![[Image: ChapterBreak.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/ChapterBreak.png)
Right, to the cellar then. Again. Mita wasn't really sure how he was going to get down to the cellar after presumably breaking some ribs but...Lyri's dad was in bad shape. If he didn't move him carefully and quickly, he was going to die. Mita had been through that. The last thing he wanted was to watch someone else go through it when he could help.
Forcing himself to move, Mitari pushed forward towards Lyri's father, only to have his spine chilled with the words of the last heretic dragoon. He stopped in his tracks and turned behind him to look wide-eyed at the beast. No longer was he hyur, or elezen, or whatever he was. A monstrous dragon was all that was left, lusting after power and only power.
Lyri's command jumped his senses and he lunged forward towards her father. Checking the man's wounds for a moment, he wasted no time pulling the man carefully into his arms and starting for the stairway.
The Dragoon laughed at Lyrique and pressed the point of the blade on his against the blunt end of her own and dragged it down the shaft. He didn't so much as flinch as Lyrique's blade cut into the side of his face, just swinging his head away with a grin. Lyrique's blood hit the floor at her feet, warm enough to steam on the stone. She barely felt the pain in her numb hand, her fingers simply feeling strange, and she didn't look for fear that they'd been severed completely.
The Dragoon's arms and head swung from his spine like a corpse on a pike, and he said, "Midichante. We've been counting down on your siblings. You're the last one."
"Blasphemy!" Lyrique swung her lance at open air.
Ice and snow broke around her in the wake of the Dragoon's leap, the dark form launching into the sky and away from her attack. His heckling chuckle trailed behind him like a heinous stench, even as his silhouette vanished into the white haze of the storm.
Her thumb and two primary fingers still had gripping power on her lance, and she hooked it against her opposite elbow for support as she pursued the Dragoon, throwing herself blindly into the white static sky.
Meanwhile, Mitari ran as fast as possible without hurting the old man, or himself, down the stairwell. Rubble and debris was falling past his head as the tower seemed to be falling in on itself. He cursed loudly to himself, and could only hope Lyri would be okay. She would never forgive him if he left her father though, and he wasn't sure he could do that same. So down the spiraling staircase he went until  he came to the broken stairs.Â
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." He cursed, panicked, to himself. He glanced down towards the ground. It wasn't that far. If he positioned himself right he could... He didn't have time to think. "Hold on tight old man!" He winced and dived off the side, keeping the old broken man close and his back to take the impact. He landed hard on the rubbled ground, but solidly at least. Blood spewed from his mouth as he tried to take in air again. The old man... Mitari looked to the man, but he seemed relatively unchanged. But Mitari... he was going to have trouble getting up again.
There was a silence that Mitari found a certain peace to. Where he could focus on breathing and pulling himself back together as much as possible. The pendant the hung around his neck glowed faintly, but it was obscured by the armor her wore. Slowly, he pulled from the endless aether of life around him to tape back together his ribs and body. Enough to walk. Enough to keep moving. He had to keep moving.Â
And finally he shuddered and moved to sit up, but it was too late. The tower shuddered violently and through the roof crashed a figure of blood and steel. The ceiling gave to its weight, and then the floor and Mitari was sent falling.Â
Lyrique was a star of gold, glass, black ichor and red blood, and she left a tail of swirling snow as she fell. With an unnatural speed she descended, like a bolt thrown to earth. She struck the roof of the tower head-first, and her helmet shattered on impact. Shards of the crest of Midichante that had decorated her facemask now cut into her face, or spread themselves about the ruins.
Her crashed flat against the stone of the roof even as that stone cracked and splintered, fell inward and became ruin. In a brief moment that seemed to slither by, the roof gave way under the force of the impact, and Lyrique was falling again.
This time the stone from the floor preceded her, crashing into the weakened floor below her and caving it in before her own body reached it. Lyrique was limply rolled up in between rubble below and above, massive chunks of the building pressing down on her as -- one floor at a time -- she fell through a thousand tonnes of stone.
This ended at the ground floor, the cellar reinforced enough to endure the incredible blow. With a crash that rolled ike thunder, rubble hit the ground and began to pile up, large chunks of stone being thrown to the sides and knocking holes in the walls. The whole tower sagged, but it stayed standing, now little more than a hollow urn with stairs wrapping its insides.
As the stones settled in the bottom of the tower, a chunk of a wall rolled free and collapsed to reveal Lyrique Midichante half-buried in the rubble. She was arched improbably with her feet over her head, her arms hanging down, red hair pouring from her scalp like blood. Red drops pelted the stoned beneath her, falling from steams that ran down both arms and criss-crossed her face. Her green eyes stared tiredly ahead at nothing.
She breathed shallow and fast. Gold chains and broken glass beads hung from her chest and shoulders, the flayed remains of her sundered armor.
He flailed, tried to find the old man in the air. His back hit the ground hard and the small patch of floor beneath him held. Mitari scrambled, eyes lit with adrenaline as he looked for the broken figure of the old man. His eyes caught a glimpse, and he darted out faster than he knew it could, grabbing the man and pulling him into his arms.Â
"H-hang on!" Mitari sputtered, placing Lyri's father on the small patch of standing stone and pressing his hands to the man's chest. Again, the stone against his chest glowed and grew warm. The knowledge of healing arts that was not his own pulling forth life and aether and pressed it into the old man, weaving it carefully to mend and hold steady. Mitari looked at him again, panicked and sweaty and thought the man looked as if he had regained a bit of color.Â
He wasted no more time, pulling the man into his arms and heading down the rest of the treacherous path to the bottom. It was not far. Just a short jump. And Mitari scrambled, finding the cellar door covered in rubble. He knocked it away with his foot and quickly saw to it that someone from below had grasp of Lyri's father, only to shut the cellar door and push another piece of rubble over it.Â
Mitari's task completed, he looked around, scrambling for a lance.Â
"Lance... lance... where..." He froze as he saw a body, dagling from the rubble and drowning in blood. "L-l... Lyrique!" Mitari called, rushing towards the broken figure. He did not know if it was really her, but he had to go to her side regardless.
Lyrique was like a bloodied windchime hanging from the stone, her armor broken and bent into strange shapes that were outlined in gold and fogged glass. Snow had already begun to settle in the cracks over her body, drifts of white powder that had fallen into the crevice with her, in places turned pink or black by blood.
Her gaze fell as though pulled by gravity, to watch her hair stained a darker shade of red in streaks that reached towards the stone beneath her, to watch the small channels of blood running down the rubble.
She didn't show any initial reaction to Mitari.
"Lyrique!" Mitari called again, rushing to her side and skidding onto his knees to tend to her. He looked frantically at her, hoping she was still alive, looking for a sign of breath. "Sorry Lyrique, hate me later for being lesser and touching you or whatever." Mitari spat out before pulling her tenderly and roughly down to the floor proper so he could examine her wounds.Â
Mitari pulled off his gloves and pressing his own injured hands to her chest. Healing, healing, he needed to heal. A third time, the soulstone against his chest glowed so brightly now that it shown faintly through his torn armor. The heat is exuded burned his chest lightly and he tried to ignore in favor of patching up the worst of her wounds. It was clumsy healing, and with a weak flow to it since he had nothing to channel energy through, but he hoped, he prayed to Halone it would be enough to keep her alive.
As Mitari began to heal her, Lyrique's shallow breaths became audible, and her eyes moved in lazy, confused circles. She was pale from cold and bloodloss. Her muscles were both hard with tension but limp all over.
Into her voiceless breath she began to painstakingly insert letters. "U'ta... I mis... I'm not..."
"Mitari goddamnit. Is it that hard to say? Mi-tar-ri!" He hissed back furiously at Lyrique, pressing his hands a bit more firmly against her chest. "Just... shut up. Shut up and let me do this one thing that I can do. Okay?" Mitari took a deep breath and refocused his efforts, doubling them into healing whatever he could.
For a few long moments, Lyrique simply lay there like a body only half-animated, staring through the holes in the ceiling at the white sky high above them. Snow fell on the two of them.
Her eyes closed and she exhaled, "...Mitari."
Mitari didn't say another word. He just sat there and used everything he could muster to try and magically duct-tape Lyrique back together. The soulstone against his neck burned, and for some reason, it felt like there was a particularly warm hand on his shoulder. Almost like his mother was there, channeling her energy through his and into Lyrique.Â
He pulled from the surrounding aether until it would give no more and finally looked down to her, afraid he had failed in healing her but desperately hoping that it was enough.
The woman lifted one hand onto her chest, and grabbed Mitari's arm. It was the hand that had been broken before, still aching and weak, but it somehow had a small degree of gripping strength. She looked at Mitari and was able to focus on him, and when she spoke, she had a voice, as tired as it was. "Mitari. Since when can you...?"
"Since always. You just never bothered to notice." Mitari smiled a bit and pat her hand, hoping to pry it loose. "Did you kill them all? Are there more? I got your father to the cellar. They're taking care of him."
An expression of grief washed over Lyrique, pulling on her every feature. She drew in a deep breath, her mouth hanging open and her eyes widening, gripping Mitari's arm more tightly. "I miscounted. I was wrong. There were more, in the sky. We can't take the keep back."
Mitari scowled and glanced up to the sky. More? Too many... If they couldn't take the keep back then they had to run. But... he could still fight. Maybe she couldn't, but he could.Â
"Give me your soulstone." Mitari asked, glancing back to down Lyrique. "I can still fight. Let me borrow your lance and your soulstone. I can kill the rest."
Shaking her head fervently, Lyrique responded bitterly, "You're an idiot. There's more to being a Dragoon than having a soulstone and a lance. Those heretics would kill you and I'd be left without my power."
"I know that Lyrique. Did you really think I sat around here for as long as I did and only shoveled chocobo manure? Did you really think I didn't learn anything and just did as you said?" Mitari scowled deeply at her. There wasn't much she could do if he just took her soulstone. He could just take it. It was in his grasp.Â
"Fine. If you wont' give me yours, I know where I can find one." Mitari stood from her and turned, moving towards the distant and shadowed body of a dead corrupted dragoon.
"Don't be an idiot!" Lyrique rolled to her knees quickly, and then promptly collapsed onto her haunches and caught herself with her hands. "Even if you'd trained for a decade with the High Houses' best, you've no experience! You won't even know how to control the power in the stone so you don't smash your body against a damned wall!"
Mitari paused and offered a dark smile back towards Lyrique.Â
"Maybe someone should have taught me properly then." And with that he turned and walked, kneeling next to the body and rummaging through its corpse to find what he sought.
With inhuman speed, Lyrique launched her broken body off the ground and threw the mass of her body against Mitari to knock him violently away, herself tumbling several times after the impact.
Mitari heaved a loud exhale of air as he was violently knocked from the corpse and beneath Lyrique's heavy, and quite spikily armored body. He found the wind knocked completely out of him and struggled for a minute to catch his breath again.
Laying on her belly in the snow and stone, too weak to stand, Lyrique struggled to speak, "You... Can't. There are so many reasons. Fool." She turned her face so that her green eyes glared at him through red hair and blood, "I need you to help me. Do not leave me like this. Do not touch the heretic again."
Mitari slowly got to his knees before standing again. She had always told him no. They had always told him no. The temptation to fuck them all and run off with their 'precious' resources struck him. He could be stronger than they ever were. He could show them his power. In all of his powerless life, he knew he could have that power and strike them all down as if he were Halone himself.Â
But he turned his head towards Lyrique and sighed. "What do you propose then?"
Pulling herself up onto her knees once more, Lyrique said, "We need to get everyone out of the keep. There will be camps nearby. Those you've hidden in the cellars will know where. You can help them and I will stay to give you an opening."
"Tch. You can't even stand!" Mitari scowled at Lyrique deeply and shook his head. But she was right about one thing. They had to get the others out of here. He walked over the dead body and towards the cellar. With a heavy heave he pushed the rubble out of the way and pulled up the door.Â
"You won't be distracting anyone. Let's just get them out as best we can." He called back darkly before sticking his head down the cellar stairs.
"They knew to call me Midichante," she muttered, forcing herself to her feet. Her knees wouldn't fully extend, her back hunched. She had lost her lance somewhere. The woman looked to be holding together only through some magical mixture of Mitari's healing and the power of the soulstone she carried. "Once they realize I survived the fall, they'll focus their attention on me. This time until they are sure that I am dead."
Mitari paused and glanced back. Why wouldn't they know to call her Midichante? Didn't everyone know of her? Of the Midichantes? He didn't question it for now, instead moving a bit further into the cellar and peering around.Â
"Well at least take a lance. You won't be a good distraction if you just die immediately." He called back, rummaging around before throwing a lance towards her.
Lyrique caught the lance, her posture weak but her arm and hand strong. This just before another lance struck her from above, crashing into the armor on her back and sending chunks of golden filigrees skittering to the ground. The only barely-assembled woman collapsed with a silent groan, curling up on the floor next to where the dark lance landed.
A heretic dragoon joined the lance a moment later, cold face smiling, his eyes on Mitari and a smirk on his face. "So that's where the survivors are located. Thank you, Miqo'te."
Mitari spun on his heels and stormed up the stairs as he heard something strike from above. He slammed the cellar door shut and stood on top of it, as if his body could protect the flimsy door. A dragoon. A corrupted dragoon no less.
Mitari unfurled his tail and caught a small stone in the palm of his hand. It was a good thing he had never listened to Lyrique in the first place.Â
With a might he had never known and a speed untested, he launched himself at the dragoon with all the power he had stolen from the other heretics. His fist went forward towards the man's shield face with a power to shatter the very mask he wore, and probably his hand in the process.
Lyrique curled up on herself, her lance forgotten, her body broken, her armor in pieces all around her. She could sense Mitari's movement even if she couldn't see it, the speed and power of the charge enough that she could hear the displaced air, feel the floor trembling in respect. She wanted to shout, but whispered instead, "No, Mitari! Not the heretic's soulstone! Not that!"
Power. More power than he had ever felt surged through him. It was breathless. Weightless. It shattered the shackles he had always felt tied tightly around his body. It was freedom. An exhilarating feeling that coursed through his body and head like a high.Â
The Heretic and the Miq'ote slammed into the nearest wall, further toppling the tower and sending rubble crashing to the ground. It took took a second before they were off the wall again, flying through the air like dragons in a sick and twisted fight.
Whatever buildings still stood, where standing no longer as the two crash through and then darted back to the air again. Whatever lance the heretic had was gone, dropped upon the floor someplace near Lyrique and the cellar.Â
Screams and the loud ringing noises of the fight echoed through the air and finally the duo slammed into the ground not far from Lyrique again. Mitari was on top, his hands wrung around the heretic's neck. The heretic struggled beneath him, grasping and scratching at Mitari. But with his immense newfound power, Mitari dug his nail into the mans neck and pulled as hard as he could. The result was a grotesque scene. Something so gruesome, even Mitari scrambled back from what he had done and turned his head to shakily vomit what remained of the contents in his stomach.Â
Still, when he regained a mostly semblance of himself he was in worse shape than he originally though. Lyrique had been right in that the power of a dragoon's soulstone was more than he was capable of handling without proper training. Bones shattered and broken in odd directions, but the adrenaline high kept him from feeling it all yet. His body shook with disgust and power. Through all his helpless life, he had obtained more power than he thought possible. And there was even more to be obtained. His eyes cast upwards. That dragon... there was one outside wasn't there? If he could tear a man apart with his limbs, what could he do with a weapon to a dragon?Â
The temptation was strong, and he shakily moved towards Lyrique to grasp for the lance.
Shivering on the ground, mostly limp, one arm across her chest, Lyrique watched Mitari's approach with eyes wide, as though he had fangs and horns. She took a breath that shook deep in her chest, and said in a cloud of warm breath, "Mitari, you need to stop. You need to help me."
Mitari paused faintly, looking at Lyrique for a moment before grasping for the lance anyway and moving to stand. He gave a hollow laugh towards her, his eyes glancing back up towards the sky.Â
"And what will I get for helping you? More rejection. More disreguard. Finally... I can finally have all the power I was always denied. I don't have to be helpless. I can do it. I can kill anything." He grinned maniacally towards the sky, towards the dragon. He could slay that dragon. He had the power now to do it. He could slay that dragon and take its power for his own. And then he could do whatever he wanted. He wasn't bound to being some vagrant anymore. He could do anything with that sort of power...
"You're going to die," Lyrique bit out from between her teeth, clutching her own body tight with one arm as though she could keep herself from falling apart while she struggled onto her knees. It was a humiliating process, pressing her forehead against the ground while she got her knees beneath her, and when she lifted her face to look at Mitari, it was smudged with dirt and snow and blood.
"There are more heretic dragoons, every one of whom is better than you. What happens to me after you die? What happens to my father and everyone in the cellar?"
Mitari let out a laugh. A hollow, cruel, dark laugh. Something completely out of character for him. Throughout all is his years with the Midichantes, he had never been cruel. Cocky, perhaps, but never cruel.Â
"What a fitting end for us all then, don't you think?" He hissed back towards the broken women. He stepped towards her, his own broken body moving in a somehow serpentine fashion. "How fitting that we all die together then. And to think, we could have all lived if only you had trained me. If only you had seen what I am capable of. Then maybe we would all live because I could have fought with you at the beginning. I could have helped in a fashion more substantial then what I did. How fitting it would be for you all to die because your pride for all these years doomed me to fail. If I were the vengeful sort, that's precisely what would happen."
His words were seething and dark. Something corrupt emanated, as if he were turning. And then it stopped and he stood up straight.
"But revenge isn't my style." He said flatly before limping over towards Lyrique again. "How do we get everyone out with the keep infested?"
Grinding her teeth, Lyrique stared at Mitari as though she'd never seen anything like him. Like he was something other than a person. Her one hand tightened on her chestplate, pulling on some of the ornamentation there, and her red hair veiled one of her bright green eyes. But as far as Mitari knew, Lyrique had never considered him a person to begin with. So her look didn't change to him. It was the same as it had always been.
When he was done speaking, without changing her expression, she said, "I'll give you a chance at revenge when we're done here, if you want." She then leaned forward, swayed backward, and stood. Her stance was unsteady, and her gaze turned about in expectation of being attacked again at any moment. Though she couldn't have done anything about it. She was practically helpless.
Mitari waved a hand dismissively and limped his own half-broken self over. "The hard way. Do we have anyone else that's alive I wonder..." he muttered before motioning to Lyrique again. "I got a little bit of healing left in me. We need to be as taped together as I can get us before we start hauling people out of here. If need be, I can distract them and you can get everyone to run." Mitari held out his hand and motioned for Lyrique to take it.
Lyrique took his hand, though she still watched him. "There are no other Dragoons here. I don't know where they've gone. I think some of them are our enemies now."
Mitari gave an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe I'm more loyal to the Midichantes than your own Knights. This is completely..." He grunted and shook his head before pushing it completely out of his mind. "Right, healing. This might feel intrusive but, don't think you're good to go. I'm just going to try and shove everything where it's supposed to be and hold it there for the next few hours. You'll die if you go around acting like you're totally healed." Mitari warned seriously before closing his eyes.Â
Most of the aether around him was tapped out or corrupted, but he could pull from further away. Again the stone on his neck burned faintly and he focused himself on pulling the living aether from far away. Further out into the snow where life was blanketed beneath the white fluffy cold. He pulled it all closer to himself and Lyrique until it permeated the air with a thick and breathable tension. And then he focused it abruptly on their persons, forming a sort of magical barrier around the muscles that would force them in place and hold them there for perhaps the next thirty to forty minutes.Â
The actual feeling of shoving all of his bones and brokenness back together properly took Mitari's breath and he fell to his knees to cough and try and regain it. His everything felt stiff and uncomfortable, but the spell itself was fairly efficient. He couldn't quite feeling the pain anymore, just a lot of stiffness and with that he looked towards Lyrique to see how she had fared having a large force of external magic shunted into her.
The woman was looking at her once-broken hand, shifting her wrist around, gripping and uncurling her fingers. Her face was set in a frown, but her body stood straight and independent. She gave Mitari a disturbed look and pulled away from him, turning her back from him and walking a few paces away. Lyrique stretched her limbs and turned her back one way and then the other, working her shoulders and neck.
"I feel sullied," she observed, quietly."I do not assume that either of us are going to survive. You aren't exactly my pick of people to die with."
"Well..." Mitari coughed and stood up, rubbing his arms lightly and making sure everything was set properly. "I wanted to be a dragoon and I didn't want my family to get murdered. So I would say dying with someone who helped your stupid ass in the first place isn't that bad. Now quit your bitching and get a lance. We have innocents to evacuate." Mitari said, somewhat disturbingly cheerfully before turning and grabbing a lance from the floor. With lance in hand he moved over towards the cellar and threw the door open again, peering down below.
"Get them started," Lyrique said, walking back towards the center of the room. "I'll get the heretics started in the other direction, as was my plan in the first place. Make sure you stay with those you are evacuating."
She went to one knee underneath the hole in the ceiling, preparing to jump away.
Mitari paused and quickly moved next to her to grab her hand again to stop her. Â "Hey... they're your people. Shouldn't you be the one to guide them to safety? You'd have a better chance at living if you stayed with them..." Mitari frowned deeply at her.
"Do not touch me," Lyrique said, knocking Mitari's hand aside and jumping away. She landed on the pile of rubble, though, only half a floor up. She lingered there in a crouch, "My father is the head of my family. As long as he and the other heirs live I don't have the luxury of thinking of my own survival. I'm a Lady at peace, but right now I'm just a Dragoon. As are you, for the next ten minutes, and under my command. Do as I say."
Mitari clicked his tongue as she snapped and jumped away. Always a bitch. Always. Even when she was dying and he saved her. Several times. He shook his head and shrugged. Â "Yeah alright. I can listen to directions." He huffed, cracking his neck and moving back to the cellar.
"Make sure you stay with them, Mitari!" Lyrique repeated and then leapt up the center of the tower, disappearing. She hadn't even taken a lance with her.
Mitari clicked his tongue. No lance? She was going up there to die and it wasn't gonna give him any time to... ugh. He called down to the people below in the cellar and quickly got them to the surface. Making sure they were all in a tight group with the injured being carried, he started to lead them from the rubble, hoping to stay out of sight as much as possible.
![[Image: Collage_banner.png]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/179079766/Collage_banner.png)
