Elora, Champion

⭑ · · ᯓ 𐃈 ᯓ · · ⭑

Father…

“‘No…” Felix’s eyes burned with rage. “You monster!”

“So even you are capable of hatred, Hero.” Nostalgia, bearing the appearance of Felix’s benefactor, taunted them with a smile. “Now, hate me! Burn this day into your memories as you perish!”

A halo of golden spikes appeared around the crown of the man’s head. The light was intense enough around him to burn their skin as hundreds of light spears materialized in the air. Felix sensed danger.

“—!”

With just a simple wave of his wrist, the volley of spears crashed into the courtyard like a heavy rain, leaving smoke and dust in its path. Kite and Elora performed evasive maneuvers cleanly enough, but Felix wasn’t as fast.

What he couldn’t block with the flat of his axe tore through his clothing, burning the newly exposed skin on his arms and legs.

If not for the hardy makeup of his body and the chainmail he’d purchased before the journey, Felix was certain a regular person would have been vaporized—even if the attacks lacked the same bite of the real Dynas. The man was a one-mage army in his prime.

“Still, those light spears are dangerous,” Felix muttered.

Kite split her attention between an attacking Elora and the projectiles that rained from the sky. She cut through the air with her right hand, sending a slash towards Nostalgia, but he warped positions in the air. Another afterimage.

Felix felt helpless watching him dart around in the air. It wasn’t like he had the ability to fly, so he couldn’t chase him around. The extra weight he was carrying wouldn’t help either. He glanced at the axe in his hands.

“What do I do?”

The original plan was to handle Elora himself, but she stuck herself to Kite like glue as soon as the battle started. He also wasn’t possessed of any offensive magic that shot projectiles.

“It’s not like I can just throw my—“

Wait…

“Kite, get ready!”

“Ready for what?!” Kite’s eyes darted to Felix in time to catch him winding up with all his strength. “Oh…”

“Here goes…” Felix let go of his axe. “Nothing!”

It spun like a pinwheel through the air, Nostalgia putting up a light magic guard of interlocking hexagons just in time to slow its momentum, but the force knocked him off his floating magic circle onto his back.

“Now!”

Kite continued to dodge Elora’s attempts at skewering her with her spear as Kite used her wind magic to summon Felix’s axe back into his hands. He charged in to finish off Nostalgia as the man picked himself up off the ground with his scepter. However…

“Now, now.” Nostalgia grimaced. “We’ve only just begun the performance!”

A sword of burning light met the sharp edge of the axe, casting a glow on their faces and blowing their hair back with the force of Felix’s swing. The next exchange defied reason as the speed of clashing blades increased in intensity.

“HAH!!” Felix was bloodied, but he felt invigorated by the exchange, somehow, as his thoughts blurred.

“Tch.” Nostalgia’s every attempt to escape was met with Felix closing the distance like a wild animal hunting its prey.

Little by little, he was pushing the man back; that much was certain, but there was a cost in all of it that Felix hadn’t noticed. His sunset eyes burned the same violet as the jewel in the center of his axe, carrying his arms into each swing. An eerie smile had settled on Felix’s face.

Or maybe he had noticed it once before… while fighting the Warden.

The feeling of losing control, of his outward senses numbing to the feeling of combat. The blood, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, and a single mistake to spell the difference between life and death.

Is this… Battle High?

Sweat beaded on Kite’s brow as she watched in concern. The smile was one thing, but for him to look so joyful as he fought someone wearing the face of the man he’d once considered a father figure was beyond consideration.

“Buddy…?”

“There he is.” Nostalgia beamed. “Though muzzled, the beast still lives in you, after all.”

Felix growled, driving the pommel of his axe into Nostalgia’s gut and kicking him as the man flew backwards into the forge’s steel door.

Kite could smell the air of madness getting more intense, but not from Nostalgia. No, it came from none other than Felix himself. He swung his axe wildly at nothing, nearly hitting the stone seal in the process.

“Felix, snap out of it!” Kite shouted across the battlefield. “You’re losing it!”

“No, I’m not losing—GAH…” Felix held his pounding head, leaning on his axe for support. “I’m not…”

“Pick it up!”

“No!” Felix screamed. “Get out of my head!”

“That’s exactly it!” Nostalgia cackled through the blood he coughed up, still bearing Dynas’ form. “Your mind is at odds with itself, Hero... The natural result of rejecting the happiness I bestowed. But here, let’s bring this bout to its final act…”

Nostalgia pointed his light sword first at Felix, who had his guard up, but then his wicked gaze turned to the two women fighting to his right. From the tip of the blade, a tremendously powerful beam of light flashed forth.

Kite evaded, but Elora’s step faltered as the approaching light shone in her cloudy eyes. The axe had already clattered to the ground, missing its owner.

“Elora!”

Felix moved before he could think, throwing his body in the path of the beam. He crossed his arms to brace, but it did little to shield himself from the flesh-searing impact. He crashed into Elora, knocking them both to the ground close to the trailhead.

“Felix!” Kite cried out, rushing to his side. “What the hell were you thinking?!”

“…I told you…” Felix crawled along the ground towards Elora. “…to leave it to me…”

Felix’s hand finally reached Elora’s as healing light poured into her—the last of his mana. He whispered into her ear before consciousness slipped away.

“The present needs you, Elora.”

The man fell silent, his breathing labored.

“Felix... Felix?!” Kite shook him desperately, placing a hand on his cheek. “Oi?! Don’t you dare think about dying… idiot…”

“What a pity.” Nostalgia sneered, not looking much better. He had just begun healing his injuries with magic, but it suddenly stopped flowing. His light sword, too, flickered and dematerialized. “Huh? What’s this…?”

“…”

Elora’s fingers flexed instinctively around her spear as she lifted herself to her feet with a groan. Kite tensed up in anger, preparing for a fight, but Elora’s next words came as a shock—and a relief.

“…I’m going to need your help, Miss Harpy. No…” Elora gazed with her focused purple eyes at the other woman, wearing a resolute expression. “Miss Kite.”

“Elf, you’re awake?!” Kite scoffed. “But that would mean that you—And since when did we get on a first-name basis??”

“You would seriously ask—” Elora shook her head. “That matters not. What does matter is that we defeat this villain in Felix’s place, and allow him to rest. After I put this mission in jeopardy, he sacrificed what little energy he could spare so that we could finish this.”

“We?”

Elora held out her hand.

“I believe I made my stance clear, Miss Kite,” Elora said. “Will you help me with my spell?”

Kite considered for just a moment, though not for long.

“Ahh, alright… Elora.” Kite agreed, hesitantly grasping Elora’s hand. Her face reddened slightly, however. “But this doesn’t mean we’re friends, you hear?!”

Elora smirked.

“Whatever you say.”

“Impossible!” Nostalgia screamed, staggering. “Impossible! Impossible! You accepted my gift! How did you escape my control, my dominion?!”

“My, do you really not know?” Elora smiled. “I took the way out you offered, by leaving something from the present behind. Or are you simply upset you cannot leech off my mana any longer, I wonder?"

“No… no, that’s not right! You accepted your part! You don’t get to walk off the stage! Y-you—!” Nostalgia’s eyes wavered beneath a dark veil as he bellowed, his form melting back into its original state. “Grrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaah!!”

Elora tried her hardest to remember the words. The ancient tongue of her people, which she had spent centuries studying, was suddenly washed away in an instant…

My blood magic.

“I already found my purpose.” Elora declared, planting her spear in the ground. “Here, in the present. I—no—we will defeat you!”

Nostalgia’s gaze darted toward the trailhead. Whatever bravado remained vanished; survival had become his only instinct. However, there was a single small root gnarled tightly around his foot as he turned to run. He gasped.

“After me!” Elora shouted before beginning an incantation. “Undine, sovereign of water, gather the heavens beneath our call…”

Kite echoed her shakily.

“Z-Zephyr, spirit of wind, raise our voices beyond the clouds...”

The principles of magic were rooted in imagination, so the exact words being spoken were less important than the feeling applied by the one speaking them. A swirling storm gathered over Cloudspire, blackened clouds blotting out the sun’s light.

“Let water become our vessel—”

They’d joined hands as the squall tossed their hair around. Kite grew more confident.

“And wind become our wings—”

Nostalgia, meanwhile, clawed at the root, trying to escape with all the strength and rage he possessed. He gazed up at the forming clouds with terror.

“Twist the skies, awaken the storm, and let our wrath strike true!” Elora and Kite cried out in unison. “LIGHTNING STRIKE!”

Everything flashed white as a blinding light struck from the heavens, lightning tearing through their target with the united force of their combination spell. The man didn’t even cry out. Nostalgia twitched once; his white ensemble burned gray.

Elora, wasting no time, rocketed in on the wind Kite had conjured, weapon in hand. She drove the spear through his shoulder and pinned him to the ground.

. . .

“Impossible…” Nostalgia gargled. “You… You were supposed to…”

Elora’s face twisted with disgust as Nostalgia made one final play for survival, imperfectly changing his form.

“You wouldn’t kill me… would you?” Nostalgia smiled weakly, wearing Felix’s disfigured face. “You wouldn’t kill the man you love? Huh?”

Elora considered killing the imitation herself. She really did. However, she smiled, pulling her spear away from the man’s form.

“No.”

Nostalgia’s face flashed with false hope.

“But he will.”

“Wha—?”

Behind her, a violent gust caught Felix beneath his cloak as he ran in. His eyes snapped open as Kite hurled him upward, both hands already clasped around his axe’s haft.

“HAAAAAAAAH!”

His momentum carried him downward into one final swing.

***

Felix saw a moving, monochrome image against a white backdrop. A man he didn’t know wore a warm smile Felix had never seen before, yet somehow Felix felt that smile on his own face. As if he were observing and living the scene at the same time.

Without knowing how, he understood. The man gazed at himself in the mirror, the showmaster at a theater, clothed in white. Nostalgia, before the madness had taken him.

“It’s showtime.”

The people arrived by the hundreds to see his act. He was a success; everybody loved him. His wife and children were fed; everybody was happy. He enjoyed what he did for a living; nothing could be as fulfilling as the present.

Until it wasn’t. The people stopped coming to watch. His success faded. His wife and children weren’t fed. And worse yet…

“No, you can’t—!”

The money collectors came; they always did. With nothing left to give, they took his wife, his daughters. The present no longer had anything to offer him.

And then a blurry figure showed up with a proposition.

“Happiness, all the fun things exist in the past. Don’t they?”

And the showman received a gift, a hat, and one directive from the mysterious man.

“It’s time to put on one last show.”

***

What was that I just saw?

Felix’s head throbbed as the strange vision lingered.

The cut through Nostalgia was clean, from his shoulder down to his other rib. Once he was certain the Remnant wouldn’t suddenly spring back up and attack again, Felix looked toward his two companions, relieved that they were alright.

“You guys…”

Elora and Kite smiled back, before accidentally crossing gazes.

“Hmph.” They turned away.

Still dishonest, aren’t they?

As Nostalgia's severed halves dissolved into black particles, like the monster they’d fought before him, he smiled. With glazed eyes, Nostalgia muttered spitefully.

“…Fools, I show you things as they were…” He coughed in a whisper. “Not… as they are…”

As the last word passed his lips, he faded away, leaving only his top hat. The red obelisk in the center of the courtyard began to flicker as well before scattering into black particles, revealing ruined red stone beneath.

The seal!

They’d been had. A loud rumble nearly knocked them off their feet.

“The volcano!” Felix and Kite said at once. “It’s gonna blow!”

Elora didn’t even have to ask what her role had been in the fiasco. She had seen bits and pieces of her actions through gaps in her psychological sanctuary. However, she shook it away, putting on the face of a woman used to handling crises.

“We’d better warn the villagers before it’s too late.” The elf said. “Do they have any idea what’s happening?”

“Chief Andres told us that he’d prepare the villagers to evacuate, but how?” Felix wondered. “The Halfwing is on a set schedule. The flying folks can get out just fine, but what about the rest?”

“You mean people like us?” Kite gulped.

“I’m thinking…” Elora rubbed her chin. “Miss Kite, how fast can you get us down the mountain with your magic if I clear the way?”

“Ten minutes tops,” Kite answered confidently. “Only reason it took so long before is that Felix is a slowpoke.”

“Well, excuse me!” Felix threw up his hands, wincing with the pain he was still in. “Ow…”

Elora looked at him with an amused smile, and just a bit of worry for his injuries, before focusing in again.

“Then let’s hurry.”