The Queen of light, Lara!
From the sea of darkness and sand that Shargh had become, Aatish emerged as a lonely flame, climbing up a depression that was luckily unnoticed by the two monstrosities fighting.
The squads of Luminaras and bees that followed her were told to stay put and cave behind the layerings of rock. Outside, a violent sandstorm roared.
She quickly unclipped her cape and dismissed it in a series of sparks, then closed her eyes, stretching her senses as far as she could.
A yellow light faintly blinked in the darkness of her mind; it was Rohaan. She quickly opened her eyes and streaked in the direction of the light. She had picked up his energy signature; after working together for so long, she exactly knew what to look for.
Rohaan was splattered upon a stone, completely unconscious, tucked behind three walls of darkness, each rising some five feet from above the ground. He was safe from the debris and constant barrage of sand.
Seeing him churned Aatish's heart. She could not believe that the hardest and most brutal part of the mission was the one tasked to Rohaan, and it still wasn't over.
Lifting him up over her shoulder, she shot back into the depression and handed him over to a medic from Luminaras. He instantly knew what to do; there was no time to share unnecessary words.
Aatish had another job to do.
**********
Wasl was a demon, and in more than one sense, her fighting was savage and ruthless. The weapons she wielded were a stark representation of her savagery.
She spun 'Desire,' the unholy sword, in a hauntingly graceful slash against the Queen of light, but Lara was too agile to be caught by it. She quickly backfooted and dodged.
Upon this, Wasl smiled and lifted her finger up as a series of sharp stone spikes, each as tall as her, dug into Lara from the left. Visibly, they pierced her standing figure, but it stayed still, like a mirage of sorts.
Wasl was only a second late to notice, as a dagger slid into her neck from behind, coming out from the other side. Impaled upon it, the stone demoness did not try to pull it out; instead, she only laughed more manically.
Lara immediately summoned more mirages, each burning with incandescent light, tearing away the veils of darkness, then surrounded the stone demoness from all sides.
"Nice trickery," Wasl replied, as she lifted her right hand up. Out of all of the mirages, a single one to the far left suddenly fell onto the ground. Blood gushed outwards from Lara's lips.
She felt immobilized for a second, and that single second was all that took for the sovereign to spin desire upon her neck.
Lara enforced all of her light to a single spot to the back of her neck; it held desire from completely taking it off but wasted a huge chunk of her stamina.
She felt something churning inside her, as if all of her organs were caged and clotted, and then it dawned upon her.
Lara shakily stood up and pushed the demoness away. She held her chest frantically, tried to break free herself from within.
Then she concentrated all the light to travel within. Normally, anything would get completely obliterated entering her body, so she did not even think about protecting herself from it, but the stone demoness had played a clever card; she had cursed the wind itself which carried micro debris.
Lara had breathed a fair amount of it during the whole battle.
It was currently trying to kill her from the inside, but Lara would not be so easily done. She lifted up into the air, glowing bright orange and burning as hot as the sun; heatwaves traveled away from her, melting even the stone below.
The demoness tried to fly up but felt her body melting due to the intense heat; it was too brutal even for her.
A second later, the heat settled, as Lara descended down, renewed. She looked straight at the demoness; her eyes held the familiar madness Rohaan had.
"Let's continue," she said.
Both the combatants were too equally matched.
************
There was flurry of movement in the Empress Quarters, Bees, gloomchimmers, creatures Azlan had never seen before were rushing carrying out multitude of tasks,
Currently walking alone in a beautiful lit corridor, Azlan could not help but feel awestruck at the beauty of the Golden tower, he had been here countless of times before, but the pristine detailing still surprised him
the floor was made up of strong and sturdy glass with immaculate white marble underneath, inbetween the glass and the marble were ethereal veins of pure gold and light, flowing freely in an extremely enchanting pattern.
The ammount of craftsmanship and love that had gone into each every nook of the golden tower signified how much the creatures revered the Empress on shomaal, afterall, she had freed them, brought them hope when the world had turned absolute pitch black.
Azlan walked forward, he had settled upon a different shade than his mother, his feathers were a blend of royal green with golden linings inbetween, whereas his Mother, the dark Queen, boasted a unique violet and black combination.
Zar-e-zameen's were born regal, they carried their mother colors up until a certain age until their preawakening.
Azlan stopped, to his left was an enormous door and a seemingly never ending hall, pure white, brimming with radiance and purity, and in the middle surrounded by a group of royal attendees, was a figure whose presence forced reverence and respect upon you.
The Empress stood tall, her feathers covered and merged perfectly with the purity and light behind, making her seem like a nobel spectre emerging out of thin air.
She had changed during the recent years, the golden linings upon her regal feathers was more bold and pronounced, and her crown extended for metres behind her, whereas before she emanated an aura of pure power, a misfit even inbetween the powerhouses of the sehra,
Now it appeared as if that power was layered underneath a sheet of regality and composure.
Noone could tell whether this effect was due to retrieval of the artefact or due to managing a entire planetoid by herself,
Behind her was the fabled #212, standing tall and proud, he had been titled as the 'defier of death', Azlan still felt shivers looking at him. The stories and legends he had heard about him were too surreal to believe.
Azlan stepped through, dodging a group of tiny Latifkats, they stood only some inches from the ground but even inbetween the royal crowd, their ettiquettes and manerism stood beyond,
"Master Azlan" A tiny latifkat bowed while looking at the young prince, behind him all the other latifkats rapidly formed a group, their tiny fins splattering against the marbel made a humorous sound, Azlan bowed back,
"Master Lekhni, what is going on?" Rohaan asked, his gaze was fixated upon the Empress still, it seeemed like as if she was about to depart to somewhere.
Lekhni stayed silent,
"I'm afraid my prince its not my place to inform you" he replied in an extremely soft and empathetic voice, then he pardoned himself, and moved on with the rest of the tiny latifkat squad.
Azlan neared the Empress,
"My Queen" Azlan said then bowed.
"Come forward," Empress replied, her voice was like silky sunrays, intermingling with each other.
Azlan stepped forward, his head still bowed.
"I'm going for a while, in my absence, goto the academy, you have a task pending there, complete it and inform back"
Azlan nodded affirmitevely but felt a deep stinge in his heart, he was not informed about any of this at all, being the squire of the Empress, he was used to accompany his Queen wherever she would go.
"Dont worry, the task i've prepared for you is more exciting than where i'm going" The Empress spoke, noticing his face visibly fall dull and sad, Azlan was bad at hiding his emotions.
He nodded affirmitively