//------------------------------// // Level 30: There Is More Than One Side To Battle // Story: Equestria Was Merely a Setback! // by Thunderscourge //------------------------------// A/N: Very special thanks to the other sans, GamerGoddessDin, Doctorfoxwolf, Freya, somerandomperson, Gulvar, AdmiralPopeyesBeard, InsanityStreak, nioniosbbbb, and Mister E for all your comments since last time! They are very much appreciated, and it'd have been almost another week before I could muster the strength to write if you all hadn't supported me so much. I managed to find the time because of you, so I am very grateful and hope to continue hearing from you all! If, by any chance, you feel bad for a couple of our villains in this chapter, do know that it is completely normal and Human to feel that way. I mean, Jerid's a bit of a jerk-jock and Lila likes fighting in wars, but in every battle there are two sides: we know why we're rooting for Trixie's team, but that doesn't mean everyone they fight is 100% complete evil. The Scarlet Crusade are bad guys though...but among them Humanity can be found. Both the good and bad of it. I hope you all enjoy, and I look forward to hearing from you in the comments below! In Silvermoon City, standing in the inner sanctum of the government’s main facility, the Ranger-General in charge of the city was having a fit. "They did what!?" Lor’themar Theron slammed his hands down on a table that had a map laid across it. He grabbed some soldiers symbolizing the garrison of Silvermoon and tossed them aside. Glaring at the messenger, the stressed leader of Silvermoon growled, "On whose orders!?" The answer was another statement Lor’Themar did not wish to hear, but one he could not do anything about at the moment. Taking in a deep breath, the one eyed man took a seat and waved away the attendant who had brought him the urgent and confidential information. Once he was alone, Lor’themar sighed and tried to think things over. What possible reason could be behind such treason? “Sylvanas is on her way…will she deal with them? Perhaps this will fix Jaronis’s blunder and mess…” Plotting nobles, rebellious soldiers, and an uneasy populace...Lor’themar longed for the simple life of a soldier he once had. Mograine found himself suffering from a severe, piercing headache as he looked upon the Scarlet Crusade forces within the Cathedral. Every single person was tied up with rope brought by Tony and Karl for the operation, with it being of a quality that would not be easily cut and unbound. Not only that, many had been stripped down to their underwear, and he had passed their snapped weapons when he was outside where the Crusaders were strewn about as well. While Trixie and Kael had been handling the forces in the inner courtyard, Lavitz, Vanessa, Karl, and Tony had dealt with their already defeated foes in a manner that would keep them from being much of a threat in the near future, even if they recovered from being rendered unconscious in time to rejoin the battle. In addition, Vanessa had poisoned the vast majority of them with a sleep rendering poison she had saved, though she did not possess enough for every last one. "Defeated and looted. Pathetic," Mograine muttered as he looked around the room where soldiers and priests both were displayed mockingly in defeat atop scorched tiling. "Commander Mograine..." The high ranked Crusader turned towards the voice to see one of the only Crusaders still clothed trying to stand and salute him. The man was one Mograine recognized if only because of his failure in a recent mission to defeat fresh, in-training Forsaken and how the senior Lieutenant Lila Rira stood up for him against Mograine when Mograine sought to punish him. Mograine sneered at his subordinate as Jerid tried to stand in his bloodstained armor and robes. The white cloth on the man’s outfit had been tainted red, but seeing as Jerid had not died from blood loss Mograine was willing to bet that he had been healed, "Lieutenant Messa. You're looking well." The Lieutenant bowed his head as he somehow managed to pull himself to his feet despite the agony he felt in his body. He had been healed enough to survive, but he still felt every ounce of the agony he had been in when defeated by Vanessa. He knew he had failed his faction though, and he was willing to accept the blame that called for. "I accept my failure, sir. Permission to deploy and regain my honor, sir?" That earned a scoff from his superior, who punched Jerid across the cheek and knocked the already off-balance man off his feet. As Jerid crashed onto the ground in his armor Mograine clenched the fist he had used to strike him, "You'll have to prove yourself before you worry about your honor. To be defeated by such a small force is disgraceful. You all have brought dishonor to the entire Crusade today." Jerid crawled into a kneeling position, accepting the physical reprimand as his punishment for being defeated by a child. Despite having lost though, Jerid was not about to let the record show that those fighting had been defeated by simple invaders...no, they were attacked by someone whose mere aura had been able to incinerate Kacricon in an agonizing fashion. "They're led by Kael'thas Sunstrider, sir." Jerid saw the next strike coming because Mograine swapped hands on his mace to swing it at his subordinate, the mace brutally knocking Jerid down once again, "I don't need excuses from you. Lieutenant Lila isn't here to protect you from your mistakes." "Sir..." Jerid replied as he tried to get up again, only to find it near impossible with the pain he was in. Ignoring his wounded comrade, Mograine approached the form of someone else he recognized in the room: Grand Crusader Dathrohan. The man’s armor was charred, his body immobile, and from what he could see the Crusade leader had been stripped of whatever valuables he had on him. "Even the Grand Crusader fell?" the sight irritated Mograine, but the fact that he could feel a faint trace of magical power emanating from what otherwise appeared to be a corpse eased Mograine’s mood, "I sense energy coming from him, so he likely just needs time to come to." He could heal the man using the power known as Lay on Hands, which imbued someone with healing magic equal to the user’s own limit, but he did not see why he ought to. A Paladin could use the power of the Light as they saw fit: Protection of one’s allies, as Mitter’meyer would with the power and haste it could imbue their bodies with. Retribution, as Jerid sought to in vengeance for his comrades, throwing mastery of the Light’s offensive powers and smiting one’s enemies. The last major way was through its holy magic, restoring one’s comrades to full health with a similar way of using the Light as a Priest would. Those were for Paladins who would use their powers on behalf of others: such labels were not befitting of a man such as Mograine, who took the Light’s power for himself and wielded it only for himself. As such, he was fine leaving his superior to rot on the ground as he went and claimed all the glory for himself even though it would be wiser to be a team player. Taking this further, Mograine knelt down beside the man and began to work his way through the man’s pockets to look for powerful artifacts not taken by the thieves, "In the meantime, I will use what little they left him to defeat the dissidents." He paused as he noticed a sickly, neon green orb in the Grand Crusader’s unmolested bag, "A scrying orb..." he nodded to himself, pleased with what he obtained, "I did not know the Grand Crusader had such powerful trinkets." Jerid had managed to drag himself to his feet once again and approached Mograine as the man was working through their superior’s pockets. Jerid didn’t care that Dathrohan was “donating” his treasures for their use, it was his own fault for being defeated, and he also did not care that Mograine may bring his anger out on him again. He was driven to redeem himself, but first and foremost he wanted to see the invaders pay...especially that girl, Vanessa, who caused Kacricon’s horrible death. "The Armory and Library remain untouched..." Mograine said to himself as he used the glowing orb before him to project a view of other areas in the Monastery. Eventually one image showed the invading group confronting the Undead forces that were disrupting the graveyard, "They are still at the Graveyard, but I doubt they will be for long." He acknowledged that the Lieutenant had limped to the area behind him and could see the images as well, and even though he was irritated by Jerid’s failure he had to admit he was capable of a warrior’s perseverance. Scanning through other zones of the Monastery, Mograine eventually came upon the Crusaders who had arrived just behind him. They were engaged in combat with a single woman, who was managing to continually swap foes to keep them at bay in an experienced manner that belied combat exposure far beyond what one of her age should have, "Our veteran reinforcements are being held up by a single enemy. A teenager no less. I think discipline will be called for after today's disgrace." Jerid gasped as he recognized the red and salmon red armor of one of the soldiers fighting, as well as how close the battle was between the two sides. "Lila!" ignoring his pain, Jerid stepped forward so as to be beside his commander, "Sir, send reinforcements!" Mograine smirked. He could very well reinforce Lila’s group with some of the less wounded outside, it would only take a moment to heal them after all, but this was his moment. He would not share it, and he would not give aid to those who were incapable of helping themselves against a single foe. "I could, but I don't think I will," he glanced over to Jerid and sneered at him once again, "Think of this as a lesson, Lieutenant. To become a better officer, one must always be in control of their emotions." Jerid’s face turned to distress as he realized just how poorly Lila was fighting as compared to usual. She was a cerebral fighter whose ability to think through battles made her the perfect teacher for the impulsive Jerid. Her helmet had been knocked aside and it was easy to read on her face that she was distracted, and her wild swings showed that for some reason she was not thinking this particular battle through. The fact that she was fighting against Vanessa caused Jerid further stress, as he had been defeated by the teenager and he knew first hand her strength. Lila was the only one still managing to hold her own, with some of her allies almost appearing to get in the way rather than contribute, but the situation seemed like it could go either way as it currently stood. Mograine laughed as he watched Lila’s squad continue to engage Vanessa, "The Lieutenant does not seem like she is doing just that, and you'll have your throat cut if you even try to hobble into battle." Jerid bit his lip and clenched his fist at his side. He couldn’t help them in his condition, and with Kacricon dead he didn’t have someone who would help him or heal him as he was. "Lila..." On the other side of the looking glass, Lila had an attack parried and then diverted by her foe while Vanessa used her other hand to punch another Crusader in the throat. Of those that Lila had with her originally, four were still standing and that number soon would be three as Vanessa slashed her blade down on the man with the same arm she had used to strike him. The others were in barely better conditions, having been partially crippled by Vanessa in each strike she threw at them. Lila continued her momentum from her swing at Vanessa and spun around as her blade-locked sword shifted Vanessa’s main dagger to drop the teenager’s guard, but the girl suddenly dropped down in height by arching her back and bending her knees so that in a display of flexibility the Paladin’s blade sailed over her. Already low to the ground, Vannessa threw her hands to the floor to take her weight onto them. Lila managed to move one leg back far enough to avoid a sudden kick that was aimed at each of her knees, while her other was protected enough by her armor to not make the strike incapacitating but still do damage to the joint within her armor. Vanessa finished dropping to the ground to roll out of the way of one of Lila’s allies who tried to enter into the fight once again, their sword clanging after it struck the hard floor instead of Vanessa’s soft flesh. Vanessa finished her roll in a kneeling position, from which she leapt at the man and slashed at an exposed joint on his arm. Another one of Lila’s comrades rushed forward, getting in the way of Lila herself, as the woman finished catching her breath and fighting past the pain in her knee, "What are you doing here, kid? This isn’t a game!" What unnerved Lila about her opponent was how skilled this teenager seemed to be despite her age. How could someone that young fight so well? Strike with such precision? Vanessa slashed both daggers across her one opponent’s arm to disable it before twirling around and slipping past the other’s attack, elbowing him on the back of his neck, “Saving someone’s life who saved mine!” Lila moved to attack the moment her two allies were shoved out of the way by Vanessa, her sword ending up caught between Vanessa’s daggers, “And to do that you’d kill others?” Vanessa pushed outwards and scissored her daggers so that they were still holding Lila’s blade but also now pointing right at the person she was facing, “You’re not one to talk! I may lead a criminal organization, but you Crusaders are the ones who target innocents! You kill the Forsaken like they’re regular Undead!” Beginning to feel herself get pushed back by the teenager who was the same height as her, Lila called down a holy bolt to strike at Vanessa. She tried to dodge it, but it still grazed Vanessa’s lower bod because of the random angle it came in from. With this slightly putting Vanessa off the offensive, Lila wrenched one distracted arm of Vanessa’s down and threw her shoulder down to charge Vanessa, lunging in at her, “You didn’t have to fight in the war, kid! You don’t know what they are capable of!” Vanessa threw herself to the side so that Lila slipped right past her, possessing just enough agility to dodge the hit and the physical dexterity to not fall over afterwards, “What about all the villages the Crusade has burnt to the ground?” Vanessa used the moment to put space in-between them, “The innocent Humans they’ve killed!?” Lila stopped her charge to twist around and look at where her opponent had gotten to, finding Vanessa in close ranged combat with one of the other Crusaders, her daggers cutting into the openings in the shoulders where the shoulder armor met the armor of the arms as he cried in agony. The fact that Vanessa was specifically trying to not kill them was lost on Lila as she gawked at what Vanessa said. She had not heard about that, but the way Vanessa spat it out it almost sounded like she was telling the truth... “What?” Vanessa grabbed her current opponent by the chin and forced his head back, the pain and pressure on his neck forcing him to relax his guard, “I passed by one on the way here…” she gripped his helmet to forcefully twist and throw him by it into a nearby wall, “You people are harming your own race to accomplish your military objectives! Why protect a town when you can more easily burn it to the ground!?” Lila paused as she felt her arms shaking. She had joined the Crusade to save innocent lives...to save the Human race against the many outside threats that were posed to it...to not simply abide the Undead plague upon the northern side of the continent, where they ravaged villages and slaughtered children before taking their corpses and transforming them into hideous abominations that would make trained soldiers wretch at the sight of. The thought that her own organization could do something like what Vanessa was saying… Lila shook her head and prepared to attack again. For all she knew, the kid was lying, and she still needed to avenge her comrade. She needed to protect the Monastery. She needed to protect that stupid rookie who had asked her out on a date when she got back. To do that, she would fight with everything she had. It didn’t matter if her opponent was unlike any other child combatant she had come across. While she had reservations about attacking a child, the fact that they had admitted to murdering Kacricon made Lila willing to spill their blood, for they were no normal kid by any measure. "I don't care if you're some prodigy, if you fight I'll take you down!" Vanessa tore her daggers out of another Crusader just in time to move out of the way of Lila’s next vicious assault, the years of warfare and personal combat Lila had experienced coming out in her furious attack. "More souls!" The Undead Mage that was assaulting Trixie’s group with a hail of fireballs was making an immense display of their power, for the entrance to the facility’s graveyard was beginning to resemble the area Kael’s power had previous scorched as each missed strike left its horrific mark. One fireball found its mark on Lavitz as he parried a flurry of strikes from the Undead horde that then numbered about thirty beings as more and more made their way out of the ground to replace those who had been defeated. Lavitz gasped in pain as the fire seared through his armor, but as soon as he felt the pain it was relieved: a turn of the head showed that the Priest, Dirge, had cast a spell upon him to relieve him of the damage. He nodded in thanks just as he began to bat away the skeleton army amassing before him and Kael. Meanwhile, Trixie was preparing herself for an attack that she knew would hurt her. She did not care however, as her mind was in an enraged state from what Mograine had said over the radio system she had helped put together with Tony: namely that the more talkative of the two brothers had been slain. Trixie was not even sure how she was going to tell Karl what happened to his brother, but she knew that he would be ten times more furious than how she felt then at having lost an ally. She may have hired him to help them, but that did not make him any less of a comrade in her eyes, and so that anger she felt was bubbling out as the hidden power source within her began to pour the last of its unspent energy into her palms. It had been sucked dry by Kael’s battle with Dathrohan and only so much was left to tap into since it had had little time to replenish, but what remained was still more than enough for what Trixie was planning. "You're already dead. I'll show you no mercy!" she called out to the mage as she brought her hands together in front of her to form a triangle. "KIKOHO!" Dirge finished casting a protective magic barrier around Lavitz and Kael when he caught sight of an enormous blob of arcane power launch from where Trixie was standing. The Undead in the way of the attack and its intended target were reduced to ash as it soared forth and found its mark on Thalnos. The Mage was not destroyed outright like its companions, possessing great magic power within it as well, but it was not going to be let off with a single hit. "That one is powerful..." Dirge muttered to himself before realizing he ought to be healing the dup keeping the Undead from attacking him, as well as healing the Undead to death given how the Light burned them. Trixie noticed that the Undead Mage had been stunned by her attack, but she was going to keep her word and not show him an ounce of mercy. She powered up again and attacked in succession, her assault more powerful but also more draining than the last, "KIKOHO!" Kael recognized the spell Trixie was performing and ignored the Undead clawing at him to instead turn back towards her and warn her about its usage, "Trixie, you're already exhausted! Don't push yourself!" Solely focused on the utter annihilation of her foe, Trixie didn’t hear him and lashed out with her power once more, this attack larger than even the last two that had rendered the Undead Mage barely holding together from the magic binding its limbs. "KI-KO-HO!" The white-purple mass of energy Trixie launched towards Thalnos eclipsed him entirely, his bones disappearing into its bright light as it engulfed him and a half dozen other Undead. Kael punched the Undead trying to pull his armor apart and removed its head from its body as he watched a hyperventilating Trixie fall to her knees and hands, "Trixie..." "I need a minute..." Trixie gasped in a quiet voice, having lost her breath from the power she had just pulled out of herself. There was nothing left for her to call upon, but perhaps just doing nothing for a few moments would help out. Kael looked back to see that one of the dozen surviving Undead had gotten behind Lavitz and was about to plunge its sword into his back. "Lavitz, behind you!" Lavitz turned enough to catch the blade between his arm and the armor protecting his abdomen, his spear holding off three opponents before him. He twisted his body to yank the sword out of the one Undead’s hands before letting go of it and catching it with one of his own hands so he could cut down the Undead before him as he continued to hold them at bay with his spear. Kael cut down the Undead behind his ally using his sword with a tinge of fire surrounding it. Lavitz smiled at the Elf as he was relieved of the threat, "Thanks...it's appreciated." As soon as he said it Lavitz lunged out to impale the head socket of an Undead that had crept up on Kael. This did not stop the body’s struggling, so Lavitz kicked its body apart with a metal boot. Kael laughed as Undead body parts fell at his feet, trying to ignore the disgusting rot he was going to have to wash out of his clothing, "Now we're even." Dirge approached them both as they finished mopping up the last few Undead as a tag-team, his hands glowing as he tried to get them to stop moving around, "Here, let me tend to your wounds." The two men shook off bits of Undead bone fragments and flesh that had made their way onto their armor and clothing as healing magic washed over their bodies and removed the damage incurred by the Undead. Once they were at full health, Dirge approached the other member of their party and knelt down to try and heal her too. "Miss Sunstrider, can I help you as well?" Trixie either didn’t catch his mistake or did not care to correct him as she waved a hand at him to not bother. "Unless you can recover my mana as well, no...I'm fine." Realizing that her only problems were from exhaustion, Dirge let her rest as he went to rejoin the others. Lavitz held a hand out to show his thanks, grateful that the man had been there to strike down some more Undead and also keep them from being too overwhelmed with injuries. "Thank you, Dirge. You were a big help..." Lavitz paused as the man shook his hand, their eyes both going to face the heavily wounded Crusaders in the yard, "Will your allies forgive you?" Dirge sighed in a knowing fashion, as if he had expected this, "I doubt it, but I owed you all for sparing my friends and allies when you did not have to..." he put on a forced smile as he looked back to Lavitz, "You guys are pretty alright, even if you are invading our base." "Well...thanks?" Trixie chimed in as she finished catching her breathe enough to stand on her feet. Kael furrowed his brow and approached her, using an arm to help his partner stand, "Trixie, you seemed quite furious. What happened?" Trixie averted her eyes to the ground. She had meant to finish this without a single enemy or allied casualty...she wanted to do this as morally as possible, but she had failed her team in doing so, "Their commander, Mograine, has returned and he killed Tony right before we fought those Undead." Just as she finished saying this, Karl entered the courtyard and rose an eyebrow at why everyone was looking at him weird. Trixie moved to get past Kael and approach her hired soldier, who ought to be told about his brother’s death since he did not appear to know, "I'll tell him..." Lavitz held an arm out to stop her, then moving forward himself, "Let me handle it." Karl was not going to be happy, and if he throttled someone it ought not to be the person who was about to fall over. Vanessa finished slicing through the calf of the last Crusader helping Lila, and as the man’s leg began to pour blood and he fell to the ground crying the battle finally became a one on one affair. Lila was panting, having been fighting all day and having scrapes and wounds here and there on her body, while her opponent was less bruised but similarly panting from the rapid series of movements she had to make simply to not die while fighting far more opponents than herself. Vanessa felt her blood pumping, her heart thumping within her chest, as she stared down the last opponent standing in the hallway. The battle had been carried down and through the halls until they reached the inner courtyard’s entrance, with Vanessa having given up occasional ground as she felt the pressure mount against her bit by bit, always trying to keep her opponents in front of her and in-view. Now at the edge of the courtyard she had been in earlier, Vanessa slowly backed into it as Lila moved onwards: Vanessa would be able to fight better with more space available, while Lila was thinking that the Scarlet Crusade forces at the Cathedral would be able to support her. She did not, however, know that the little they had left was being purposefully withheld as Mograine used her as a way of gauging the enemy’s strength. As Lila lunged at Vanessa again and slashed horizontally to keep Vanessa from dodging to the sides as they exited the hallway, Vanessa in turn threw herself backwards and continued to try and evade her foe. They were both wearing down and things could not last much longer, and it was making Vanessa begin to panic. She was desperately trying to do as Trixie would want, not kill anyone, but her instincts born of countless close scrapes in her days with the Defias were making it more and more difficult not to just thrust her daggers into her opponent’s vitals at every parry. She was an assassin in terms of combat, so constantly being on the defensive was playing to a weakness while her opponent was more used to long battles. Avoiding yet another attack with her newfound freedom in the courtyard, Vanessa yelled at her relentless foe. "Just give up already! Do you want to die?" Lila grit her teeth as she continued to press onward with a hail of sword slashes Vanessa was hard pressed to avoid or parry. The thought of losing was unnerving the veteran soldier, as were the events earlier at the village they massacred which painted Vanessa’s words about the Crusade’s ruthlessness in another light, and the fact that she was having to fight a child to protect those she cared about. It all wore on her to the point that all that was left was the next swing, the next block. That was all she had left, all she could process as her sweaty face contorted into a scowl at the difficulty she was receiving from someone at least a decade younger. "I won't lose to some kid!" Vanessa, in frustration, grabbed something she had been saving in her pocket for an emergency and tossed it down. A spark flashed before a cloud of smoke blew over a five meter radius in the courtyard. Her talent for potions and alchemy also meant she was quite skilled at crafting things that required chemical reactions and other such devices, so the smoke bomb was simple for her to craft with things from around the Monastery when she was posing as a new recruit. Hidden by the smoke, Vanessa used the time to put even more distance between them, turning to move better and run instead of backpedal as she had been for far too long. Coughing from the smoke she accidently inhaled, Lila swung her sword around wildly as she pressed forward in the smoke. She could not protect herself in the smoke, but she did not intend to leave herself open and so the wild swinging was to cut down anything that tried to close in on her as she stumbled out of it. Vanessa paused to catch her breath just as she saw Lila emerge from the smoke. Vanessa turned and looked up at her opponent just in time to see Lila drawing a hand back. By the time Vanessa attempted to throw herself to the side, she already had a deceptively fast hammer made of pure light hurling at her. The construct of light slammed into her body and she yelled as she felt herself become overwhelmed by its power, stunning her in place. Lila used this time to catch up to Vanessa, who fought off the immense pain coursing through herself to also throw herself at Lila: Vanessa had retreated back to the pool and had no room to backtrack, and she did not want to become cornered by the steps, so she went forward instead. Due to a last second dodge by Vanessa the two passed right by one another without making contact, instead cutting at one another with glancing blows. Vanessa felt a severe pain in one leg, while Lila’s shoulder panged from a hole now in it. Mustering all of the holy energy she was capable of, Lila twisted around and cast the same spell she had before to stun Vanessa. It was weaker than the last time, and so when she twisted around to fling it at Vanessa it did not stun her quite as much, only even hitting her due to their proximity and Vanessa’s wounded leg. Vanessa’s movements sluggish, Lila moved in to finish Vanessa. She had held off on using those powers since she did not wish to accidently slay an ally, but now was not the time to hold back. Vanessa barely blocked Lila’s attack, using both her daggers to catch the sword that would have otherwise killed her. She began to lose her footing as she could barely back up enough to account for Lila’s forward movements, losing ground and not finding openings with which to exploit and wound her foe. Lila continued to swing and smash her sword down upon Vanessa with increasing sloppiness, her own exhaustion catching up with her, but she did not relent in the quantity of blows raining down upon Vanessa. Vanessa just barely managed to block each and every one with increasing closeness to being actually wounded, their weapons swinging back and forth in a fast rhythm of swordplay. As Vanessa utilized the spaciousness of the courtyard to her advantage to move back in different swerving directions, so too did it cost her: one of the unconscious and defeated Crusaders tripped her as she blocked another attack, having been unable to see his body with her attention focused forward. In a panic as she fell down, Vanessa thrust her daggers out to try and block whatever next attack was coming her way. No further slash or stab came. Vanessa felt her mental faculties slowly come-to as she exited the flurry of combat. She paused to look at why she was not being attacked, and her eyes widened in horror at what she saw. She had thrust up right underneath Lila’s ribs into the soldier’s upper abdomen. Lila had been about to swing down in a coup-de-gras when Vanessa’s change in momentum and defense caught her off guard. Lila stared past Vanessa as the Teenager scrambled to her feet and removed her daggers. As the veteran fell to her knees and hands, she had one last thing on her mind: what would happen to that dumb rookie she had taken care of now that he was alone with this powerful foe. "This potential...Jerid, don't underestimate her...don't make the same mistake I did..." Standing a few feet away from her Vanessa was shaking as Lila fell onto the ground and stopped moving. Staring down at her bloodied daggers, Vanessa kept looking back between them before sheathing them and shaking her head through tears. "Why..." she moved away from the corpse and gripped her hands, "Why wouldn't you stop..." She too fell to her knees, tears dripping. She had tried being better...tried to suppress her murderous instincts...but even despite her best efforts she hadn’t been able to live up to the standard she had hoped to. Even knowing that no-one could really judge her, Vanessa felt like she had failed not only herself but the person she had come to help. "I didn't want to kill you...why didn’t you..." Inside the Cathedral, Mograine was pushed past as Jerid moved closer to the projection of the battle between Vanessa and Lila, where Vanessa had moved out of frame leaving only the still body of Lila. "No!" Jerid cried out as he stared at the sight of yet another person he cared about dying. Mograine forcefully shoved him back and growled at his soldier. "It's over Lieutenant!" The projection also gave them the sound of the projected area, and so Jerid had been able to hear some of what was said. He had heard Lila say his name in her dying breaths, but he had not been able to make out really what she was saying due to the sound’s quality. Tears welling in his eyes, the Lieutenant fought to remain standing as he literally shook with grief, "Lila...what...what were you trying to tell me?" Mograine had observed both the battle with the Undead and the battle with Lila, so he felt like he knew the enemy’s capabilities well enough to confront them now and bring glory to the Crusade’s name once more...as well as his own. He pointed to his distraught ally who had begun to move to follow him, "You're useless in a fight right now. Stay out of the way, and maybe I'll consider giving you a chance to redeem yourself later." Jerid gave no response, but Mograine recognized the water in his eyes as well as what was dripping down his face. For the third time he struck his ally, knocking Jerid down for daring to respond emotionally to the death of his mentor. His resolve weakened by the death of his would-be girlfriend, Jerid collapsed and was not able to get back up this time. “Such pathetic emotions will hold you back,” Mograine reprimanded as he turned to leave. He had more people to kill. Left behind and too wounded in body and heart to follow, Jerid silently cried to himself as he thought over all he had lost that day because of these invaders...because of that girl. “Lila...Kacricon…” He collapsed into an unconscious state once again, his mind embroiled in a war between anger and sorrow.