Chapter Text
“Do not presume to speak of my future,” Emet-Selch hissed, the flaming visage of his mask fading as he accused her. Even now he couldn’t ignore it, the familiar sheen gleaming from within her soul, overflowing with Light, radiance. It was blinding, “And you, why waste your final moments in futile defiance?”
Emilia wheezed, limping towards the Ascian with heavy, misbegotten tears upon her face. Her boots scraped, her legs unable to lift from her exhaustion, pain. Everything hurt, the Light, her bones, skin, muscle. She could still see them, the tall robed figures--screaming, running, their beautiful hollow voices choking and begging her for a mercy she couldn’t provide.
Emet-Selch began to chuckle, breaking through the silence that had taken between them. He looked upon her, “Weary wanderer,” His voice was jeering, spiting her title, “Succumb, end this charade. We’ve both taken in your strength, I know you’ve no fight left to fight, no life left to live.”
The Warrior of Light made to speak, but whatever she’d wished to say it was swallowed by an intense, throbbing burn. She grasped a hand on her throat, the other taking to a fist in her hair. Luminous ink spilled from her lips, knees buckling her forward to the stone with a crash of heavy armors and blood. She tried to brace herself, but the impact alone tore through her armor, ripping against exposed flesh and bent metals. The miqo'te could feel where the blood found its way to the surface, staining her armor and the crystalline ground a deep shade of crimson.
As the pain spiked, her teeth clamped down upon her lips in a futile attempt to stifle it. A curdling scream of ink and light ripped from her chest, splitting the air with shattering, bone-chilling horror. It burned, all of it-eyes, skin, bone, blood-searing worse than any episode she’d endured yet. Her skull felt as if it was breaking beneath her fingers, repulsive chimes and cracking glass filling her ears, her vision.
“Please, Hydaelyn, please, let me...let me contain it, let me…” She chanted the mantra between gasps and coughs, praying to the Mothercrystal, “…Let me help him, I...I can't kill anyone else, please...”
Emet-Selch smirked triumphally, throwing his arms out to his sides with a playwright’s sense of grandeur, “You see, my dear? The Light will not be denied,” He laughed, a hollow, dark sound now echoing about the platform, “All you are doing is delaying the inevitable...Surrender to your fate, let the transformation take you.”
Another wretch of light found its way from her throat, spilling upon the ground with a crack of hot, sizzling smoke. The world around her was beginning to fade to black, “Rise up, sin eater, in madness, fury!” The Ascian’s eyes could see it, the aether devouring her organs, her muscles—he could see the networks being overrun, failing, faster now than any before. Whatever color he felt he could have recognized in that soul was simply oversaturated with white, disgusting and repulsive in its glow. “Take to the skies, devour the vermin infesting the land which is rightfully ours!”
“NO!” Thancred burst from the ground with a flash, his gunblade drawn dangerously over his shoulder.
The Ascian hissed, bringing forth a field of darkness to shield himself as their bodies clashed, he to his arm and other with sword. He had been careless, he knew the Hyur lacked aether and without it, he was a danger, a liability. He was cursing himself; he knew he should have kept a better eye on him-he was so close to ruining his performance.
A hollow, terrifying ring resounded against the barrier, a bullet suddenly coming loaded into the chamber of the smaller man’s gun. As they made eye contact, the latter’s snarl twisted to a cocky, arrogant smirk, “Now, Ryne! Now!”
The red-headed child gasped and darted for the miqo’te hero before her, desperation written clearly upon her pure, innocent face. He could see it, the blessing of the Mother, light, surging in her fingers.
“No…No, No, NO, NO!” Emet-Selch ground his teeth, the desire to kill burning hot within his chest, veins. He didn’t need the man alive for this act, he’d been a thorn in his side for long enough.
With a snap, the Ascian bent his fingers, grazing upon the arcane energies swirling beneath his breast. With minimal effort, he turned it, pressing and coiling until it exploded, throwing the hyur man back from his arm with a heavy, thundering crash. Thancred groaned as he hit the floor, his body rolling and landing, falling to a limp bundle beside that of the Warrior of Light.
With him dispensed, the Ascian turned back to the girl, a pang of distant guilt taking him. Despite the pretense, he felt that he had loved children; their curiosity, their minds. He remembered his days, nights teaching them, watching and this child had been no different. He couldn’t...remember every experience he’d had with the young minds of Amaurot-it had been so...so long ago-but she’d given him a glimmer of it. She’d taken upon him well, this child, over their journey upon the First, defended him more times than he could count. The Oracle would grow to be cunning, witty-a shame.
He built his aether again, a spear of darkness shooting from his outstretched hand. “Please, Hydaelyn, let me-” Emilia screamed, but she was frozen to the ground. The pain had now crippled her; she could see the sharpened blade of aether launch from the Ascian’s hand, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t block it.
All sound stopped, the air stale and stiff. It stuck her, hard.
Hades looked away, unable to take in his deed; he knew how the darkness would wound her, the Oracle.
The red-headed child slammed to her knees, the air fading from her breast with a huff of a tense, choking sigh. “You have to...fight it, Emilia,” she winced as the hero turned, her body shaking, convulsing. Ryne smiled at her, tears streaming down her cheeks, “Y-you have to…hold on…for those…who can fight, for those…you can-”
And she fell.
‘Hear, Feel, Think…’
The crack in Emilia’s mind tore open, her screams deafening within the world of voidal darkness. Emet-Selch clenched his fists, his body betraying him—why was this so hard, why was he having regrets? His heart was begging him to do something, but...if he could just go to her...He did still have time, he could still stay the turn, swallow it within his aether, magicks. She would succumb eventually, but…for now, he could…he could maybe make it painless? Was that not a mercy?
‘Heed me, my child, will yourself to the blessing.’
Space.
Cold, empty.
Emilia looked up from the ground, an expanse of white nothingness stretching around her, above her and below. She sat like that, stretched belly first upon the ground, the plane, staring and oh so, so tired. The hero didn’t know how long she was there, but should this be her damnation, she felt she could be content with it.
“Ah, it seems we are at an end.” She made to sit up, to measure her this voice, explain, but the strength in her arms gave way. With a crash, Emilia fell back to the ground, shaking, near tears with her frustration.
A boot suddenly stepped alongside her, coming to a halt along its partner. Ardbert, her friend, comrade, looked upon her with calculating, tired sadness. He wore the same Warrior’s armor, bloodied, but well-kept besides; had he his body, she felt tears would be on his cheeks, “H-how so?”
“We both know, Emilia.”
When he failed to elaborate further, she grunted. “What do we…know?
“You are dying. You...have nothing left, my friend,” The Warrior smiled, sadly, “But I can see the resolve within you, our course.”
Emilia winced, her heart felt like it had been replaced with a ball of glass, piercing, burning, and bleeding to all organs surrounding it. If he could sense it, understand it, then of course he knew her feelings and sentiment. This city, her journey, the story...the people, burning and screaming--this, Amarout. He didn’t have to say it, but she knew; Hydaelyn wouldn’t save her this time, she would have to carry through, kill him. “I…I have to protect them. I…I can’t-”
"You can." Ardbert’s expression stiffened, his eyes looking beyond her, puzzled, but in a way, reflective. “Tell me, Warrior of Light,” She scowled, “Emilia. Could you do it? Had you the strength, my strength, to take another step, to end this all, could you?”
“I-,” The chimes, the pain, were returning quickly but he made no motion in contest. The agony would come; ‘twas ebbing, flowing, but this felt...this moment felt different. A choice.
“Could you save our worlds?”
Emilia didn’t reply, but she made to stand, teeth grinding at the will she put into her movements, the strain. She’d managed to get to her knees, but before she could move further the Warrior extended his axe, smiling down at her, “Come then, we will fight as one.”
‘The scales will be drawn; his soul shall be weighed.’
Emet-Selch covered his eyes, blinding Light erupting from the hero opposite he on the platform. He was sure, as much as he had been on his course, that she had finally fallen, succumbed to the transformation. Her aether had dwindled, a star, fading and collapsing in on itself, and now-
“This world is not yours to end,” A blacked cleaver suddenly split through the obtrusion, vanquishing the brightness from his eyes with a crash of crystal and smoke. Stone shattered as its end met with the long, gorish blade, a gash now torn, resting, through the crystalline floor. He removed his hands slowly, watching as steam began to fade from his stage.
‘N…no…’ His heart ran cold, blood seizing within his breast.
Her.
Robed, clad with her mask and brilliant, abundantly glorious aether. The woman scowled as she watched him, frightening blue eyes taking in his gold, shining as bright as ice, the sky. Her hair swept around her, wild, flitting past her hood and shoulders like grass upon a meadow. He wanted to weep, his soul yearning to touch her, feel her, desperate to tell her of his journey, his affections. Thousands of years had he toiled, centuries of conquering, death, planning— to gaze upon her in this moment, this call to death. Zodiark take him, she looked as she had on the final day-beautiful, wonderful. Her soul was a beacon, shining and glittering, hopeful.
“N-no, it can’t be…” His lips shook, knees threatening to buckle, eyes brimming with tears. He tried, he tried so hard to memorize that visage, that color and face, but...
He blinked.
A Warrior, a man of red and grey armor now morphed in her place, shining, as brilliantly as Azem had but stronger, angrier. He was familiar, but Emet-Selch couldn’t place him-not a Scion? “This is our future, our story.”
Blink.
‘Deeds shall be recounted, balanced.’
The miqo’te woman appeared once again, her cloak billowing behind her in tattered, ragged remnants of its once former glory. Blood stained her shaking legs, but the Ascian could see the resolution, the strength that flowed behind her mismatched eyes.
‘He had a role to play.’
“Gah, a...a trick of the light,” Emet-Selch brought his gloves to his eyes, covering himself from her view. If he would have these tears, if he would pause this course, his course, for a glimmer of...of Azem, then he would not have this pathetic, broken creature look at him so. Azem would be with him once more, upon this farce's end. This is what it was all for; the Rejoining, their struggle and their pain- “You are a broken husk, hero, nothing more.”
“I may be broken, but I will do what I must,” She called, tightening the grip on her blade. He could see her eyes, the sheen, the tears, “I will do this: there are worlds who can yet fight, there are people upon this star that I can yet save!”
He pressed his gloves into his eyes, anger beginning to roll off of him. “For those you can yet save, ever the dramatic, ignorant fool.” His magicks had snapped through their patient seal, seeping through his visage and cooling his skin, coloring the air. He had a job to finish, a role to complete, the curtain couldn’t fall on him yet. “How can you hope to stand against me alone, weak as you are?”
“We will stand together!”
Both the Warrior and the Ascian turned, genuine shock coloring both of their faces. The Exarch, unhooded and hunched, stood, leaning upon his cane with the whole of his weight. He glared at the Ascian between bloodied, swollen eyes, a glowing resolve burning in each.
“How did—” Emet-Selch clicked his tongue, straightening himself to his full height. He ran a hand through his hair, taking in a measured, calculated breath. He’d bound the Exarch, left him in the care of his shades in Amaurot, 'twas impossible to believe his aetheric bonds could have broken, not without a considerable amount of power, strength. From his experience, the Exarch’s powers weakened the further he was from his oh so precious tower; the concept rubbed him the wrong way-had he... he underestimated him? “I’m surprised you can even stand at all.”
The man coughed, pulling himself up upon the support of his staff, weak as he was. The Ascian could sense his swell of aether, the Allagan magicks heaving from his soul into the air, “I cannot well leave matters half finished.” Emet’s eyes narrowed, “Let expanse contract, eon become instant.”
‘Oblivion shall judge; deeds which have yet been left unfinished, recalled.’
He ground his teeth, watching as portals of aether began to appear around the Warrior. His performance, his plans, meticulously wrought, formed-withering away before him by no more than...than a shard, an insect, vermin. “Damn you,” He growled, “Damn you all and your insufferable blessing!”
Beams of flaring light suddenly broke into the sky, burning, searing from within azure runes and stretching well past the stars they could see. “Champions from beyond the rift, heed my call!” The Exarch pulled himself up, and with his remaining strength, he smashed his staff into the ground beneath him. He collapsed to a knee with the impact, but remained upright, looking to her, the Warrior, with a smile.
Emet-Selch felt the rage return, pooling into his chest, his aether. Zodiark was calling, chastising his wishes, his plans; he should have killed the matron when he’d had the chance. He should have ended this, killed her in the Crystarium, heeded Elidibus’ warnings, his own judgements.
A hollow ring, bell, sounded, the burning sigils upon the ground suddenly widening, silhouette’s appearing within each. “Emet-Selch,” Emilia ripped her blade from the ground, swinging it back upon her shoulders with the ease of a seasoned guardian. She met his gaze, “What will come shall, but...if you stay this path, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
He chuckled, darkly, deeply. The very concept of her protesting against him was absurd-she knew not his strength, she knew not the depth of his power, the love he had for his people. “Very well, let us proceed with your final judgement then, hero.” He lifted his hand before him, the blackened aspect of his aether dripping from his gloves like ink, “Let the victor write the tale, and the vanquished become it's villain.”
Venomous, writhing clouds of darkness began to swirl around him. Cool, ice-like chill seeped to his limbs, his bones, cracking the ground as he began his final march towards her. He could see them, tears, fresh, streaming from her eyes as she braced herself, “But come, let us cast aside titles and pretense. It’s about time we show our true selves to one another.”
“Don't...” Emilia whispered.
His ancient shell broke, the glow of his Ascian mask flaring to life like a red flame in the dark. Zodiark’s voice rang in his head, jeering, shouting in a triumphant roar that nearly deafened all else around him. Tendrils of aether swallowed his legs, his arms, burning like smoke as it scorched his skin. His teeth bore as he smirked, wild, “I, am Hades.” His voice fell, a rumbling, powerful bass, mimicking the call of Zodiark in his mind, “Paragon, Architect. He who shall awaken our brethren from their dark, voidal slumber.”
Emilia’s throat clenched, the power of his name striking her like a knife.
“Show me your vaulted strength, hero, and I shall expose the lie of your fragmented existence.”