The
courtyard Liliana and her undead escort walked out into was beautiful. It resembled an ornate garden with stands of fruit trees and gold-and-white flowers clearly cultivated with painstaking care. Directly in front of them was the
Tree of Redemption, an ancient, sprawling tree with crimson leaves. It was beautiful and welcoming - at least until one looked closely enough to see the nooses that dangled from the branches.
"This is where you'll end up with Avacyn's grace," the corpse of Kelse said from where she was flanking Liliana's left.
"Well, she should really get right on that," Liliana said, striding forward under the tree. As she passed under the boughs, the nooses burned with black fire and fell to ashes to the ground. A stupid waste of power. Rope was cheap and it wasn't like she cared about anyone who'd ever been executed on this tree. But it was the
principle of the thing and right now Liliana's principles extended a hearty
fuck you, to the Church and anything resembling 'Avacyn's grace.'
As they passed beneath the tree into the heart of the garden, the fruit trees gave way leaving an open view of the rest of the courtyard. The Kirch Falls thundered beneath them down into the Lake of Herons, but even the massive falls couldn't take attention away from the focal point of the back of the courtyard:
( The Helvault )For a moment, all sound ceased.
Then cracks appeared in the Helvault, rays of light piercing through the night from within. Then a blast obliterated the ghouls, knocked the cathars to the ground, and flung Liliana and Thalia backwards off their feet. A helix of golden light streaked skyward from the remains of the Helvault, illuminating the sky with its brilliant glow. The sundered monolith, fell to pieces and ribbons of dark Æther flew away in all directions; a host of demonic entities now freed of their prison. A tall gray-skinned, white-haired kor woman staggered out of the remains of the rock and vanished in a resounding boom. Liliana raised her eyebrows - a
Planeswalker had been imprisoned in the Helvault? And then a guttural cry sent shivers through their very souls as a ten foot tall demon with huge bat-like wings that seemed to blot out the sky and arms that ended in wicked scythes pulled himself free.
Liliana struggled to her feet, mouth forming his name, but Griselbrand didn't wait, vaulting himself into the air and flying away. She stared after him, mouth agape as her prey once more escaped her grasp, and only realized there was still one last being in the Helvault when the assembled cathars gasped and pushed themselves to the knees in reverence as a luminous being soared from the wreckage.
Avacyn, the Angel of Hope: pure, whole, and eternal.
"Rise, my cathars," she said in a voice like a golden balm, spreading warmth and healing to all who heard it. They did, all except Thalia, who stayed on her knees, head bowed. From the golden spiral that pierced the sky, hundreds of angels came pouring out, voices raised in song and praise, their despair thrown off at Avacyn's return. "Go, my sisters," Avacyn commanded. "I feel a wrongness in my city, our people need you." Swords held high, the angels turned and arced away towards the remaining undead army in the Outer Ring.
Well, Liliana thought.
This might just get awkward.***"Oh,
good," said Prompto, with a deeply exhausted sigh and a sway on his feet that wasn't even
entirely dramatics, "the
actual cavalry is finally here."
And indeed they were, and they were
remarkably quick about it, too, in a way that made Gladio feel a flash of anger, though he kept swinging his sword to clear up what the angels hadn't gotten to yet. "About damn time," he murmured, shaking his head and taking a moment, to watch the swiftness of just how quickly this particular tide had turned. He was feeling pretty exhausted, too, but mostly just irritated, and he went to fill Ignis in on all that had been happening in the meantime, since he could only
imagine what filling in those blanks must have been like for someone only hearing and
feeling all of this and not actually getting to see it.
"So what now?" asked Prompto, still somewhat vibrating from the sudden shift in the rush of adrenaline and the relatively sudden cessation of it, or perhaps that was just a shudder from the sudden chill of aftermath. "Do we help? Find the survivors, make sure everyone's okay?"
"I feel like we've done
enough cleanup for these guys," Gladio grunted, his sword swinging back to rest on his shoulders for a moment before looking over toward Ignis. "Specs?"
( See? Angels are useless )[Yet another installment, though the next one is the last! Still, y'all know the drill: NFI, NFB, OOC is great, heap praises on the head of
chef_chocobro! Bits taken nearly verbatim from Angel's Rise and Demon's Release by Doug Beyer, but others parts twisted, spindled, expanded and smashed back together. Follows this post and this post and is continued here]