"Not just children," Amphelise said with exaggerated, simpering tones."I'll incapacitate you and then eat your brother's heart right in front of you."
Gawain scoffed and called up his fire."Everyone knows Dred doesn't have a heart."
Ordinarily, Lancelot would have laughed, even in the midst of a fight.But right now something felt decidedly off.
His worries were confirmed as countless others jumped down from the seats to fill the arena, all of them sharing Amphelise's cruel smile.She hadn't possessed one person, she'd possessed…at least thirty.That number would probably grow.Or as they killed one, another would take their place.
"How is she doing this?"he asked as the possessed launched their attack, coming at him and Gawain and Merlin from all angles.
"I don't know!"Merlin said as he fought off three of them."I need to be able to focus!"
"Then go," Lancelot said harshly.Get up high, out of the way.We can handle her for now.
Merlin didn't bother to reply, just knocked down the two in his immediate path and ran for the seats, scaling the wall with ease and vanishing into the crowd.
Trusting he could manage himself, Lancelot put his full attention on the fighting, exchanging buckler for shield, using that and his water to drive opponents back, knock them over, take them out of the fight however he could without killing them.
Chances were, they were already dead.He doubted the process involved with possessing them left anything intact.But until he knew for certain, he would not fucking kill them.
Unfortunately, Amphelise had no such compunctions.She screamed with fury as Gawain continued to match her assault, even best her, and cut down two of her own to bathe her sword in blood.It glowed a lurid, violent purple.
Gawain met her with walls of fire, turning Lancelot's water into steam, clouding the arena and making everything that much more difficult.
And they had no idea what the others were facing, if they were even all right.
The facts, what were the facts.
Scrob's body seemed to be the main Amphelise, as that was who held the sword—and she'd cut down the other possessed like they didn't matter.Doing so certainly had shown no signs of hurting her.So taking her down, and not being distracted by the adds, was the key to all of this.
As Gawain hit her with a wall of flame and boiling-hot steam, leaving her wounded and bloodied and her face a horrifying mess, Amphelise screamed with a rage he'd never heard before—except for that last day at Camlann, when Maleagant had realized he would lose.When he'd bargained with a creature he never should have messed with and gained an army of nightmares that had slaughtered the knights of Camelot like they were a child's wooden soldiers.
Lancelot should have died then, a lance headed right at him.Galehaut had stepped in front of him and taken the lance to the chest instead.Lancelothaddied then, in every way that mattered, though he'd held himself together long enough to find Merlin.
Now here they were, and that rage was returned, but in the sister.She cut down more and more of her own puppets, her wounds slowly healing, until he and Gawain were simply no match for the blood-soaked power of that damned sword.
Fine.Drastic measures it was.Dismissing Arondight and his clothes, Lancelot once more called up the full power of his true nature, past the claws and kelp and webbed hands, screaming in agony as his body reshaped itself into the great silver serpent.A form regarded as holy by his people of the waters, a form only he could take, and his mother's most deadly form was greater still.
His tail made short work of the minor puppets, batting them out of the way, into the wall, into the stands.Water once more filled the arena, rising quickly, his movements making it all the more treacherous.Gawain scaled the wall, getting well out of the way.
Amphelise had no such form, but she used floating detritus to get to him, climbing on his back, clinging to his spines to stab him over and over, using her slight size to avoid his gaping maw.
Still not enough.
The ground cracked further under the weight of the water, and down, down, down they went into the hidden tributaries and lake far below the earth, landing with a thunderous splash that brought rocks raining down upon them.
Finally where he belonged, able to see where most other creatures could not, his spines glowing a soft blue in the endless, frigid midnight of the subterranean lake, he went hunting.
Strangely, Amphelise had not abandoned the game.Perhaps she couldn't, trapped in the pocket dimension the same as them.Or perhaps it was tied to how she had possessed poor Scrob.Or somehow the wards were holding, even this far down.Little mattered, in the end.
What mattered was that he was able to find her in the dark, swim up from below, and grab her in his jaws right before she was able to breach the surface.The force of the bite tore her body into two pieces.Letting go, he crushed the head, reducing it to pulp.
Leaving the remains to fall where they may, issuing a silent apology and prayer to poor Scrob, he swam to the surface again, then climbed up slippery rock until he reached the remains of the arena.
Gawain waited in the box seat where the NPC nobility had watched the festivities."The remaining puppets collapsed."
Lancelot didn't reply, just dipped his head so Gawain could climb aboard, and together they went in search of the others.Merlin?
Still working.Almost got it.I think you killed-killed her, well fucking done.Not the sister we were hunting, but I'll fucking take it.What happened to her sword?
