didn’t even have ladders to attempt to scale the walls, as if their only hopes were the flying angels opening the gates from within, climbing the walls by hand, or just killing everything inside with those tall towers.

As I looked down at the army, I spoke up to Siti, “So, what’s the plan? Just...talk to them? Hope they’ll listen?”

“Pretty much! Hop down, ask some questions, keep beating them up until someone feels like answering. Either someone answers, or we beat up everyone!”

“You’re really betting on SOMEONE answering before we beat them all up, huh?”

“I do really enjoy gambling! Oh~! We should bet on which one happens first! Loser has to do one thing that the winner commands!”

“Sure, alright, I bet that they’ll talk before we beat them all.”

“No, I want that side, you pick the other one.”

“No, that’s really, obviously not going to happen.”

“Yeah! So you should let me win! Don’t you wanna see what I’ll make you do?”

“I saw what you had those demons doing back in Sero’s settlement; I have no idea, but I’m sure it’d be embarrassing. Besides, it’s no fun if I don’t try to win, right?”

“I dunno, me just winning is pretty fun.”

“For you.”

“Yes, for me, but it’ll be fun for you too when you lose!”

“You sure? You promise?”

“No promises!”

“Alright, well, let’s get down there and get started. You can think of some other bet that’s actually fair while we work, how about that?”

“Ugh, fine fine! Let’s go.”

     With our bickering settled, we both jumped down from the wall and right in front of the front line of angels. They were being pelted with arrows, bullets, siege and artillery fire from above and undoubtedly thought we were enemies there to stop them by how they immediately went in to attack.

     Siti was the first to act with hundreds of vines bursting from the ground and wrapping around dozens of the oncoming angels, binding their limbs and necks, then pulling them down to their knees while she inquired, “Hello! I was looking to speak to your goddess, could any of you tell me where she is?”

     Ignoring her, their surrounding comrades worked to rip and cut their allies out and launch their attack, only to be met with sharp bamboo shoots erupting from the ground and piercing them each in the head, then retracting as the angel corpses faded away into brilliant white dust.

     I moved to a different area than her and cast out a wide tungsten net, quickly adding more weight and thickness to the strands as it descended on the first group. “Excuse me,” I started, “I don’t want to fight, I-”

     “A LORD! FIGHT TOGETHER!” They interrupted as others encircled around me and moved in to attack. I used my brand to change power from Durus to Sero and quickly swept over them with devastating columns of lightning, disintegrating them instantly and sweeping over the angels behind them.

     Switching my power back to Durus, I cast as long wire to tie a bundle of them together, then pulled them in before shouting, “I don’t want to fight! I want to talk!”

     “We have nothing to say to a demon like you! FIRE THE OBELISK!” One captured angel shouted back. A few seconds after his call, one of those tall, white pillars directed their scorching ray directly at me, but that meant nothing against a tall, thick wall of silver that stopped, and even seemed to partially reflect its light.

     Once the attack was done, I brought down the wall and sighed. How long was this going to take? I looked over to Siti’s side and saw that she’d duplicated herself, using her vines to subdue more angels and her multiple bodies to interrogate multiple of them at once.

     Then the army of angels halted their advance, splitting their ranks to allow someone else through. It was an angel like the others, but one of more ornate appearance. It had four wings and a second, larger halo around the first. This was the first one I’d seen that wore a helmet, and its armor seemed to be on the outside of its body, rather than strangely bonded inside it. It dragged a whip and a white-hot brand in its hands and stopped some distance between Siti and I.

“You two!” The commanding angel barked, “Are you allies of Demon Lord Arx?! And what do you want with the goddess?!”

     The angels had stopped their march, but Arx’s soldiers had not stopped their barrage so, for the sake of less noise and to show our sincerity, I began to halt those incoming projectiles in the air. “No, we’re not allies, we were actually fighting him not that long ago. And we wish to speak with the goddess. We wanted to know how and why she came to the Demon Realm, hoping to find clues and a potential ally.”

“If you are not allies, then you have no issues with us continuing our assault?” The commander retorted.

“None.”

“Then our assault shall continue and you shall not interfere. In exchange, I shall take you to speak to the goddess!”

“Thank you, that’s all we ask for.”

     The commander raised their brand and shouted, ordering the army to continue their advance on the fortress, but now clearly avoiding the commander, Siti, and myself. Amidst the thunderous sounds of thousands of trampling feet, the commander ordered, “Come! Follow me!” And waded through that sea of angels.

     Siti and I followed closely behind as that stampede parted around us, and it would take us several moments of walking through to reach what seemed to be the back-most lines. Here was where those ivory pillars towered over us as they besieged those now-distant walls. Here, numerous circles with the same symbol that was embedded in the halos of the angels were etched into the ground, and whenever they lit up, another angel would come rushing out. There was one with numerous different symbols that looked nothing like the others and was heavily guarded by other angels with similar stature to the commanding one.

“Step into the circle.” The commander ordered.

     “Let me go first.” Siti said, growing a copy of herself and letting it enter the circle first. The circle lit up and the duplicate vanished. A moment later, Siti nodded her head, “It’s safe. Let’s go!”

     The two of us stepped onto the circle and the light enveloped us. It was a different feeling from using the portal that was used to get to Arx’s fortress, it felt like light was swallowing me and a sharp, tingling power was coursing through my body. Not just mine, but each demon embedded within the suit as well, I could feel it multiple times through them as well. Then, when the light faded, we were at our destination.

“By the way, I won our bet.” Siti chimed, smirking.