The chamber at the top of the crystal spire was sparsely furnished. Like the rest of the tower, its walls, floor and ceiling were made of a light purple crystal, all the surfaces of the perfectly hexagonal room covered in elegant symmetrical patterns that lit the space with their glow.
The only other defining feature of the room was a large circular table in the center, upon which a slightly transparent map was projected in three dimensions. The land was split into six sections, the glowing magenta divisions between them forming a six pointed star with the spire at its center. One of the sections, to the north, was fuzzy and indistinct, while the other five were in greyscale, as if the energy had been drained from them.
Looming over the map was a figure that Flurry knew all too well. A six winged monster that had haunted her dreams for years. Its body looked less pristine than she remembered; the fire that surrounded it had dimmed, the magical mass in the center of its body wavering erratically. Flurry could almost make out a physical, equine looking body underneath it.
“CHILD OF HARMONY,” Seraph said, its choir of voices seeming ever so slightly discordant. “YOU KNOW NOT WHAT RUIN YOUR ACTIONS BRING.”
Flurry narrowed her eyes. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“YOUR MIND HAS BEEN POISONED BY THE LIES OF THE SERPENT. IT IS REGRETTABLE. YOUR PRESENCE WOULD HAVE BEEN WELCOMED IN THE AGE OF HARMONY.”
“This isn’t Harmony.” Flurry spat. “Not anymore. It’s become an age of rot, and corruption, and death.” She wrapped her magic around the hilt of her rapier. “It’s past time it came to an end.”
Seraph made a noise akin to a sigh. “DISAPPOINTING, AND FOOLISH.” It spread its wings wide, horn wreathed in a blazing magenta corona. “HARMONY IS ETERNAL. IT IS YOU WHO SHALL END.”
Without warning, a dozen large spikes of crystal appeared around Flurry, flying towards her. She reacted just in time, throwing up a shield around herself with barely a millisecond to spare. The crystal spikes broke on impact with the shield, being blown back and blasted into shards, but the impact also shattered the shield.
The dozens of crystal shards floated in the air for a moment, before stopping, righting themselves, and homing back in on Flurry again. She took the air, launching herself to the side, but the shards followed, chasing behind her and gaining ground. Failing to shake them off, Flurry changed tactics, flying straight at Seraph.
Just before she would have collided with the angelic nightmare, Flurry lit her horn, blinking out of existence and teleporting to the other side of Seraph. Still chasing her, the shards tore into Seraph’s body, some imbedding themselves in its wings. Flurry did a flip in mid-air, firing a bolt of magic at her foe from behind.
Seraph didn’t even so much as flinch. “WE SEE HOW YOU MANAGED TO DEFEAT THE OTHER BEARERS. BUT DO NOT THINK SUCH TRICKS WILL WORK ON US. WE HAVE MORE POWER THAN YOU COULD POSSIBLY COMPREHEND.” A mass of magical tendrils emerged from Seraph’s body, stretching out towards Flurry.
Flurry pulled her sword out and slashed at the tendrils, diving and weaving around their grasp while firing more shots at Seraph, none of which seemed to have much effect. Narrowly avoiding yet another tendril, she dove towards Seraph and used her sword to cut down one of its wings, slicing it clean off. This had little effect, the wing simply floating to Seraph’s side, enveloped by its magical fire.
It was, however, the closest thing to damage Flurry had managed to inflict thus far. Thus, as she continued to fly around the chamber dodging Seraph’s tendrils, she took aim at its wings, slicing at them whenever she had a second of breathing room. Seraph tried summoning more crystal spikes, but Flurry simply repeated her strategy from before, getting off an attack on its wings in the process.
Finally, Flurry cut the sixth wing. As she did, all the tendrils in the room faded, Seraph’s aura pulsing. In a flash, its fire flared up, incinerating the suspended wings. In the place, the flames themselves formed a single large pair of wings which extended outwards. “ENOUGH.” Seraph bellowed, its voice shaking the entire spire. “YOU CANNOT BEAT US, CHILD OF HARMONY. THESE GAMES END NOW.”
Seraph’s eyes flashed white, a set of six large rings, each a different color, appeared, revolving around its body. The surfaces of the rings were covered in eyes, all of which locked their attention on Flurry, a few of them starting to glow. Getting a bad feeling, Flurry trusted her instincts and rolled to the left, narrowly avoiding the beams that shot from the glowing eyes. However, the crystal walls of the chamber reflected the beams, and one of them grazed Flurry’s back, burning her cloak a little.
Yet more of the eyes lit up, and Flurry once again continued her evasive flying. But this time, Seraph was not content to sit and watch, flapping its flaming wings and moving around the room. Its horn flared to life again, summoning a magenta blade of light and swinging it at Flurry, who raised her own sword at an angle, deflecting the magical blade just enough for it to miss her.
Wincing as another beam struck her side, Flurry fired a shot of her own at Seraph, aiming between the protection of the rings. It was for naught, however, as the magic bolt fizzled out, a glint temporarily revealing the shield projected around the angel. It summoned two more blades, crossing them both down on Flurry, who only barely slipped between them.
With no other point of attack, Flurry focused on the only vulnerable looking part of Seraph left: The eyes on the ring. Doging more of the beams, she flew into Seraph’s flight path, driving her rapier into an eye on the outermost ring.
Her blade bounced off, shattering into several pieces.
For an instant, time seemed to slow for Flurry, the shards of her crystal blade suspended in mid-air. Her attack had broken her weapon, but it had also damaged the eye slightly, a crack running down the center of the pupil. With Seraph still moving towards her, Flurry tilted her head down, jamming her horn into the crack left in the eye and firing a beam of magic point blank into it.
The force of the attack sent Flurry flying back, tumbling through the air and only just barely being able to right herself in time to dodge another eye beam. The ring she had stabbed had cracked, a small chunk where the eye had been having broken off and fallen to the ground. Seraph gave the first indication of pain, its many voices grunting out of sync, and summoned six thinner magical blades, spinning them around to slash at Flurry from every direction.
Robbed of a means of attack, Flurry put all her energy into evasion, flying and teleporting around the chamber. She prioritized dodging the blades, and as a result she was hit by several of the beams. Her cloak’s protective enchantments held, but each hit burned a small hole in the fabric, slowly degrading it further.
Searching for any way to go on the offensive, Flurry’s eyes widened as she noticed Seraph’s shield flicker. The rings around its body revolved in a fixed, repeating pattern, and because of the shattered section of the outermost ring, there was a brief moment where a small part of the shield opened up. Flurry watched the pattern repeat several times, etching the timing into her brain. Her cloak took more and more damage, some of the beams striking damaged parts and burning Flurry’s coat and skin.
Flying over the top of one of the blades, the perfect moment finally came. Reaching into her threadbare cloak, Flurry pulled out the crystal orb and threw it at Seraph. It flew through the air, slipping through the hole in the shield, and as soon as it did, Flurry activated it with her magic.
The orb expanded again, the spikes driving into the Seraph’s body and the rings. Several of the spikes, like her sword, broke on impact with the rings, but the rings were unable to withstand the assault. The innermost one shattered first with an ear piercing *CRACK*, breaking into six pieces. That seemed to cause a domino effect, each ring falling to pieces in turn with the same grating noise. Once the final ring broke, a shockwave emanated from Seraph, blowing the orb to pieces and throwing Flurry back into the wall behind her.
That was the final straw for her cloak, the fabric torn off her body and into pieces by the blast. The belongings she had left stored within fell to the ground: The medallion, two spools of thread, a pouch of food, a small hairbrush, and her water and healing flasks. The healing flask cracked on impact, spilling its golden liquid all over the floor. Flurry struggled to rise, one of her wings bent at an unnatural angle, but her legs gave out and she collapsed. She tried to reach for the healing flask, pulling drops of the sweet elixir to her mouth with her magic.
Seraph, now ringless, hovered over to Flurry, its eyes literally burning with rage. Its aura had almost entirely diminished, and with its flames forming wings, its core was at last unobscured; a shriveled, almost fetal equine body with a pulsing, six pointed star shaped heart glowing magenta underneath its slightly transparent skin.
“INSOLENT CHILD,” It sneered, its normally level voices dripping with contempt. “YOU HAVE DEFIED HARMONY FOR THE LAST TIME.” It summoned a single blade above Flurry.
Her mind in overdrive, time slowed again for Flurry as she noticed the hilt of her sword, a jagged fragment of the blade still intact, lying a distance away behind Seraph. Desperately, she reached out with her magic, grabbing it and pulling towards her.
“DIE.”
Seraph brought the blade down.
Flurry squeezed her eyes shut, but the impact never came. Opening her eyes a crack, she looked up at the stiffened form of Seraph, the broken rapier piercing its heart. Its wings snuffed out, and the magical blade dissipated into motes of magenta light, fading away.
“IMPOssib...le... “ Seraph wheezed out, its voices dropping out of the chorus one by one. When the last one was silenced, the light drained from the Seraph’s eyes, its withered body turning to magenta dust and lightly falling to the ground. Flurry breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing her tense body and closing her eyes again, the sounds of two objects landing on the crystal floor the only sound other than her laboured breathing.
“I did it… Mom…” she whispered to herself.