Chapter Ninety-Seven
Whatever this 'Counter' Spell was, Daphne decided to opt for another solution. Her claws slammed down on the floor -the rock floor- and as they crushed it to paste they created a pathway that allowed for them both to hastily avoid the swing of Julio's sword, just as much as the ice javelins of Charlotte herself.
One floor down, the Templar guards sprung to action immediately, the noise and the sight of two strangers within the holy halls of His Holiness more than enough to incense and anger them beyond belief. They roared as they swung their staves-spears, but as Saito deftly sidestepped a thrust and slammed the handle of the blade into the neck of a guard, he quickly disarmed the man and took the strange weapon for his own.
Spinning the staff around, he thrust it forth as Charlotte was the first one to come at him from the hole, and he struck her unconscious with the blunt side of the weapon. The girl simply smiled awkwardly, rolling back and going limp on the floor. The rest of the movement knocked out the remaining Templars, who were easily no match as he struck them on their helmets with enough strength to send them to the land of sleep.
Julio would prove to be far more difficult to defeat.
"Do you know why you are no match for me?" Julio asked calmly, even as he dropped down from the hole without a care in the world, the weapons pretty much useless against him, even as Daphne's body tensed as she carefully crept away from him. "It's because you do not have what it takes to fully unlock the powers of the Void," Julio snapped, his left hand raised, his forehead shining briefly. A small pebble roughly the size of a skipping stone popped up from within his palm, the color a rich crimson. "These are Firestones. Similar to Windstones, Earthstones and Waterstones-they hold within the power of the spirits. Against vampires, they are the most apt solution."
"You talking to yap your mouth?" Daphne asked, her eyes half-narrow.
"No," Julio replied with a smile. "I'm talking so that you will waste time listening," the red skipping stone shone and then pulsed, cracking as a long tongue of fire erupted from the man's palm and shot forward towards her. The figure of Daphne flickered and disappeared.
"You might be impossible to hit, but don't you forget illusions are the vampire's strength!" Daphne's cheeky voice came just as Saito's tensing form disappeared too from Julio's sight. With a sigh, Julio lifted the Ring of Andvari and allowed it to shine briefly.
"Water spirits will not aid you," Daphne's form appeared at the far off end of the corridor, the vampire looking puzzled, and then her eyes narrowed. "Not while I hold dominion over the ring-"
"Then I'll just have to take it from you!" Saito's exclamation was met with his blade coming dangerously close to Julio's face, even though the blond-haired priest narrowed his eyes and deftly avoided the blow, a lone strand of golden hair fell all the same on the ground. Saito's runes shone brightly, perhaps a miniature sun of their own.
The miniature sun dulled down, returning to the glint of before.
"Are you a moron?!" the staff suddenly spoke hotly, "Go for a killing shot, kid!" the staff spun in Saito's hands, easily avoiding the downward coming swing with the furthermost side of the spear-staff, "I don't have Willpower to spare! To hell with it-the great Derflinger will show you how it's done!" Saito blinked as his body moved backwards to put distance between him and Julio.
"You-You talk?" Saito parroted. "Wait-your name-"
"I'm Derflinger, soul staff right now, and yes I'm the same as the one before. Now, listen up!" the staff snapped curtly, if a staff could snap, of course. "The Elf Counter's a tricky piece of shit business, but we can defeat it! It takes Void Magic, or strong enough concussive force to do the trick! And we can thankfully do a bit of both, but my Willpower's limited so you've got only one shot. Aim for the head, lop it off, and victory will be ours! But you've got to strike him down in an all or nothing one-hit technique!"
Julio's eyes twinkled for a brief instant, "Ah, that worried me for a minute," he remarked. "But I can rest safely, knowing the Gandalfr will never strike me down."
"Can't I use the blunt side of the staff?" Saito retorted, holding his guard up as Julio simply kept Daphne in his sighs, the Vampire having carefully begun to creep towards him from up above.
Around them, knocked out Templars were slowly coming to their senses once more. If this kept up, Saito would soon be surrounded.
"I go through the blade! The blade, not the side-so strike to kill, or don't strike at all!" Derflinger snapped, "Come on! How hard can it be? Just kill him and be done with it!"
Saito clenched the staff firmly in his hands, his teeth gritting together. Julio simply smiled, and then laughed. "You ask yourself why we had to resort to this? Then look no further than your shaking self," Julio shook his head, extending both arms and leaving himself wide open to Saito's stabbing, should he at least try to do so. "Come on, Gandalfr, shield of God, router of armies-you cannot even fight me? You cannot even kill me when you are given the chance? Truly pathetic! You think your kindness will reward you in this life? Well!?"
A tongue of flames snapped out from Julio's fingers, cruising above his head to where Daphne had tried to reach, in order to pass past the priest and reach Saito's side. A second stone, if light brown, came up in Julio's hands and as fists of rock erupted from the ground, they shattered against the walls and struck Daphne against it.
"Devoid of their precious spirits, many Firstborn magic users are nothing but mewling babes," Julio remarked. "Perhaps shall I need to activate your white knight senses? Should I burn this spawn of hell to cinder and ashes to finally elicit a reaction from you?" the cracked crimson stone was brought up once more. "Because just say so, Gandalfr, not that I will stop just because you ask me to."
"Why are you doing this!?" Saito snapped. "If I kill you, if I do that-your plan will fail!"
"Are you stupid?" Julio snorted. "Do you really think my life has worth? I am but an instrument of his Holiness' will. I will gladly lay down my life and die for my beliefs, and if you are incapable of doing the same, then you truly are a worthless familiar. We are an extension of our masters-you should know this very well. Even if I die, I can be replaced. If that's the case, then there is no problem. Kill me, and you'll become capable of killing others-do that, and maybe you won't be so worthless in the upcoming crusade. You cannot stop it, the armies have mobilized already. You can only lead, or be led."
The fire from the previous blast began to burn around them, eagerly devouring at the carpet and lapping up all the way to Daphne's form, not unconscious, but bound to the wall by rock-like hands that gripped her tightly and did not seem inclined to let her go.
The flames kept away from Julio because of the Counter amulet, but did not lap at Saito's feet out of some form of air pressure surrounding the boy.
"Sir Julio-" a Templar groaned, clutching his head as he began to stand up once more.
"I see," Saito mumbled, "So this is what it means-well," he clenched the staff tightly. "I won't let you win this easily."
"No? No matter what?" Julio sighed. "Truly, you are a wonder. How far can I push you though?" the priest smiled, a sudden thought striking him. "Well, why not? Let's bring our fight somewhere more private!" as the two stones, the Fire and Earth one splintered further, spheres of magma shot from the ground coalescing from the flames and the rubble, slamming into Saito's guard as the staff itself began to absorb the magic within the enemy's spell.
Even then, the attack was strong enough that it sent Saito to fly back across the corridor, Julio swirling in mid-air behind him as a pale teal stone cracked to grant him flight. They were on the second floor, so when Saito ended up flying outside the window, the fall wouldn't have been immediately fatal.
Still, his problems were no longer about height, but about the rather hungry-looking dragon that somehow found its way right beneath him, forcing Saito to spin in mid-air and use the spear staff to impale the creature's flank, ripping his stomach open and dulling his fall down in the palace's gardens with a shower of blood drenching him from head to toe.
"So you have no such compulsions in killing beasts, but a mere man makes you tremble in fear?" Julio said with a light giggle, "Truly fascinating, your naive innocence is so refreshingly disgusting I never thought I'd see something similar if not in young children, pampered by rich parents," he began to lazily walk forward, his sword drawn. "As the Gandalfr, you are an utter failure. You, lead an army? You'd barely take a step and then run away at the first sign of blood."
Julio chuckled, and then was quickly in range of Saito's staff. The boy swung it by instinct, but the Counter worked once more properly, and thus the attack was redirected backwards. The spinning of the staff allowed Saito to block the swing of the priest's rapier, but by then it was too late as the Ring of Andvari came an inch away from his face and shone.
"Now, Gandalfr, I will have you kneel-"
As his legs gave away under the pressure of the ring's magic, his eyes narrowed to stare into those of Julio. "See?" Julio smiled softly. "When ideals clash, it's only those willing to go the extra mile that eventually win. Keep your childish feelings to yourself-you had so much potential...and you squandered it playing the adventurer."
Saito ground his teeth, even as his vision swam into darkness, the ring's magic taking hold over him. "Now you will obey, and when this is done and you are but a husk devoid of strength, perhaps you'll be left with a few days of life. With those, do as you-"
Spears. Spears of stone and polished steel slammed through the Counter spell with a graceful ease that made Julio balk, soon followed by a graceful descend from the air as a scimitar shattered through the defenses of the Windalfr and sliced neatly the priest's arm off, before a graceful kick sent the Romalian Twin-Eyed man to slam backwards, through the hedges of the garden and away from Saito's view.
"Safeguard the Anubis," a crisp voice spoke in a clear, female voice. "Defeat the Demon."
Saito blinked as strong arms grabbed and pulled him away, clothes of dark grey mixed with blotches of green appearing, if briefly, in his vision.
A lone male Elf held him under his arm, "Let go of the weapon," he spoke kindly as he dragged him away. "Or I cannot help you further, Saint Anubis. The spirits are repulsed by your powers."
"Uh?"
"Well," Derflinger mumbled. "See you later, kid. You're in safe hands now. If it's you, I guess it will be all right."
Saito's fingers opened up against his will, the staff dropping down as apparently the Elf hadn't been merely running forward, but also higher, easily reaching a speed that could be compared to that of a dragon.
Behind him, the roar of dragons was accompanied by the cawing of manticores and various magical beasts that soon joined the fray in the fight between the wounded Windalfr and the Elf in question.
Only one thought swam in Saito's head as he was pulled away from the Pope's palace.
What about Daphne?
Daphne didn't really have a problem. Honestly, with the sleeping Rhyme dragon slung on her shoulder, she eyed the retreating Elf and bit down on her lips with her fangs quite firmly. She could pursue the Elf, but with the large overgrown blue lizard on her back, and having to keep it under a 'Sleep' spell, it didn't make things easy.
Well, she honestly did want her pints of blood, and if she left the dragon there, then it didn't really matter -not to her- but in the long run, wasn't it better to get the blue-haired mage on their side rather than have her stay on the Pope's one? One more, one less-oh, to hell with it!
"Mini-Karin is going to kill me when I come back with a dragon and not her fiancé," Daphne said in a soft whisper as she hastily made her exit from the slightly burnt palace -knocking out those fools of a Templar guard hadn't been hard, once the spirits had returned to her side. She was pretty sure the Windalfr was in a pinch, perhaps the Elf currently fighting him was the explanation, but she was starting to retreat too.
Somehow, nobody had bothered with the giant twelve headed Hydra in the backyard of the Pope's Holy Palace, and that was just one among the many animals that stood eagerly behind the Windalfr's fury, thrown now at the Elf in question.
Before, the priest had been playing.
Now, he was outright murderous.
Well, one dragon more, one dragon less...he wasn't going to notice until it was too late.
Just long enough for her to reach the border, then.
She would have loved to kill him there, but-but well, with all those wild magical animals suddenly breaking free-it would be a carnage, a senseless slaughter of innocents. There was a city around the Pope's palace, not an open field. She really hated it when people reminded her that doing good deeds was actually something possible, and that chivalrous moron of a fiancé of mini-Karin kept reminding her of them.
...
Maybe that was why his blood was so tasty.
There was a reason Vampires were depicted as drinking the blood out of fair, innocent maiden.
Innocence...ah, innocence tasted just plain delicious.
