She raised herself back up, looking around the facility, listening for the sounds of movement, but she heard now, so she made her way back to the elevator, leaping up through the shaft back in to the aboveground world. She made her way back to the rift and entered through it, returning to Ser and to Zeraph.
“My… That was quick. It seems like someone was a bit excited,” Zeraph mused as they gazed up the form of the child who they had once seen as their daughter. “Now, are you ready for the next stage?”
Avery’s eyes flashed brightly as they stared up at Zeraph. “Yes of course.”
“Then let us begin!” Zeraph called as they pulled their arms, the restraints on them shattering to glowing golden dust. Zeraph dropped to the ground, their body slowly returning to its prime form. They thrust their fist through the floor and Avery watched as glowing energy poured out of a massive crystal in the ground and in to Zeraph, restoring their body and their power. As more and more of their power was returned, Avery could feel the malicious pressure that surrounded them grow greater.
As they stood up, now returned to their full power, they began to flex and stretch their arms, needing to get them accustomed to being used once more. They began to explain. “Now… With that, the Masters are going to be here in a rather short amount of time, so Lothia give her the earrings.”
Lothia nodded and pulled out a small case. He opened it and presented it to Avery. Inside of the case, there were two strange earrings that seemed to be made of faded, dark purple crystals. Avery took the earrings and inspected them, slightly confused. “What exactly are these?”
“Those, Avery, darling, are destruction mystic earrings. They are modeled after the earrings that the Masters wear which provide them with their unlimited supply of essence. With these and the seal on your back combined with the hundreds of souls now living inside of your body now, you will be able to wield the power of pure destruction for almost a full two hours. Now, the instant the Masters arrive, place the earrings on and you will know what to do with the rest. You will fight the Masters and I will fight Sengario. Additionally, I give you permission to use your wind vision. Am I understood?”
Avery nodded solemnly, clutching the earrings and getting in to a fighting stance, preparing for the Masters’ arrival. After only a few minutes, the ground began to rumble and out of the doorway to the room came seven bright beams of light. Slowly, the light began to solidify in to the form of seven large individuals. Feeling their energy, Avery was able to recognize them as the Masters and so she placed the earrings on her ears. The second they were on, she felt an unbelievable amount of power flowing through her body. Her eyes flashed and she quickly activated both of them.
As she looked at the figures, she recognized the largest golden figure, a woman in a white and gold dress, as Sengario and so, she quickly charged the rest of the Masters, her hands once more changing in to large black claws. Avery’s first target was a blue figure. They were missing a leg and Avery recognized this weakness, spotting the destruction scar that had caused it. She slashed through the leg, shattering it to pieces and throwing the woman off balance.
After the woman in blue, Avery rushed the figure dressed in white. She once again targeted her weakness, slashing at her eyes and tearing right through them before backing up to dodge an attack from the four others. In a moment of concern, the figure in black who seemed to be missing an arm, Avery found them distracted and so she took the opportunity to destroy their arm as well. Thus far, she had crippled half of them, but they were beginning to catch on to her strategy, so she had to rework.
She began to go on the defensive, avoiding the attacks that were coming her way. She did her best to do it without wind vision to ensure she was able to track the movements in real time. This kept up for a good while before one of them finally struck her and sent her flying backwards. Using her own magic, Avery extended the distance and retreated for a moment to collect herself and analyze the information.
Based on what she had observed, most of them were not very good fighters and relied heavily on magic. The white one, Luminitrious, was the weakest of the bunch, even more so now without her vision. Thankfully, because of the power that her body was being provided by the earrings, she was able to create a permanent injury on them, so her sight was totally shot for the rest of the fight. The blue one, Pototangaros, and the brown one, Gigrias, were both at a severe disadvantage here. They were unable to utilize natural forms of their element here. The same was mostly true of the green one, Strataros as well, but it was a similar disadvantage to Avery herself. The biggest difference was just that Avery was only minimally relying on wind and was instead working more with lightning for her movement thanks to the abundance of destruction essence she had. The black one, Malistryfe seemed to pose no real problems. Even compared to the rest of them, he seemed… worn out. However, the one that did present issues was the red one, Exfernerous. He was analyzing the fight just like Avery and was utilizing his magic and fighting all like an expert. With that all in mind, Avery was ready to start taking them apart.
Unsurprisingly, the one leading the charge against her was Exfernerous. However, she had a plan for him. She had noticed the injury on his abdomen earlier and so she slid underneath of him and struck at his injury with her highest speed attack, sending him flying in to the ceiling. In the confusion created by the impact, Avery slid to the side and launched herself next at Malistryfe, clawing his face and landing another high-speed punch, this one sending him flying in to the ground, cracking the stone underneath him. Avery dropped down and slashed her claws through his chest, tearing through his body and leaving massive scars before she retreated, quickly dodging an attack on both sides from Exfernerous and Strataros.
Avery decided to dodge towards Strataros, getting behind his back and acting on a hunch, slashing at his back. The cry of pain proved her right and she used both hands to knock Strataros in to Exfernerous. With those two down for the moment, Avery moved backwards and began slashing all across the bodies of Pototangaros, Luminitrious, and Gigrias. With these added injuries, Avery hoped that at least Pototangaros and Luminitrious would be out now. If that was the case, that would have it down to half.
Just as Avery had been recovering a bit, she was met with another large assault by Exfernerous and Strataros. This time, they were moving together and minimizing their openings, so Avery had to rely on dodging and go back on the defensive, much to her dismay. With herself unable to find any proper openings and starting to take on a good bit of damage, Avery finally gave in and embraced her wind vision. The second it took hold, everything around her slowed. She leapt in to the air and began furiously slashing at Exfernerous before suddenly, her wind vision blipped out and she was struck backwards towards the rest of the Masters.
Avery stood there, heaving wincing. For the first time during the fight, she noticed her body was literally breaking apart. Parts of her were fading in to black mist however the power was still building inside of her. Avery traced it to the earrings and so she tried to remove them, but found they were stuck. As she realized the fate to befall her, she let out a thunderous roar, and began to pour essence and lightning out of her body at an alarming. Growing her claws, she pulled the collapsed bodies of the Masters towards her and watched as the waves of energy leaving her body were disintegrating their bodies.
As the other two Masters entered, their faces turned to shock and then to regret as they realized what was happening. However, Avery ensured that it was far too late as the massive seal under her ignited. The second the black flames touched her, a torrent of pure destruction and lightning detonated centered on her. The earrings shattered as she let loose one final screech, turning the Masters to dust.
On the other side of the building, the shockwave was still tearing through. The whole building was rumbling. Zeraph smiled with pride, noting the extremes that Avery had gone to to take out the Master. However, the wave wasn’t stopping. Zeraph’s smiled devilishly as they quickly pinned Sengario to the ground and allowed them to be engulfed by the wave of destruction.
Even after receiving a face full of destruction, however, Sengario’s body persisted. It remained as a smoking husk, but even that Zeraph found rather impressive.
“I know you’ll just come back, but the time it will take will ensure that I balance the scales, Senny…!” Zeraph cried as they plunged their hand in to the core of the husk and pulled out a glowing golden orb of energy. Without a second thought, Zeraph closed their fist around the orb and smiled as it dissipated.
With that, Zeraph stood up and dusted themself off. As they looked around their ruined fortress, they sighed. While they did not hold any particular affections towards Lothia or Avery, he did… miss them, at least somewhat, but thanks to Avery detonating herself, she had ensured that neither of them were alive any longer.
Zeraph nodded to the darkness beyond the window and clawed their hand through the air, creating a new rift to the void which they entered, placing them squarely back on the surface of Terra only a few miles from the facility. As they looked down at the ground, they smiled and placed their hand to it, watching as the ground beneath began to decay. Then, with a single motion, they sent a pulse of destruction through the ground. It spread slowly outwards and inwards through and around the planet as they ascended in to the sky, watching as the cracks spread all throughout the planet.
Once they were high enough up, they conjured a throne and watched as the planet slowly crumbled to ash, imploding on itself, returning the dust of the universe all around it. Eventually, all that was left was a large cloud of dust which slowly faded to nothing, leaving a void where the planet Terra used to be.
Zeraph let out a sigh of relief as the stood up from their throne and looked around to the rest of the solar system, shaking their head. As they turned back to where Terra was before, they smiled softly.
“Thank you, Avery, my darling...”
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