Rusalka fell, yet she cared not for the sound of the wind as it whistled past her ears.

She warped her beautiful lips into a smile both bewitching and yet frightful.

The dark sky lit up bright white.

She remembered the attack that the man she faced had called up, she’d seen it ultimately end the life of Amelia, one of her tutors, and then it laid waste to the Gold District of Venus in turn.

Back then however a whole group had worked together to prepare it, this one man was still just that, one man, so the explosion was significantly smaller.

The man’s armoured body tumbled out of the dust cloud, she watched as he hit the soil far below at a truly terrifying speed.

Dust rose up with a thunderous boom, she couldn’t tell if he had died.

Typically she would not doubt his demise, but a Platinum Class was a notoriously hard beast to put down.

She thought back to her tutor’s lessons, and how many times she was then warned of that very fact.

Yet she did not panic, for no matter how strong he might be that man was still but one man, while they in turn were many.

She looked down upon the ground and then raised her limbs.

Ash clustered in her arms and legs, but she could hardly form a single spiral worth mentioning.

She closed her eyes and lamented. This technique which was passed down to her by Melany, her mentor in the art of military, had far too demanding a requirement.

Proper use had forced even that great woman to alter her body with Advanced Mutation, and this was not an option open to her Gold Class self.

She ceased to fall, her body collapsed into the cushioning embrace of her waiting husband.

The man had leapt from the rooftops, caught her mid freefall down towards the ground, then offset the impact with a roll as his feet met the pavement.

She exhaled in relief, and then smiled towards him.

That she was practically ready to empty her bladder from the fear of that fall was a secret she’d take to her grave.

“How can you be so reckless?” He said, “Woman, you near enough gave me a heart attack with that!” Rusalka said nothing, she merely kissed him on the lips to shut him up.

She didn’t care if he condemned her for her actions, since the plan had worked.

Alexander seized her shoulders and pushed her away, it took all his strength to say, “I’m serious, there will be no next time.”

The Lady sensed that his anger was genuine. Indeed, she knew from the start it would be so. Hence it was that a sense of guilt warped her smile to something both awkward and quite sombre.

She turned away from him, grievance in her brow.

“Mistress Melany created this technique specifically to combat the men of Cain,” She confessed, “I’m sorry...I just...I wanted to use it...in her memory.”

“You’re manipulating me,” The man grumbled.

He naturally knew she was purposefully tugging at his heartstrings, but he also knew she wasn’t lying.

There was nothing he could really say to that, he could only shake his head as he let her stand on her own two feet.

The man then gathered his blade of Ash.

The weapon formed with a platinum edge and pitch black core, it was as big as his bride, even if one excluded the handle's guard and grip.

Then upon the aforementioned guard itself was a most startling sight; the upper body of a woman whose modesty was covered only by threads of her own hair, holding her hands together in prayer.

One glance upon that guard turned Rusalka’s smile to a frown, it was the goddess, Authun, emblemed there.

The very same goddess whose Beacon had cursed Venus’ ilk for generations since so long ago.

Yet what could she do but face forward? That same sword had saved her life many times and at the end of the day the Beacon was used by the hands of men, it did not itself speak for the goddess’ will.

Her own Ash followed after her husbands, it enveloped her unarmoured form in plates of silver.

Gauntlets and grieves, a breastplate and helm, all these things adorned her form one after the other. The remaining power coalesced in her hands to form the shape of a brilliant white sabre.

“Be careful,” Her husband cautioned her.

The Lady of Venus then closed her eyes.

She remembered the reason for his concern, and it was not unfounded in the slightest.

Advanced Manifestation takes a toll upon the mind, she had already collapsed once before because of that.

She had no fear however.

“Don’t worry,” She said, “I know my limits...and I’ve been practicing.” The man said nothing to that.

He took stock of her form with a cautious eye.

Indeed her armour wasn't as all encompassing as he recognised, it was a newer version, more refined.

Yes, this new version still had its flaws, but it was far more stable than what she had conjured in the past.

Even still, he was not certain.

Their foe was, after all, a monster of the Platinum Class, the Peak of human might.

Yet he swallowed this unease, he banished his doubt.

He wouldn’t trample her pride by trying to stop her anymore, indeed the truth is that he couldn't bear to.

What if he did stop her? What if then she might never be able to overcome the trauma of that incident?

He couldn't bear that doubt, and so all he could do was raise his sword to fight beside her.

All around them then the soldiers of Venus walked out, they covered the rooftops, the dark streets too.

Almost all of them were women, what few men there were they were all mercenary in nature.

They were like Alexander, they were the men who married into Venus, and they had been great warriors one and all in the years before that time.

The dust began to settle, the man from Cain limped free, his torn flesh and shattered bones healed before their very eyes.

“Alex,” Rusalka said as she took the first steps forward.

“Yeah?” Alexander said, his gaze affixed to their shared foe.

“Watch me...alright?” The young lass then leapt forward then, her speed beyond belief.

Her groom frowned, but by the time he looked her way she was already in the distance.

He shook his head, but did as she begged.

His eyes were firm upon her, not anything else, not even the enemy that she faced.

She readied her sabre and bathed it in Ash. The man before her trembled as he saw her closing in.

That tremble, that shiver, signalled the return of his situational awareness.

Rusalka struck, her blade penetrated his flesh, he could do nothing to stop her.

The man raised his fist, opened it to seize her wrist, but before he could do anything she rolled forward and left a wound upon his side.

The man was slow, at least in his present form. She struck, then struck and then struck again, each time aiming for his head yet falling just short of the mark.

Alexander watched this all transpire, a subtle sigh escaped his lips. He called out to her,

“Ru, get back!” The woman wasted no time heeding that word.

She leapt back almost twenty paces, just far enough in fact that when a vicious, silver-gold pillar of Ash came barrelling down from the heavens above she managed to avoid it by a hair.

She paled, but then realised she was not yet in the clear.

She moved swiftly to the side as the pillar bent and moved her way like a finger digging up the dirt beneath her feet.

The blast cascaded through the streets, yet by intuition or perhaps good sense she had avoided being in its wake.

After that the blast turned, slowly but surely it swept up the buildings she was using for cover.

Indeed it was only when a number of blasts came down upon the man like a blitzkrieg did this beam finally cease its onslaught.

Rusalka stopped to catch her breath and then she peered forward towards the Knight of Cain.

She witnessed his being as it was smashed into the ground over and over by her wrath filled and faithful kin.

The massive cascade of Ash that’d just attacked her was now bathing his frame, protecting him.

She realised what it was then, it was the same power that’d been gathered by him in the heavens on high. The same power that nearly turned him into atoms as it exploded in the sky.

“You might’ve disrupted it and caused it to scatter,” Alexander said as he walked to her side, “But of that Ash he gathered up earlier, about half remains under his control.”

Rusalka rose to her feet. Indeed it was as her husband surmised, the Knight of Cain had retained the power of the sphere she had collapsed, or perhaps he had managed to pull it back together after it scattered?

Whatever the case, this state of his was doomed not to last. The man grew weaker for every second that passed.

The downpour then stopped, nay, it was pushed back with a roar from the man, a roar which shattered the rooftops and forced the Venus soldiers to take evasive action as a result.

Heavy steps echoed in the darkness as Alexander walked towards the man amid the cratered ground.

The man’s broken, battered body healed slowly until it now finally resembled something approaching the human likeness.

He raised his head with a ferocious glare to meet Alexander’s own.

His eyeballs were bare through a shattered skull and his skin was burnt away to expose countless bits of muscle and bone, yet even still the man managed to calm himself through the torment and pain.

He recognised that he was in a despairing dilemma, it left him with a choice to make: Should he use the power he’d gathered to kill everyone here, or should he run away instead?

What his eyes settled upon next was not Alexander himself however, but his sword.

Shock, disbelief and confusion struck the Knight of Cain.

Soon after however a sense of understanding came over him, and alongside that was born both great fury and unrelenting hatred.

Alexander frowned, he suddenly turned to glance upon the sword, only to overhear the man mutter through his broken jaw.

“God...des...ssth...Au..thu...n.” The young lad turned to face the Knight anew.

“You know about her, do you?” He said, but the Knight of Cain did not reply. The women from Venus had long since recovered and they were now prepared to bombard him anew, Alexander was certainly not going to stop them either, rather he bid to buy them time. Yet, the Knight, who should've taken notice, did not seem to care one whit.

“Authun’s...acolyte?” He said as he glared towards Alexander with madness in his one remaining eye, “A Guardian...in today’s day and age?”

Alexander frowned for a third time, but this time, more so than the last two, he sensed a feeling of dread come upon him.

The Knight of Cain stood up, his face half healed and his skin still visibly regenerating over his battered and shirtless body.

Torrents of force began to surround him, powerful Ash moved in from every direction.

The young man’s frown turned to a cautious glare and he signalled for the soldiers of Venus to bombard their foe anew.

They did so, readily at that, and Ash fell from on high to crash repeatedly into the man below.

Yet the man was not harmed, no, he wasn’t even hit.

Something invisible shielded him from their onslaught, and very soon it made its presence known; it was Ash, and quite a lot of it at that.

The powerful maelstrom swirled around the now fully regenerated knight of Cain.

He only had as of now at most a fraction of the power from that sphere still lingering in his body, but his control over it had only improved as its volume declined.

The Knight’s Ash erupted in every direction, it overcame the power of Venus’ soldiers in the blink of an eye and even turned some of their bodies to dust as it passed them by.

The man then bolted forward, blazing torrents danced around him in a frenzy.

Alexander grit his teeth, he raised his blade and clashed with the man.

That impact alone ruptured the flesh on his hands, but he endured the pain.

Rusalka leapt forward, her fury filled blade swept the Knight’s unprotected side.

The casualty count wasn't much to note, it was only a handful of people, but even still it left her mortified to see more of her fellows had died.

The man roared, he continued his onslaught and tried to fend off the both of them with what little power he still held in reins.

Before he could escape however, the soldiers of Venus City recovered once again.

When they looked upon the ashes, the remains of their fallen comrades, fury roiled in their chests.

They took up arms and then leapt in again to join the fray.

The Knight’s power continued to dwindle as his struggle carried on, but the women of Venus and their mercenary-like husbands started to overpower him with sheer numbers.

The man realised the end was near. He looked one final time upon Alexander and Rusalka, and then with much regret he chose to smash his own skull open upon the hard concrete ground.

The forces of Venus City fell silent as the man’s corpse bled dead upon the street.

The spies stationed by the Governor of Crux also fell into a daze.

They turned to their peers, then sent some away.

The battle was over, and it ended in a rather pitiful way. 

_________________________________________________ 

Wounded and weary, the citizens of Venus returned on steady foot towards their waiting manor.

After everything that had happened, bar none, everyone was tired.

Some of their number had ended up dead, their corpses turned to dust, but they were in no state to search for their traces in the darkness.

Those who hadn’t fought in the battle were sent out to find any survivors, but come the morn all they had found was three corpses and a half melted breastplate bearing half of its disintegrated owner’s name.

With heavy sighs then into the otherwise silent night, the survivors retired to their chambers and fell into a much needed state of slumber.

This long night, for them, was over, but it would not be the last of its kind.

This was but a small skirmish, the first of the many long and harsh days and nights that waited on the horizon.

They could not stop this, they could only prepare for it.

War was coming, after all. Indeed in some ways it was already here.