Defeated and lost
Replaced and made redundant
Everything you all had ever done
Everything you all had ever lost
Amounted to meaningless nothing
Yet, nevertheless, you continued onwards anyway
Even if the purpose had long been lost
So I ask again, what do you truly desire, in your heart of torment?
What is that you truly want, right now, in this moment?
What was it for which you truly sought, by even doing this?
I ask, but you already know the answer

The crystal colossus approached ever-closer…essence wisping and smoking from its being as its roots and nerve-like radiant veins…throbbed and pulsated, its glowing eye staring the foreigner down…as she did so in kind.

The foreigner swiftly unholstered her revolver before popping a shot right at its glowing eye…the bullet doing nothing, yet immediately after…she lanced in a cyanic striding dash straight towards it…fast, faster than before, though…perhaps not absurdly so.

The colossus halted in almost stagger, taken aback…by her sudden and rapid cyanic lance and dash.

She quickly descended upon it…as she once again began to buzz and buzz. She circled around, hopped, climbed…firing her remaining two shots at point-blank…aiming for…the weakest points she could deduce…though…still, with little effect.

The colossus, however, immediately began to swat away…at this annoying fly, this time…far more aggressive…relentlessly so; no longer…afraid to damage itself, it began…hurling crystalline lances and spikes at her…even if they struck its own figure as she evaded; with each self-imposed strike…it simply repaired itself…to a point…for there were limits to its self-repairs, seemingly.

Regardless…this…certainly made her buzzing all the more difficult. Though…at the very least…its attention was fixated on her…absurdly so. The colossus was obsessed with catching…that little fly who frustrated it so…having even dropped its sword yet again…just to use both crystalline hands.

Interim

The priestess remained backed against the crystalline wall, trembling and paralyzed as she watched the foreigner…this stranger and Copper of an adventurer…struggle as she fearlessly engaged the colossus despite the utter futility…distracting it from her…all the while the priestess herself…did nothing but tremble in motionless fear.

Truly…she had thought herself to be both brave and selfless…yet…as soon as the moment had come…her true colors had showed themselves; she was a coward…who had prayed away for a holy protective bubble…with such speed and precision…when her own life was at stake…and had only captured those others…by chance.

Then when that moment had come…to try to save those few left behind with true intent, she had failed so utterly…worthless in all ways…and now she was the only one left…yet, clearly doomed to meet that same fate…all the while…she continued to be useless.

As her life flashed before her eyes…the priestess realized…indeed…she was always…somewhat like this. So much envy…hidden behind the veil…her soul full of such suppressed vindictive spite against her peers and fellows. All the vile…things her mind had conjured and had thought in regards…to so many others, despite her voice and words espouting the opposite.

Indeed…such holy prayers required…not just words to be said in almost song…but also genuine desire and true will of the mind and soul…and all she had wanted to do…was save herself…not any of those…who had trusted her to protect them too. A coward, a sinner, and a selfish hypocrite…thus her mind went on.

Yet the priestess’s fracturing soul and eyes…then noticed...nearby…as she turned to stare; her eyes widened ever-more in realization as she saw…simply laying there…a scorched heavy-plated arm…that distinct artifact of a shield still affixed…images of what had happened to the shield adventurer…flashed into her mind…in intrusive invasion.

With trembling jaws, her eyes…could not help but then gravitate their stare up…at the domed ceiling high above…seeing the mage’s impaled corpse…still stuck up there…slowly sliding through the impaling lance.

Indeed…scattered all around were the bits and pieces…those despoiled corpses and impaled souls of her former party…those who had…accepted her as one of them despite her lower rank…those who had thought that she would be…useful…in situations such as these.

Though…among them in kind…were all those strangers yet fellow adventuring peers who had accompanied her party…people to whom she had spoken…and had gotten to know…faces and names she still knew even if they no longer existed. People who only but the day before…had breathed the same air…and had dreams, passions, and ambitions to call their own…those they had cared for and loved…real breathing people…now forever gone.

Her eyes stared at the colossus…dread…fear…terror, she was petrified…of meeting the same fate as they…yet…something…was happening deep within…a switch so seemingly flipped in her falling mind, as…more and more images and memories…flashed in mind.

She stopped trembling…and simply stared with broken widened eyes. She began to grit her teeth with twitching lips…as her fear and terror towards that colossus so abruptly…ignited into a cold unbridled rage and desire for avenging vindication.

Interim

The foreigner continued her evasive buzzing…the colossus…clearly becoming more frustrated by its inability to catch her; its moves became more violent…impulsive…and aggressive. Yet…it had so many opportunities to simply kill her…in fact, all it would take would be a simple mass-barrage from every direction all at once; she was evasive but…she could not dodge everything at once simultaneously.

Yet…it did not do any of such things. It was almost as if…in a twisted sense…it was actually…finding this strange dance to be…so very…stimulating…even if utterly frustrating. It was so stubbornly determined to actually the catch foreigner…and personally…squish her in its own hands like the bug she was.

Yet suddenly, the colossus froze and halted…staggering almost as it quickly noticed…a change…in the chamber’s environment. The foreigner…noticing somewhat as well…also skid in a sudden halt…nearly tripping to the ground…as she began to stare in kind…her ears hearing…words…that she could…somewhat…understand.

“Audias pecem meam, Pater in Caeli imperans…Audias pecem meam…Rex Filius in Terra imperans” so the priestess began to utter in almost song, her exhausted and battered voice more vindictive, as she stood up…and began to approach slowly, her holy Trinitarian staff…pointing directly at the colossus; “Ego…servus vester impius…invoco nomina atque ignem sanctam ut vindicetis illas animas meliores quae rapitae sunt ab illo malo nefando…” so her breaths continued on.

As the priestess prayed in almost song, her flickering eyes ignited into potent holy radiance as her aura began to throb and pulse…becoming partially visible as heavenly radiance from all around…suddenly began to flow and twirl…responding to her invoking voice as it imbued and threaded itself into her aura…as if that very aeternal spirit was granting her essence its fiery wrath.

The foreigner remained paused as she stared; her ears heard and listened to the echoings words spoken from afar near enough; the accent was…very strange and alien…but…she could understand…ish…what was being said in almost song. A language related…yet…very distinct, nevertheless, from her own. Though…her mind was far too inhibited and detached to possibly care; she simply…took this time to reposition herself as the colossus continued to glaringly stare.

Roots of heavenly essence flared and throbbed as more poured into the chamber…flowing into the radiating priestess’s aura as her holy staff began to seemingly glow with heavenly wisp-dusty fury…her aura flaring in ignited exoticism…as if the gates of Heaven were opening within that strange exotic field that so surrounded her being.

“…promitto dare in morte vobis animam improbam ut iudicetis” her vindictive breaths continued on, “o Pater Filiusque in Regno Caeli, quaeso, rogo, detis mihi ignem sanctam ut feria—” A single crystal spear…out from nowhere…came lancing…and pierced the priestess through her stomach…impaling her all the way back…and straight into that smooth crystalline wall behind.

So abruptly…all of the collected faint heavenly radiance dimmed and withered away, her aura…withering into obscurity in kind…as her ignited eyes…dimmed and flickered; she gagged and coughed out acidic blood…her stomach…punctured and bleeding internally.

The foreigner…froze in place…her eyes turning…and saw as the last survivor…slowly withered away…dying. « …quid…? » her breaths mumbled out in faint whisper…her voice finally breaking its long silence…as everything that had just happened…finally dawned on her…in total and complete full.

Ah…it happened again…once again…none were left.

Reality…began to retreat and fade. Nothing felt real. Everything felt nonexistent. Her existence…no longer something she could even grasp…becoming so cloudy…and loose.

Yet, her mind was given no room…for immediately after, a crystalline hand came lunging. She automatically dodged and evaded; yet so staggered in mind she was…she failed to realize…that such had merely been a feint; awaiting for her to dodge and evade…was another hand…and she so quickly found herself…abruptly snatched in a tight squeeze.

Finally…the colossus had caught this irritating little fly; its single glowing eye…stared her down…with such contempt and frustration…yet also twisted infatuation. This was the little bug whose aura and essence had terrified it so…yet…only to be shown as just an annoying little fly…not a stinging wasp. Yet even now…as it squeezed her in hand…something about her…still terrified it…which only frustrated it even more.

Her mask-obscured eyes stared back in kind…her face…flat affect…with neither a beg nor complaint to be uttered or found. Yet…the colossus so…very…wanted to see her…scream and beg and cry and something…indeed, oh how…it was going to take its time…as it slowly began…to squeeze.

Interim

The priestess…impaled into the wall…bleeding…her life fleeing quickly…watched and stared…as the happenings unfolded…seeing that the foreigner…had been caught in the colossus’s tightening hands…being squeezed and squeezed…on the verge of meeting the same fate as her…or perhaps one…even worse. Indeed…compared to the rest…this fate…was a mercy.

Of course…in end…she could not even…finish her vindication; so useless…she was…without a constant guard…so long did such prayers take…to enact…even if the power…given…was a plenty.

Yet…even as she remained impaled…dying…her eyes remained ignited even if withering; she had been struck…mid-prayer…a moment during which her soul was so strongly integrated and connected with the trailing roots of that aeternal spirit of the Trinity she so served.

Her blurring life quickly fading away…she mustered all that she could…into her last breaths.

“Pater…audiasne…clamorem meum? Quaeso…audias…me…servum…indignum…ego……do tibi…do Caeli…animam…corpusque…ut…vindicetis……nomen……sanc..tum………quae..so…spirito ultimo……ut salv..etis……ill..am…ani…..mam……” The priestess final breaths quickly withered away…the life fading from her eyes and being; once again…a prayer left incomplete…useless…even in death.

Yet…oddly…her essence did not detach from its now deceased host…to become an echo that slowly decayed with time’s pass. Oddly…her lifeless eyes remained ignited. Indeed…in the end…she was still a mortal servant of a god; one who had been struck down…while her essence…was deeply connected and synchronized…with those roots of that god whom she so served. And some gods were rather…vindictive in their mercy.

Interim

The colossus’s glowing eye…continued to stare down into the foreigner trapped in hand…its gentle grip…squeezing at her being…ever-tighter.

The foreigner…stared up in kind and into its glowing eye…yet her half-masked face remained…so very blank and empty.

Ah…squeezing…so tightly and only tighter…she could feel the pressure…she could feel…her insides being…squished and crushed…as if they were about to…pop; it became…so much harder…to even breathe.

Right…she could feel…pain…she had to remind herself of that fact…right…she was…in fact…in so…so…much…pain…all over and on the inside…and had been…for such…a long…long…time.

Ah…right…of course…once again…she had failed…utterly…in face…against such a thing. Once again…for the nth…time…she could not…they could not…save…even a single one…from such a fate.

Ah…truly…what else…was there…to…expect? Failure…loss…such was all that she…that they…had ever really…known…

Heh…right…they lost…they all had lost…there was nothing left…right…replaced and usurped…yet…they…she…continued to persist…lingering remnants…lost in time.

But…this…this…was…it for…her…wasn’t it? This…this whatever…was actually…going to kill her? This ever-tightening squeeze…this…could…be it then?

Heh…heh…and all…she had to do…was simply let it be…and it would all…finally…after all…this excruciating time…finally…come to an end…as it should have had…all those…many eons ago.

Ah…was this…what she…so truly…wanted…all this…time? To perish…while in service…ah…

The colossus’s grip tightened ever-more as it squeezed slowly yet surely…prolonging the experience as much as able. Finally…it must have done…something to her insides…for her breaths became so raspy and bloodied. She began to faintly and quietly cough out…blood. Blood that was so very…strange and alien…glimmering…in cyanic glowing radiance…

Indeed…so many automated encoded protocols, functions, and tasks…were being enacted by her essence…always in the background running…with myriads of exotic cells, enzymes, and proteins…synthesized by her essence—or other implanted things—flowing through her veins…that her very blood always…bled out in such cyanic glow-goopy radiance…alongside traces of the expected hemoglobin red.

This exotic cyanic glowing blood…dripped more and more down from the foreigner’s mouth…yet as all she could do…was smile.

Without her awareness…she was smiling her first…genuine…smile…in so…so very long. Smiling…a truly awful…twisted…and broken smile…of a rotting soul…who stared at the colossus…as if it were doing her…the greatest favor.

The colossus froze and paused in its squeeze…as all it could do…was stare back…and tilt its head. Its grip loosened…its single remaining glowing eye…brightening…as if it were widening…its heart-core and ignited veins responding in kind…

It stared as she stared back…as if…it had suddenly…began to see…itself reflected…in this little fly. Indeed, two rotting souls…stared each other down…one having been robbed of its form and being…entombed in this crystalline coffin…and another having been entrapped in her own forever young form and being…which had become her eternal coffin.

Indeed…perhaps the colossus realized…in this moment…in its own way…that this fly and it were both…fundamentally…the same. Its heart-core…began to burn…within the bitter empty coldness.

Yet all so abruptly, both snapped out of their respective trances…as both seemingly became attentive and alarmed…their essences detecting a sudden…emergence…one far stronger than any before…as both…seemingly and immediately snapped their heads straight at the source in almost unison.

The priestess…her dead corpse…lifeless yet the eyes remained ignited…and were only igniting ever-more…as her zombie-aura…began to wisp and throb ever-faintly…and the reason became…so very clear.

As if the corpse were a puppet stringed to something greater…streams of dust-wispy heavenly essence ignited and revealed themselves…flowing from all around…bleeding into the chamber from every crevasse…as if it were being tugged and pulled by the attraction of the priestess’s own renegade essence, pouring into her lifeless being and zombified aura.

Dead ignited eyes flickered and flared…as the entire nervous system…suddenly ignited into its own distinct radiance…as the corpse began to twitch and contort. The lifeless aura...began to flare into somewhat potent visibility unlike anything normal…a field of heavenly radiance flaring…as it began to condense.

The heavenly ignited radiance poured, flowed, and devoured…as the renegade essence began to synthesize with the very corpse of its former host…preparing for something. Spontaneously, the flaring ignited aura collapsed, engulfing the corpse along with the impaling crystalline lance…forming an exotic puffball of potent and fiery heavenly wisp-dusty radiance…which detached from the wall…as it began to ‘float’ up and high above, fixed in place.

The colossus quickly put the foreigner down and back onto the ground, before picking up its large crystalline sword. It began to march towards this floating puffball of divinity…something it so very much despised indeed.

Its tormented essence began to weave from its imprisoned heart; ripping and tearing from all the chamber around, a truly uncountable legion of crystal spears, lances, and spikes were forged. They were swiftly unleashed in an unrelenting maelstrom of crystalline fury…yet only to burst and be…dissolved into the heavenly essence…assimilated and synthesized…as if the source…had supremacy over the colossus’s own.

Yet, the colossus persisted; its glowing eye lanced beam after beam…only for the beams…to be absorbed in kind…and adding to the power being conjured and synthesized.

The foreigner looked…her eyes…seeing what was rather the essence anomaly; indeed…it was very clear that…whatever this…local ‘heavenly’ something was…it was clearly inhuman.

She…gripped her ribs and sides…she was injured…quite a bit…her sides felt broken…yet…ever-faint cyanic snow-dusty essence…flaked off from her injured skin and being; she will be somewhat fine…in time, even without direct medical aid. She began to back away from the scene at play…for she, most especially out of anyone, knew exactly what was happening within that exotic ball of concentrated essence.

Synthesis, materialization, fabrication…fundamental changes and material restructuring and rearrangements…quite the many happenings were being enacted within that concentrated ball of heavenly essence…as if it were a mere cocoon to something being dissolved and born anew.

The heavenly ball flared and pulsated as it became ever-more volatile and energized… concentrating and condensing…perhaps more to make a taunting show than anything practical…before…it suddenly and rapidly imploded inwards in a poofing fury, leaving behind only foggy heavenly radiance of ash and dust that wisped and withered into obscurity.

The product forged…hovered in the air, fixed in place. Mechanical and synthetic…refined and smooth…yet somewhat angular…divine and heavenly in all ways; radiant mechanical avian-like wings protruded from its back; humanoid and feminine in shape…somewhat organic…the former person…only vaguely still there, yet with glowing heavenly eyes…clearly synthetic.

No longer was there a priestess, no longer was there a corpse, only a biosynthetic mechanical ‘angel’ ‘golem’ of Trinity itself, forged from the priestess’s own body and essence, imbued with and fueled by the commanding will of Heaven’s own vindictive wrath; in its mechanical hand…was a heavenly ‘polearm’ of the same color scheme and synthetic materials…its tip radiating with heavenly power.

The foreigner stared…an automaton? No…there was no priestess to be found…or rather…ah…so one of those atrocities…of existence, then?

The colossus’s eye flashed in a flare as it readied sword…though it too began to back away. The foreigner, however, deeming this…thing to be…potentially friendly, stumblingly began to step closer…towards it and away from the colossus.

The mechanical angel of Heaven floated closer as it stared straight at the colossus; “Heros caducus, proditus perditusque a deis tuis mendacibus, iram invocavisti Coeli Regni” so suddenly announcingly spoke the mechanical angel…with a familiar yet…mechanized…feminine voice, as it pointed its exotic heavenly lance straight at the colossus in divine accusation…the tip energizing ever-more as it menacingly floated ever-closer.

The colossus immediately flared a crystalline fury of spikes and spears…each bursting and detonating yet…doing nothing at all; it fired its eye beam again…only to do more nothing. Each strike…was simply absorbed and assimilated…Heaven’s aeternal spirit…shielding it…so seemingly.

The mechanical angel only gravitated closer and closer…as the intensity of its heavenly polearm’s tip…grew stronger and more concentrated; “Liberet te hoc lumen Coeli sanctum de adflictione aeterna, heros caducus, et ducat ad pacem ultime” the mechanical golem spoke in finality.

Its exotic polearm let loose…a lancing volatile beaming pierce of ‘heavenly energy’…which instantly tore straight through the colossus’s heart-core…well before it could even respond or comprehend…tearing, dissolving, assimilating, and destroying…with only heavenly ash and radiant dust being left behind…from the hole torn through.

The colossus’s glowing eye…dimmed and flickered before fading away…as it came tumbling down; its glowing veins and nerves of ignited essence…followed in kind…as it began to fall apart…crystalline composites cracking…slowly but surely…withering into wispy dust of decaying essence. The whole crystalline chamber…began to dim and follow along…slowly decaying into dust-wispy residuals…destined to eventually collapse.

At long last had the colossus been granted freedom from its everlasting torment, by invoking that very thing that had so entombed its fate all those ages ago.

The foreigner stared around…processing…breathing…her lungs…aching…her insides…aching…everything…aching; she could still taste the exotic blood in her mouth.

So, it was…all over…then? Just like that…finished...

Yet…ah…of course…she was still here…the only one left.

She looked up at the mechanical mannequin with wings…noticing…its glowing eyes…had now turned their fixated attention…to her. Without hesitation, it pointed its lance straight at her…in the same exact manner as it had done to the colossus.

She began to back away…ah…that was not a good sign; she needed to withdraw quickly…for that thing was clearly…not friendly as presumed.

“Advena occultans cerneris… atqui gaudeas, nam parceris. At caveto: ne obstes Coelum.” it stated coldly and threateningly…before lowering its lance…as the abhorrent holy machination…hovered higher until it simply flew off and away…through the highest possible entry-hole…as it made way to return to its source…somewhere someplace else afar…leaving behind only a faint heavenly trail of flaky radiance.

The foreigner stared…as silence took hold…ah…that certainly…did not sound…good…at all; it seemed to know…what she was; though, interesting thing…nonetheless…would that she had…that sort of…firepower…then…

Wait…

She paused and froze…

Firepower…

Wait…

Wait wait wait!

She immediately glanced down to her side in snapping attention…

Ah…

This entire time…she had…her rapier…her arcane conduit…sheathed and holstered on her…

Ah…

This entire time…she had the means…to end this quickly and decisively…yet…at no point…had she…even considered using it…such had…escaped her mind…completely.

Ah, truly, you all have not changed whatsoever
Even after all this time
Even after everything that had happened since that time