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Damaia wiped a tear as Meteion flew off, a single bluebird fluttering away in the strange expanse where the Endsinger had landed, closely followed by her, her Husband and fellow Warrior of Light Myles, currently standing next to her with a similar solemn look on his face. Their unexpected ally, exiled traitor prince of the now defunct Garlean Empire, Zenos Viator Galvus, watching with disinterest some few feet away.
The trio, along with the rest of the Scions and some allies summoned by means of Azem's Invocation, had laid low the embodiment of despair incarnate, and in so doing had saved the entire universe from an encroaching wave of emotion made manifest. An innocent soul, poisoned by being sent across the stars to answer a question it had never been taught to understand, and in it's frightened and ill-suited reaction, had tried to induce universal extinction as it's perceived answer to the meaning of life that so many stars had failed to find, or died in pursuit of. Now enlightened by beings that had found a better answer through hardship and comradery, Meteion had flown off to spread a song of hope, to atone and rekindle the spark it had seen snuffed out across untold worlds, and had snuffed out herself on some few of those worlds.
"You mean to return, to the world where you are hailed as a hero."
Zenos' words cut through the bout of existentialism and reflection both warriors had been sifting through in their own ways. The pair turned and Damaia drew her staff and held the jewel at it's head towards the Reaper, the sudden movement widening the tears in her shredded form-fitting gown of black silks, the embedded gems a mess of patchwork brilliance with the missing pieces strewn across the expanse where they had mere minutes ago done battle. Myles straightened his stance, one hand raised towards the longsword on his back, his long brown hooded coat torn at one shoulder and the color of his green buttoned shirt underneath equally ragged.
The pair held their positions, but did not draw, and so Zenos drawled on, not afraid of their heightened level of tension, and not terribly surprised either.
"Hear me then. Not as a hero, but as simply... you." when the pair did not move, he pressed on.
"As I learned in Ala Mhigo, you are both of you formidable foes. Stronger than any I have faced. Against you, I need bring my all to bear."
His vision narrowed.
"I need burn through the candle of my life. This is the sole pleasure I know, and it is the sole pleasure I have to share. And so I come before you. To issue challenge and offer singular bliss. If you wish to walk away, I will not stop you."
Damaia rolled her eyes as Zenos's ideals and singular drive for combat were nothing new to her, Myles held Zenos's look with one of his own, and the Garlean judged this sufficient to keep talking.
"You value life. You do not burn yours save for reasons you deem worthy. Reasons such as those which brought you here. The salvation of a world and it's people. The motives of a hero true."
"Get on with it Galvus!" Damaia spoke sharply and the biting tone she affected had cut many a lesser opponent's confidence in battles past.
"But... there is more to you than that, you know this to be true. As surely as you know the thrill of pushing your body and soul to their limits. Of confronting ever-mightier foes, dancing ever closer to the precipice, wondering if this will be the one to finally, finally... fill the void."
Zenos had not even turned his gaze to Damaia at her outburst, his vision centered squarely at Myles, whom he had dueled in Rhalgr's Reach when the Empire had besieged the Resistance Headquarters, and again in Yanxia, when the Lominsan swordsman had aided Yugiri Mistwalker's assassination attempt, foiled though it was. When the two Warriors had fought him the final time in Ala Mhigo, the pair had rejected his attempted comparisons to his own philosophy on life and combat, before striking him down when he took control of the Primal Shinryu, and he had subsequently ended his first life at that peak of his so-called "bliss".
"Such pleasures, you seek for their own sake, and for no other reason. is this not so... adventurer?"
Damaia opened her mouth to once again reject the notion, but a different voice cut through the air.
"That, I can't deny."
Damaia turned to see Myles had a familiar gleam in his eyes. something she had seen before. when the pair found themselves facing Primals, foes that only they could fight, which tested their skills and their synergy. When Myles had stared down Zephirin in the reactor in Azys Lla. when he'd lead the fray against Ardbert before the campaigns in Gyr Abania and Doma. staring down Ran'Jiit and Elidibus in the First and when confronted with Zodiark himself. Myles was itching for a fight. he craved a challenge, even if he didn't tend to allow that craving to supersede the greater scope of a situation. he'd always set his desire for a truly powerful opponent to take on, all on his own, to the side when the stakes were too great to take that risk. now there was no wider scope. no higher stakes.
Myles wanted this, and he had wanted this for a very long time.
"Acceptance. At long last."
Zenos chuckled as he said it, a satisfaction in his eyes after having so many interferences and distractions deny him his goal.
"The conflagration of our clash will scorch even the stars."
Damaia rolled her eyes with a hopeless sigh as she moved off to the side, near enough to watch but far enough to avoid getting caught up in the pair's fight.
Zenos drew his Gunscythe, twirling it around as he stared down his foe. "Come Then!"
Myles for his part, drew his Twinfangs, the twin longswords having a special mechanism at the base of their respective pommels to combine into a swordstaff, which Myles held behind him as he bent low into a ready stance.
As the pair locked eyes, some unseen signal passed between them and they both shot forward, sparks flying as their blades met and clashed over and over. Myles launched solid steel against the bigger foe's defenses, and danced between the responding slashes by the scythe to reave gashes into his foes body like the fangs of the Viper that denoted the sword-style Myles practiced most of his various martial disciplines. The pair moved so fast that Damaia could only make out a black and red blur tinged by blonde being met by a slightly smaller brown and green blur, the pair pushing their bodies beyond any mortal limits, even beyond anything Damaia had ever seen Myles accomplish before.
In time she could make out their actual bodies again as Zenos began to glow with an aetheric aura, the slightly green tinge tipping her off as to what was coming. she didn't even have time to shout as Zenos called on a Tidal Wave conjured of pure aether, which parted as a single slash from Myles' twin blades sent the two split waves to either side of him before they crashed into whatever constituted the ground in this place. similar breaks in their speed followed as Zenos called on bolts of levin that struck like divine judgement, harmlessly striking at the spot Myles occupied mere seconds before, or entire swathes of Hellfire that singed at the Warrior of Light's coat and fingertips but did not find full purchase. Myles commanded aether and dynamis in such synchronized balance that he could keep pace with the force of arguably the strongest Primal ever summoned, as wielded by the Garlean prodigy that had pushed his body through both raw battle lust and scientific application of the Echo from the laboratory built within Ala Mhigo where he'd developed his Resonant abilities.
as Myles struck a tellingly critical blow across Zenos' chest, the reaper only cackled as he rose to his feet, blood staining his lip.
"Ah, my soul... how it burns!" Zenos conjured another wave, and as Myles strode to meet it, he felt his knee buckle and knew he'd taken some further damage to the joint that'd put his speed to rest for some time as his swords finally snapped under the strain they'd been enduring from his violent and aggressive fighting thus far. however, Damaia saw not concern or fear, but an almost chilling level of glee on his face as he turned to her.
"Damaia, the Crystal!"
Eyes wide, the Au Ra couldn't believe she'd heard him right. a quiet conversation they'd had after returning from the First replayed in her mind...
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"I need you to hold this."
The dark orange crystal bore a carved glowing symbol of a jagged looking sword similar to one she'd seen used by Sidurgu, the only other surviving member of the Orl tribe to her knowledge. it felt cold as he pressed it into her hand but she felt a heat within herself, like rage that wanted to surface but held itself in check only due to her own lack of attunement to the crystal.
"This is the Crystal you found in Ishgard when we were separated after the Banquet right? you told me you found it on someone else and used it for a while when you were on the run?"
"Yes... and I need you to keep it. I... I can't... not right now..."
"Myles, why-"
"'Maia... just... please do this? For me?"
"-ok."
"Thank you...."
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As she pulled herself from that brief reflection, She could see the certainty and almost eerie yearning in his eyes. she nodded and hastily withdrew it from the necklace she'd attached it to, feeling that same rage boiling in her chest for the brief second she held it before throwing it towards him as the Tidal Wave came crashing down. the wave consumed him and time seemed to stretch as she felt her heart drop out of her chest as the brine and foam kicked up by the attack obscured his form.
Zenos had taken the time the wave had bought him to conjure that same Voidsent that had been appearing with him throughout their fights with the Telophoroi and the Blasphemies, and even during this very fight, complimenting his stolen techniques from the Primals with blasts of Dark aether. As it Enshrouded him, Damaia watched as his hair and eyes began to glow bright red, his hair blackening at the tips. his off-hand had become a glowing red and black, clawed like that of a beast and an almost winglike growth of a similar look and glow had appeared on his shoulder like a counterpart to his cape.
"COME!!! Let all creation be consumed by our ravenous fervor!" the Reaper lunged towards the still dissipating cloud of the Tidal wave and as his Scythe came down on the shadowed form of Myles hidden in the cloud, Damaia felt a scream rip from her lips.
and then the sound of ringing steel choked it as the cloud dissipated and there stood Myles. his coat was gone, torn to tatters which hung from the belts he wore at his waist for his satchels and harnesses. in his hands was a great black sword resembling the aetherical one she'd seen him use to deal massive damage when he'd drawn on what they now knew to be Dynamis to perform Limit Breaks. the sword was a solid mass of black iron with a glowing green crystal at the base of the blade. it's guard and pommel were spiked and she could see the brief burst of dark-aspected aether that had been released as he brought the weapon to bear in halting Zenos' own blow cold. the Garlean looked at him with vicious glee and as Myles met him with the same look, the same Dark aether swirling from the slot slightly left of his belt buckle where she knew Myles kept his currently active Soul Crystal, her own Black Mage Crystal kept on her pendant. the Aether enveloped him again and when it ceased, he was clad in a full set of black plate armor with dark green trim, a horned helmet on his head with glowing eye sockets as he pushed back against Zenos and the Reaper was forced to recover and retake his stance.
This time, when the pair met, it was a clash of black and red on black and green as the pair traded thunderous blows that sent shockwaves in all directions, forcing Damaia to fire off spells to counter the stray blasts of energy the pair were firing off as each swing of Scythe and Sword sent dark-aspected aether in waves. the pair were letting nothing be held back and as Damaia watched, each time Zenos summoned his Voidsent, a shadowy figure would emerge from Myles's very shadow and meet it with a slash of rippling energy such as that which she had seen carve the night sky back into Norvrandt as Myles had absorbed each Lightwarden, and again when he'd cut down Vauthry before his Light Aether had finally exceeded his limits and reversed the process.
It was raw, it was unfettered by caution or any notion of defense.
It was everything she saw storming behind Myles' eyes all this time, finally let free against a foe of equal force and raw bloodlust.
Eventually the tide turned yet again as both combatants met in combat and a sudden reversal by Zenos sheared off a plate of Myles' helm, the shard embedding itself at Damaia's feet, part of the faceplate. Myles for his part had impaled Zenos through the chest, and the Garlean's entire coat was caked in blood as he sank to a knee, before rising again
"No, Not Yet! Not until the last of me is Spent!" he shot forward and brought his weapon to bear in a series of slashes that pinged off Myles' armor and struck the joints in a few spots, enough that he two was dripping the dark red of his lifeblood on the ground.
"This is my moment.... OUR MOMENT!!!"
"COME ON THEN!!!"
the two charged and as Zenos jumped and brought his scythe down, wreathed in energy, Myles brought his sword up in the same aetheric aura, the blades meeting in a clash that sent a shockwave flying that knocked Damaia off her feet. she clung to her staff for dear life as, with a clap akin to a Levinbolt, both weapons shattered. Zenos was sent flying and righted himself in mid-air, using aether to conjure a sigil which tilted him forward as he launched himself at Myles, who had slid across the ground, conjured his shadowy counterpart and used it to shove him back into the fray with the flat of it's blade. the Garlean Reaper and Lominsan Dark Knight both charged at one another, Myles helmet shattered and falling to pieces around him as the pair throw matching punches that sent off more shockwaves. Zenos would land an uppercut and sent Myles' head jerking back, only for him to respond in kind with a hook that sent more spittle and blood from Zenos' mouth.
Eventually Zeno kicked Myles back, the shorter man sliding before coming to a stop once more. his dark armor dissipating as he stood in a ragged green shirt, black trousers with a brown cloth tied across one leg, and a pair of brown boots. the pair were on their knees, bleeding and well beyond the means to summon any more structured attacks. but with a roar of fury and resolve, they launched themselves at one another one last time, Zenos' fist covered in more dark red aether as Myles pulled what remained from his own reserves into a brighter blue. Damaia watched as, with the benefit of a mere fraction of a second's timing, Myles's fist collided with Zenos and sent the Garlean sailing backwards, crashing into the ground next to the shattered remains of his blade.
seconds passed as Myles swayed on his feet, Damaia sprinting back to him and catching him as he began to stumble.
"Thanks... 'Maia...."
"That I should lose again... how disappointing..."
Damaia nearly dropped Myles as Zenos spoke again. Myles began to stumble forward and with a soft nudge, Damaia allowed him to hobble forward and subsequently collapse mere ilms from Zenos' own body, the Garlean's shroud having faded and his blonde form resting nearly death-still on the ground.
"Never have i understood those around me. Understood their obsessions. Besieged by their banality, the world was a mire of tedium and trivialities. But in these fleeting moments, there is... a spark. Blinding, brilliant..."
His breathing was slowing as his aether, already down to a candle's embers, began to die out. Myles's vision swam as he recalled all the places he'd been. La Noscea, Thanalan, Gridania, they flew through his mind as he recalled the places he'd gone, the people he'd met...
"Gone... too soon.... what of you, my mirror? born of this world, bestowed name, Bid to seek out strife and adventure...
Damaia could see the far-away look in Myles' eye and her vision began to flood as the Echo showed her the same places.
"Was this life a gift... or a burden?"
The adventurers, Myles first, then Damaia as she saw Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, Doma and the Crystarium, felt the melancholy, sorrow and joy that each place had brought him. had brought them, in their own ways.
"Did you find... fulfillment?"
Myles opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Damaia looked at Zenos, this monster of unfathomable proportions, and with a moment's contemplation, answered, conveying her and Myles' meanings in but a single word.
"Yes."
"I..." Zenos spoke no more as his lifeforce finally gave out, and he stilled. dying on the edge of the universe, fulfilled in life for the final fight he had craved being all he had hoped for and more.
Damaia looked at the sunrise on the edge of the expanse, and could see in her peripheral, Myles's eyes were fluttering as consciousness began to leave him. as she watched, she was momentarily distracted by a flash, as both her and Myles' teleportation devices, created to send the scions back to the Ragnarok all at once, which the pair of them had discarded to send the others away while they fought the Endsinger, reappeared. she caught hers and saw Myles had clawed around until he grabbed his, hitting the button as he finally passed out. she smirked as she looked at the sunrise, and felt the magick take hold, whisking them both towards their friends, their home, and their rest. the day was won.