Virtuous

**************

Wyatt Graves

Spitting out blood from my mouth and a piece of my lung, careful not to use any air and only my mandible, my eyes never leave Alexos. But just as I struggle to survive, my body actively shutting down, and so is Alexos.

Streams of deep crimson fall from the hole in his torso and his amputated arm. But, at least we're even now. He got me in the chest, and so did I. The whole missing arm thing is just a courtesy.

I wish I could do more, but the next strike to land on either of us will likely be the end. We both know it. My vision wobbles with spots of black so encompassing that I have to constantly turn my head to keep my foe in sight. I hesitate for a moment, thinking of a way to end this without bringing myself closer to death, but I don't think there is one. I have to meet the Pale Lady head-on if I want to beat this bastard.

But I ignore the sense of Death encroaching, her pale hands wrapping around my throat. I need to toss him into her embrace. I've spent much of the past few months thinking about carefulness, but there are always exceptions. When a foe is simply better than you in every way, gambles are the only way to win.

Yet, as I take a single step toward Alexos, my legs hardly giving me any motion, the man falls to a knee, his remaining arm holding onto the grass. He coughs out a clump of blood as he flinches. Then, he coughs several more times as I try to reach him, each step more excruciating than the last.

Is this it? Will he bleed out before I finish him off?

No. He won't. There is simply no way.

And as if to make my thoughts a reality, the Phantom Pain speaks for the first time since we started fighting. He pauses several times to cough but doesn't relent. I have no choice but to let him do so as my movement is gradual, every foot a battle.

"Impressive. Truly... In another life, we could have been close, perhaps even student and teacher... There is so much for you to learn. This is a battle of brawns versus brains, if only we both weren't restricted in our ways, the Motherbound guiding the strings. But alas, the world sought differently. I've learned much from having you as an opponent and a goal... I'm sure, even in an odd way, you've gained much from me as a goal. That is just how the world works..."

He breaks into a massive coughing fit as I force myself to move faster, shambling toward him as I feel my lungs ready to burst, my Strugglers Gasp knocking onto the door of its limit. Yet, I refuse to open the door and continue toward my goal, Alexos' death.

But just as I get close, Alexos recovers, his remaining eye meeting mine.

"I am sorry, Graves, for all that has happened and for all that will happen... It is ironic. I've been searching for the key to the Underworld for decades. And only upon the brink of death do I realize that my method was wrong all along. I learn the truth from a child half my age. I never needed to go down there."

Worry fills my heart, a palpable danger manifesting from the glint in Alexos eye. I don't know what he's about to do, but I can't let it happen. I raise my arm, the missing or broken fingers of the Bloody Palm clenching into a fist as I charge it with the last of Struggers Gasp. But as I move my arm toward him, I feel a vibration through the world, Alexos' chains somehow gaining luster despite his wounds.

"Only I decide what is real and what is fake. What is death, and what is life."

An outlandish swirl of Ether clouds my vision momentarily, one larger than all the Ether my Strugglers Gasp intakes, but I ignore it and go for the kill. My arm swings for him with all the force I can muster, my body hinging into the attack. And as my arm moves, a wall appears in front of me, a stone structure filled with age and wear.

Assuming it is nothing but a last-ditch effort to make me look away, I continue, my fist aiming to disrupt the illusion he somehow weaved so quickly. But my fist doesn't go through it; a deafening crack rings through the air, forcing me to stumble back. Then, confused and alarmed with eyes unfocused from the strike, I look down to the Bloody Palm to see that the odd noise came from the wrist of my arm breaking, the bones of my forearm sticking out.

What? What? Was there something there all along? Did he hide a tree? No... that's not...

Oh no.

My eyes refocus, revealing to me a shattered wall and a pale-faced man pushing himself off the dirt of the forest using the bricks that somehow appeared. But as my eyes refocus, my vision lurches, the ground sinking as I fall. Strugglers Gasp left me; all I'm left with now is Daydream and Strugglers Defiance. As such, I can only fall to the ground, the two skills not enough to dissuade my body from faltering to its wounds.

Alexos shambles toward me, a column of wood gradually forming from his hand before slamming into the dirt to help him walk. And as he steps toward me, tight wraps of bandages appear around his open wound alongside a tourniquet on his arm.

"I was so naive. To think I should hinge everything on the path of another. And if what you say is genuine, then my course is the only one. Illusions. You are so gifted at seeing through them, Graves. An almost perfect foil to me, if only I had not made them using the air itself, twisting the light impossibly. Yet, no matter what, you can't see through reality."

The man stands before me, pulling out a vial from his pocket as he opens the cork and drinks it. The container is familiar and brings out a boiling rage.

The Philiam. Edmund's artifact.

Heat comes from my core to battle to coming cold from blood loss as Alexos speaks again. But I barely even listen to him as he draws a blade, a familiar scene repeating itself.

Where I was almost executed on that tree trunk.

I'm not lying down, but my head is bent and my neck open for the end.

"I never thought the day when I'd have an Absolution. I must thank you, Graves, for opening the path forward in my eyes. If you see your father in the Underworld you spoke of, tell him I'll be waiting for our rematch."

A blade appears in Alexos' hand as the stone bricks behind him disappear, but I don't pay any attention to any of that. No.

I rear my head up as Alexos raises the machete to finish me off, his flesh smoldering back into place with inhuman swiftness from the Philiam. I stare directly into his remaining eye as I try to move, but my body refuses.

All my wounds are so severe that my body refuses to budge. The slit throat has been draining me of vitality this whole time. The punctured lungs keep me from regaining any strength, and the cut heel keeps me from standing. The Explosions from earlier leave my entire body riddled with broken bones, not to mention the decrepit Bloody Palm. I half expected it to intervene, but no. It is deadset on only helping me should I be mind controlled, besides healing my arm, of course. That is its home, after all.

I can feel my internal organs, bones, flesh, and muscles try to move but be unable to respond to my desperate urges. I'm just too hurt. Another Strugglers Gasp will kill me, my body already bordering on the limit. And I doubt it will do enough to keep me from dying anyway with whatever Alexos just did.

Death. That is all that remains. But... I can't give up that easily. I should have fought smarter. I should have been careful and played for time. I didn't have to kill him alone. Fuck! I'm so stupid! I should have figured out what Liberation did before I entered. Fuck! If only... if only... no. You can do this thinking later. For now, you need to act, Wyatt. If you don't, you die.

If Strugglers Gasp isn't enough, then... I need to reach deeper.

Until I reach the peak, distance remains yet.

As the blade falls down for my neck, I take the remaining Ether in my body and send it into my chains, but instead of using it in the way of Strugglers Defiance, I manipulate it differently. With a darkening vision, my body dying off before the blade even meets my neck, I twist the Ether inside my intangible chains. A reminiscent feeling enters my heart as I edge toward the unknown, my mind drifting to my last execution.

And just as Alexos made the unreal real with his mind, I force the chains in the same direction. Our Sigils are two sides of the same coin. He creates illusions, and I break them. He is mental; I am physical.

If he can make his thoughts tangible, I can make my chains palpable. So concrete that they will be what holds me together.

But as the blade falls for my neck, the illusory chains refuse to budge, my Ether unable to affect them in any way. I frantically push harder, the split second shattering into a minute due to desperation. But just as I feel the chains twist, a portion of my pain leaving, they stop moving and untangle from an appearing force.

And that significance rapidly grows as a pressure descends, one I'm acquainted with before. A fragment of the Mother Below places a bet on my death, making it even more difficult for me chains to move. Her presence is sweltering, somehow reaching me despite what Dominus said about me being hidden from her. Dammit. I need to get past this!

Then, gritting my teeth and disregarding everything, I take a leap. I don't care if you are doing what you can to stop me. I will survive.

If Alexos can obtain an Absolution, so can I. So what's disobeying a God twice when you've already done it once?

Ether swarms from my mind, propelling me off that illusory yet authentic edge of Ether saturation. Nevertheless, this gamble is worth taking, even if it is fueled only by spite. The two people I hate most in this world are Alexos and the Mother Below. Ma once said that spite is the greatest motivator for action. I might have to agree.

They both are pushing me toward my end, but I refuse.

As a pain I barely register enters the flesh of my neck, Ether, more than I've ever used before, meets the Mother Below's phantasmal and omniscient force inside my body. My Ether twists, turns, glows luminous, and evaporates into a gas as I take every lesson I've learned and throw it against this God. All my tricks come out against this God as I rage against its eternity of strength.

It feels like I am ramming into an immovable brick wall. The resistance is unshakable, but I know my path is true. If it wasn't, she wouldn't have intervened. So, as pain bites deeper into my neck, I Twist with all my might, my very being at risk of death.

But as I do, I feel a click, the sound of my Ether moving. And just as my Ether twists my fetters together, the sight before my eyes change.

No longer am I kneeling on the forest floor. I am now upright within the dark walls of The Cabin. A slow, faltering breath is released, the first since I started fighting Alexos. However, I quickly suck that breath back in. No resting. Not yet. He is still not dead.

Until Alexos is sent to that hellish Underworld, I will not rest.

But... I need to reflect before anything else. This... madness needs to end with Alexos. I have to find a better way to fight, one that ends with fewer injuries. Whether I do that my redoing all my skills or copying others, it doesn't matter. I need to do it. And I need to do it soon. That is if I even make it out of this one alive. At the very least, the bastard will also go down with me. Setting my mind for the future, I turn my attention forward.

My feet carry me to the table in the center of The Cabin, where the tome lies passed down from Gluskab. I gaze at the pages without any hesitation as words fill my mind. It's only been a few minutes since I was last here, my quickest return time, but I'm not complaining.

Power is Power.

Congratulations, my Escapist. You have displayed an overwhelming pure resonance to the aspect of the Martyr.

You have achieved another Act of Absolution in your attempt to overcome your own limits. But the second is different from the first. To Absolve once means you are Powerful, and the Powerful are Worthy. To do it twice means you are Virtuous, and the Virtuous are Honorable. A diamond emerged once from the amalgam of man and Sigil. To Absolve oneself again is to shatter the diamond and reform the splinters. And so, may you, the Forthright Escapist, reconstitute as a shimmering gem, one that glows with a never-ending radiance, for you, the soon-to-be Martyr, have performed,

The Martyrs Absolution.

You have prematurely resonated with a future step along your path, and as such, your current Sigil shall shift its Absolute Form to match it, just as it shifts to better match you. It will never be the same again, and neither will you, Forthright Escapist.

From the Forthright Escapist you once were, now, you are the Escapist, The Intrepid Strife. One who endures any tribulation and holds themself together with dauntless will. There will never be a foe you cower from, a struggle from which you evade. You face all metiers the same, boundless grit the first response. And the last.

With this new form, your Sigil shall grant a new strength. A new aid to you in your long journey. One that fills your Virtue with significance.

You are now Virtuous, and your Virtue of Fortitude holds true under any storm, underneath any struggle, and beneath any fetter. But, for most, their chains act only to impede them, slow them, and otherwise hold them back. But not for you, Intrepid Strife. For you, even they struggle. On their own, your chains will bear your Virtue in minuscule parts. Together, the individual fetters will hold you like a weaver repairing a quilt. Alone they are weak, but under pressure, they tighten, and while one thread is frail, many are indomitable.

Though, your form is insufficient for a Virtue, and as such, only Merit can bloom. Any more, and you will succumb. For a Virtue to wholly blossom, a shred of Divinity and Power is needed to sustain it.

The form of your Sigil shall now be revealed to you, as it is more pure and effervescent than ever before.

My eyes go wide at the knowledge entering my mind. So, that's why the 8th Sigiled are called Virtues, and the 7th are called Powers. Eh, I kinda knew that, but seeing it from The Cabin cements it. I wonder why there is so much more information in this Absolution compared to the other... It's odd, but there isn't anyone I can ask. Perhaps it's because most who gain a Virtue are already Angels, and as such, they deserve such information?

I don't know about that, but I do know this is huge. Really huge. So much of my strength and survivability has come from the skill from my first Absolution, Strugglers Gasp. The Virtue from the second will be tremendous! Or Merit, I guess. I think this is the same distinction between a Power and what most get for their first Absolution, for Powers can only appear in Angels.

What I'm getting must be a dumbed-down rendition that I can handle, but even that will likely change my current situation. It doesn't sound like a skill of any kind, but that fits with most Virtues or Merits, as from what I've heard, they are predominantly passive traits. Birdie down in the Underworld told Johnny a bit about them, and he passed the information to the rest of us.

A Virtue is an inherent boon in some way, your Sigil resonating so closely with your soul that it acts in your favor without request. I suppose mine will be some kind of strengthening? Or endurance based, maybe? It's unclear, but I'm sure I'm about to find it out. The Merit is likely just the skill version of a Power, the emerging ability not yet whole.

I reach for the way out but not without glancing at the new form of my Sigil. As before, there was a trio of eyes, my Metamorphosed Sigil, and two hanging Philosophers, but not anymore. Instead, the two Philosophers sit behind the Metamorphosed Sigil, making a quintet of eyes, where there is only a slight demarcation between the trio and the duo. For a second, I angle my hand toward the Sigil, but I hesitate.

Forethought. Planning. Cunning. All things that Alexos has and I lack. I'm awful at thinking on the fly, but I have some time. No blood, no pain, no hurry, just peace.

Stepping back, I fall to the ground. Hmm... what to do? I need to deal with that blade likely entering my spine. How? My Sigil spoke of my form enhancing me, but in what way, exactly? I think this is a part I simply have to gamble on. I can't do anything but hope this Merit deals with it. But after? I can make a plan for after. I need to get Alexos close, so close that he can run.

Taking him to the ground for a wrestling match is ideal. I'll be weak, but so will he. Plus, we are both missing an arm, making it even. I doubt he's been through many tussles like that since he'd probably die if anyone competent took him to the ground. I can do this. I can. He might have that new illusion trick, but he has to be close to or out of Ether. I can do this. I have to.

I stand, heading back to the Sigil, confident in winning. Then, Committing the strange sight to memory and my fragile plan to mind, I reach forward. As the tome mentioned, the fragment of Gluskab, I intrepidly face my coming strife.

********

My vision is bright and unblurred but still slightly shaky, which surprises me. The other thing that shocks me is the pain in my neck and the jolt that stops the blade from severing my head. I move my eye to my peripheral to meet the shocked gaze of Alexos, machete lodged into my spine.

Inwardly, I can feel a difference as Alexos yanks the blade back to try again. My chains, the light blue fetters that typically grow tighter as one weakens, are constricting. Still, as they do so, they are turning material. My chains no longer only fatigue me; they hold my organs together, tie my muscles tighter, and close open blood vessels. I can even see minuscule shimmers of them turning physical. Perhaps that is what they will become when my Virtue blooms. And just as The Cabin said, this binding gives me strength.

I can still sense the metaphorical chains of the Philosopher overlayed with the half-tangible ones that are holding me together, making my body heal faster and endure these grievous wounds. As such, I'm reasonably sure that should I use Strugglers Gasp, the two would overlap, not that I'm in any situation to do so.

My thoughts are forced to turn toward the fight, even with my overwhelming wonder, as Alexos swings that illusioned machete again. I raise my arm to meet it, the Bloody Palm already reconstituting the broken bone with my Merit's help, which I need to name for memory's sake.

Now's my chance. He's surprised, acting on response! I need to get him close!

And so, my hand, already missing a few fingers, meets the machete. But as the machete impacts my flesh, it digs in deep, eliciting blood to flow, yet, it does not cut through. Instead, his blade stops in the depth of my palm as I grip the sword tightly and yank myself up to my feet.

Alexos tries to bolt backward, but I reach up along the machete's edge, allowing it to cut more profoundly as I grab his wrist. I squeal out a curse as I tear him toward me.

"Get over here!"

He tries to twist out of my grip, but my Merit gives me strength with more tremendous pressure. And I've never been so close to death yet still standing. A trim child would have more blood in their body than me, and a corpse with fewer wounds.

My grip tightens as I haul Alexos toward me, his eye bulging as the second one regrows from the Philiam. His missing arm is also regenerating but at a much slower pace. I don't bother putting a stop to any of that, and instead, I enact my plan. I simply punch the man square in the face, bones in his face shattering as I take him back to the ground with me, using my weight for the throw. I need to play this smart. Keep him from running.

I may be injured, and he may be healing, but we are both out of Ether. He'd have made a wall to stop my punch if he wasn't. And so, as we hit the dirt floor of the forest, I punch, and I punch, and I punch, screams leaving my perforated lungs as I expunge my sorrows into his face.

He tries to resist, but he is physically weaker than me. He might be fast, but most of that comes from miraculous Ether use. And so, he's at the bottom of the barrel regarding raw strength. Plus, he's not used to one arm.

With little effort, I force away his arm that is trying to defend himself, a tiny shard of glass appearing in his palm. And then, I continue to strike every hit, feeling like the most fantastic experience in the world. Finally, I hit Alexos even as he stabs that shard of glass into my chest as we begin a battle of endurance.

He chose the wrong battle.

Even the Mother Below bowed to my resilience.

And so, with complete confidence, I hit and hit him. I batter his face until he stops moving entirely, his skull caved in and busted. But, then, I only stop as I grow weary, my burgeoning strength unable to stave off the blood loss. He only managed to stab me once just now, his body faltering to perform a second. Yet, that was enough to overcome my Merit with how many injuries I already possess.

With a flickering sight, I sink to the side of Alexos, my body facing the sky in the same manner as his. My chest rises and falls slowly, my fetters holding my lungs scarcely together. Blood is all I can taste, smell, and feel as the bright sky above bares down on me. I rub my ruined fingers together, feeling the sensation of slick blood as the warmth rapidly leaves the liquid and me.

Seconds pass in silence as my breath begins to slow, the sky darkening despite the sun above being unhindered. Finally, my eyes gradually close, the chirping of faraway birds becoming apparent. I did it, Edmund. I can die now.

But just before I do, a shadow enters my vision, and the voice of a recent encounter assails my ringing ears.

"Two for two. Just as the Mother wanted."