The sun was almost down, a yawn following in its descent.
And Aria had an army of a hundred.
Jaci had not expected such a number. In actuality, Jaci did not expect any numbers.
But here she was, standing in front of the remaining villagers that remained from her appeal to protect Aria with Mrs Parvathi standing in support beside her. She saw familiar faces, and she also saw ones that were new. The children were, of course, made to evacuate deeper into the forest with a number of women and men that offered to care for them instead of remaining to fight.
Mr Byrne stood towering among the crowd; a frown etched onto his features as he looked towards the horizon.
"It is almost time," He said, his voice low and a warning etched onto his words.
They didn't have a strategy; they didn't have a concrete plan.
All they knew was to defend and fight.
And Jaci couldn't help but pray that it was enough.
She took in a deep breath; she needed her words to come out stronger than she was.
"Thank you, all of you," She began, "Aria has been our home, and our life and our love. Even if the King's armies or the beast of Chaos comes to eradicate us, we will stand and fight. Because we won't let anybody else tell us what we should or should not be. We won't let anybody take away the place where we belong. We won't let our friends and families and future generation lose the one place we can be ourselves. Besides, they don't know what they're up against,"
Jaci glanced at Mrs Parvathi, who looked at her with eyes of pride.
And as she stomped her staff onto the ground, the remaining gems upon her staff lit up and twirled into colourful lights that swam in between the villagers and danced around the sky that slowly dimmed as the sun finally bid its goodbyes.
"Because we," Jaci begins as she spreads out her arms, "have magic,"
And the ground rumbled from beneath their feet as the Veteris came alive. Its roots moving like tentacles out of the ground, its branches waving without the aid of the wind.
Though it stood stationary within its spot, its body bent, and its arms swung, its roots travelled where it wanted to be. The Veteris was their weapon for it knew Aria the best, it had been here long before any of them. And it had whispered its consent that it wanted to fight alongside them.
So, Jaci allowed it to.
It wailed its thanks in gushes of wind and rustled branches.
The villagers stared in awe as the once ancient and still tree began to move and roared to life (though it had been alive for longer). It raised its branches, as though stretching from its slumber. Its body, although a little stiff, moved with a grace that would seem natural if trees were to move independently.
Mr Byrne roared in response, lifting his giant golden sword into the sky in triumph. It was as if he had already won the battle. The villagers followed in an uplifting battle cry.
Jaci's heart swelled.
And somehow a new light appeared in the night.
─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───
Sulien hadn't processed that there was a wall.
Though, he hadn't really understood or processed magic as a whole.
So, he did not think much about it.
But when many of his soldiers had shown him that they couldn't advance due to an invisible barrier, he had no choice but to believe the unbelievable.
So, they brought a canon.
His heart pounded adrenaline into his veins as they readied the giant wooden contraption that already seemed to go beyond what humans were capable of – but clearly, the unseen block said otherwise.
"On three," Sulien shouted, his eyes focused on the large expanse of woods in front of him, "One, two,"
He heard the crank.
"Three,"
And they released the giant metal ball.
It lifted into the sky, the branches around them rustled in fear and shock as it passed them by. And true enough, it stopped midway through its descent.
For a moment, Sulien's mind hadn't comprehended that it had truly struck a solid object. It was just as if time had paused, a break in time, an inlet of time.
But sound was a better indicator than what his sight could bring.
Stones cracked beneath the weight and the canon ball finally fell through. And as the sun fell from its domination, so does the world in front of them.
He watched as the invisible barrier crumbled and broke, and on the other side, he began to see pieces of an unknown puzzle fall into place.
He first saw a glow, he first saw the trees, he first saw a paradise that he never knew his Kingdom could harbour.
He didn't know what he was looking at. But it was different from what he had expected a village to look like. He had not expected a giant tree that towered and reach over a village with gentle rushes of water, small wooden houses and a golden glow that seemed to emanate out of the land itself.
Yet the village seemed empty.
It was unlike they had caught them off guard. It was unlike they had stumbled into their daily routine like an unwanted guest. It was unlike they had not just crashed through the barriers and found a place that was supposed to remain hidden.
But the village was quiet.
Something was wrong.
Everything was off.
"Sir," One of his soldiers came to him, "Shall we advance?"
In all of his years of being on the field, he had not encountered something as peculiar as this. A frown formed on his features as his mind ran through possibilities.
He had to settle on an ambush.
"No," He says, "But bring the cannon closer, I want you to hit that tree in the middle,"
The giant sequoia tree stood in the heart of the village, a beast on its own that seemed to be a completely separated being from the life that stood below it. Yet, it was connected and perhaps it was even the essence of this village.
His soldiers aimed again; the crank of the wood was the only familiar sound that he knew. Everything else was too peaceful, too tranquil, too serene.
He expected the smog and choking air like in Eardwulf. He expected old and decaying wood or overgrown moss and fungi in creaks and corners.
But he was looking at a whimsical place that he didn't even consider to be real.
And he was going to destroy it.
"On three," He says again.
"One"
His eyes were on the target.
"Two,"
His heart started to shake.
"Three,"
And somehow what happened next didn't catch him by surprise anymore.
The metal ball stopped again. A mid-air catch. But this time, it wasn't due to an invisible barrier, it wasn't due to an unseen wall or even an incredible draft of wind.
This time, it was because something had caught it.
A curl of roots.
Sulien's heart somehow faltered.
"Charge," He almost whispered.
But his soldiers stood there in equal awe and disbelief.
"I said," He growled, "Charge!"
The sound of footsteps was all he heard next, along with more metal upon metal.
And the old sequoia tree flickered to life along with the roar of a hundred men and women.
They pounced from the air as if rain had appeared on a sunny day.
Only that it wasn't raining and that the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Sulien drew his own sword, the weight of the golden grip in his hands was enough to keep his heart steady. His quillon was a glaring reminder of his purpose and mission – engraved in gold was a phoenix curled around the guard of his sword. Its feathers branching out in triumph, its wings a representation of its rise and its victory.
This was Arcastia.
And the Crossover will no longer haunt these lands.
He charged into the flurry of entangled limbs and weapons. The metallic scent crashed against his senses and he wondered if it was caused by the clash of swords rather than blood. His eyes darted around, the once untouched ground was now stomped and shattered beneath his feet. He spotted a large burly man with red hair swing an axe that he couldn't even imagine lifting. He towered over his men, a swing of his arm was enough to push back three or four of his soldiers.
He gritted his teeth as he swung his sword against his arm, protecting his comrades from the inevitable blow of this massive giant. The man roared as blood oozed out from his arm but recovered quickly from the battle wound. He swung the silver engraved axe towards Sulien in anger.
Sulien jumped away, feeling the ground shake beneath him as the axe landed onto the ground. He was almost certain that the Earth was about to split apart from the sheer impact. This man was a warrior, no doubt. His stance was firm yet flexible, his movement was powerful yet graceful, his weapons were professionally made. It wasn't a shoddy makeshift weapon; this was made by a blacksmith of great skill.
Sulien swung again, but when he was expecting an axe to leap off of, he was greeted with a firm punch to the jaw. He flew back, his jaw throbbed, and he was certain that a bruise was starting to form.
Sulien, again, expected to hit something – to land back on the ground or perhaps even into the arms of his opponent. Yet, he was surprised with the outcome of his fling.
Roots coiled around him, a snake that sucked the air out from his lungs and pressed his arms against his body. He tried to move and morph out of its python-like hold, but it had only coiled tighter until it was almost impossible to breathe. He gritted his teeth, attempting to wave his sword to somehow cut his ever-tightening rope.
But it was hopeless.
As he looked around, he realised that he was not the only one that was suspended in mid-air. Some of his soldiers had already succumbed to the thick roots while some continued to struggle in their attempt for survival.
Sulien gritted his teeth as he glanced at anything around him.
Black dots clouded his vision like a flurry of bats in a darkening cave. He didn't have much time before his body gave out on him. His brain searched for an answer, but it was hard when there was little oxygen to give it energy for thought.
But as he glanced beneath his feet, his mind somehow managed to put two and two together.
A woman stood below him; a semi-circle of guards flanked her as she moved around. It was almost silly, a sudden lift of her arms and a sudden flick of her wrist. Yet, nothing happened in her immediate surroundings. But then he realised that the tree had merely been a puppet.
With the raise of her arms, the roots burst out from the ground like zombies from the dead.
With the turn of her hand, the roots curled around his soldiers in a bone-crunching grip.
And with the slam of her fists, the ground shook.
With his last remaining breath that he tried to hold, Sulien aimed his sword to fall. He did not have the strength nor movement to make a convincing throw, so all he could do was hope that it would startle her enough to lose her focus.
And it did.
As the sword plunged just enough to cut a few strands of hair and tear the ends of her dark green cloak. She whirled around her focus no longer on the battlefield that continued to erupt in front of her. She looked up, her brown eyes meeting a pair of blue ones as they landed on the ground in front of her.
Sulien gasped for air but didn't hesitate to grab his sword that managed to stay upright from its fall. The guards that she had immediately swarmed around him in a circle.
But with his blurry vision and as his mind tried to focus while attempting to breathe, it had seemed as though there was double the number around him. His feet were cold, and his legs were ready to give out, but he felt his body come back to life as he heaved in more oxygen from the tree that just tried to kill him.
He swung his sword and pushed against it as another collided with his. The spark of metal on metal reminded him that he needed to bring back glory and not defeat. He had brought ten thousand men to make up for the oversight and the unknown of this magical village.
But he had not expected it to be this tremendous a power.
He leaned into the sword before twirling his body as he slashed at the others that came at him. One of them toppled forward and he speared the blade through the centre of his chest.
The metallic scent hit his senses once again as he pulled back his bloodied sword.
"NO!" He heard the woman shout, her fingers trembled as she tried to reach out to her fallen comrade.
He needed to get rid of her. Without the giant tree, they would have lost a great weapon.
He launched at her, but an old woman stepped in the way. With a single stomp of what looked like a branch that was wrinkled in time, he was blown back by a powerful gust of wind.
This time he landed on his back, with a certainty that yet another bruise was forming.
"Head towards the caverns!" The old woman shouted, her eyes concentrated on him, "And be careful!"
"No, we fight together!" The woman screamed back, her eyes glistening with tears that threatened to fall.
"Remember your duty," The old woman said sternly. "We will meet on the other side,"
The woman visibly swallowed and clenched her fist, "I'll see you at the Veteris, Mrs Parvathi,"
And then she ran.
Sulien attempted to bolt after her but her comrades fell in line directly in front of him.
Tch.
"I'm sorry, boy. You have to get through all of us before you can get to her," The old woman said confidently as she waved her wooden staff into the air.
"Well, of course," Sulien smirked, "For what is a war, without a fight?"
Mrs Parvathi smiled cunningly at him.
"Well said,"
And then they lunged.