Chapter 152: Never Not Stopping
The entire battlefield holds their breath as Bilorial takes a slow step back, hands raised in a feigned act of surrender, gaze flicking once toward the frozen, blazing shape of Eris still hanging motionless mid-swing beside Syraleth.
Syraleth taps Eris’ cheek fondly as she walks past her. "Don’t worry, your friend will be fine. As soon as I get what I want... I’ll let her go. All of you. Just give me the Prince."
Maribelle’s fingers tighten around her sword hilt, watching her daughter’s face for any sign of fear and finding, proudly, that Vuvi’s face harboured no sign of it, at all.
"It’s quite simple, really," Syraleth calls out, raising her voice so the whole assembled team can hear her clearly, which wasn’t quite unnecessary given that her soldiers stood absolutely motionless and soundless behind her. Hundreds upon hundreds of demon-kin warriors staring at the team, their eyes blazing with a single, shared purpose.
"I want the Prince." she says, with all the ease of an outcome she’s already decided. "Nothing else. Hand him over, and everything stops. Right here, right now. No war. No fighting. Not one unnecessary death and dismemberment." She spreads her hands, almost reasonable, almost gentle, the picture of a humble demon-kin Baroness asking for something small, something owed and easily given. "I deserve him as much as any other woman on Elthrea."
"No other woman gets him at all if you hoard him to yourself, bitch!" Vuvi snaps back, Boombuster still aimed dead-center at the Baroness’s smiling face. "Pip’s going nowhere. ’Specially not with you!"
Syraleth shrugs, entirely unbothered, entirely unmoved, staring straight at several pounds of primed explosive grapeshot pointed directly at her head.
"Can’t help myself." she says as a matter of fact, " I’m the Queen of Greed, darling... not Generosity. I want him... and I will have him, one way or another."
"You could try sharing." Sera suggested helpfully, her greatsword slung across her shoulder. "Quite a novel concept, I know, I know, but you might actually surprise yourself if you actually tried.."
"Oh, I’ve tried, little girl. I didn’t much care for it." Syraleth purrs, "Not at all."
Her wings shift with a low, rustling groan of bone and shadow, twin membranes catching what little light remains of the day and throwing it back in dark, oily ripples.
"Sharing implies I’d have to stop wanting something eventually..." the Baroness muses aloud. "And I find that I never do. Not once. Not ever."
Her smile falls away like she’s torn off a mask. Her great, obsidian wings tear free from her back in a violent burst of shredded shadow and rustling smoke, each one crackling with veins of dark, pulsing light as they unfurl to their full, monstrous form, blotting out half the darkening sky behind her and casting the whole field into sudden, premature darkness.
The soldiers behind her drop instinctively to one knee in unison, a wave of silent deference rippling backward through the ranks like wind through wheat.
Her eyes flare a deep, molten crimson, twin rubies lit from within by something ancient, patient, and utterly starving, and the very air around her seems to thicken, and fluctuate. Growing heavy and electric, the way the sky feels in the last, unbearable second before lightening finally strikes.
Somewhere behind Vuvi, Raikya’s fangs bear themselves on instinct, a low growl building in her throat. Frostlick answers it with one of her own. Deeper, older, entirely prepared to start ripping throats.
Sera plants her feet wider, greatsword angling low and ready while Veena’s palms glow as sparks and crackles of violet light already begin gathering at their finger tips.
"Make the smart choice, my Prince, the only choice..." Syraleth says, voice low and terribly patient, the kind of patience that has clearly waited centuries for smaller, lesser things and can easily wait a little longer for this one. "You can stop the bloodshed. Save your friends’ lives. Just come... come to me. I promise... I will take care of you. We’ll take care of each other."
"Don’t you dare," Vuvi mutters, low enough that only Pip can hear it, one hand finding his arm and gripping tight. "Don’t even think about it!"
Pip turns to Vuvi, to Veena, to Sera, Penelo, Lula, Raikya still bristling atop Frostlick, to Maribelle and even to a grim-faced Bilorial, to every single member of his impossible, cobbled-together family of friends and protectors, and finds them already closing ranks around him.
A wall of drawn steel and bared teeth and absolute, unshakable certainty. Every one of them swearing in the same, overlapping breath, fierce and unyielding, that they’ll do whatever it takes to keep him safe, curse and army and greedy demon Baroness be damned.
"We didn’t drag you half way across the entire continent," Vuvi says, hefting her hand-cannon, "just to hand you over because some horny bat-lady asked nicely."
"We’ve beaten her once," Penelo says proudly. "We can do it again. There’s more of us now! We’re stronger!"
"Weirdest family ever," Veena groans, "And it can’t exist with out our favorite little sex-golem"
Pip gives one warm, grateful beep, chest glowing softly with something that brims with pride, love and overbearing appreciation.
Then he turns to face Syraleth, planting his feet, chin raised, chest lit gold with a burning resolve, and raises one hand. Slow and deliberate, unmistakable even from a hundred yards away, a firm, entirely unambiguous middle finger.
Syraleth tilts her head, studying him with something that looks, for one strange and unsettling moment, almost like genuine longing. The specific, aching longing of someone who has wanted a single thing for so long and so hard that the wanting itself has become indistinguishable from pure love.
The wind picks up around her as she speaks, dragging loose ash and torn grass into slow, spiraling swirls at her feet, like the whole battlefield is bending itself quietly toward her will.
Even the frozen figure of Eris, suspended mid-strike, seems smaller somehow, dwarfed by the sheer, oppressive weight of the Baroness’ magical presence. It’s pressure rippling across the field, while behind her, the endless ranks of soldiers slowly shift into action, weapons rising in perfect, silent unison, a forest of blades catching the sunlight.
"I was really, really hoping," she says softly, almost gently, almost woefully, "we wouldn’t have to do this the hard way."