Chapter 11: The Dragon Witch (Climax)

Even though the individual standing in front of me has a charismatic, somewhat mesmerizing even, look on his face, I can feel an immense pressure coming out from him, enough to suffocate any normal human being, as if every fiber of my body is screaming to get away from this guy. However, from within me, another emotion also runs wild, as I clench my fist and grit my teeth, diverting my gaze to the ground so as to not having to look at the face before me anymore. It’s already weird enough to see another person sharing your appearance, but seeing your own face with a sharp and sinister glare is another level of anger and annoyance. Contrary to my boiling blood, however, the man seems to not notice my presence at all as he fixes his luscious golden hair and gestures towards the girl trapped inside the next cell:

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? All these years apart and you can’t even give me a proper hello? Or is it that you’ve forgotten me already, my dear Petra?”

“Heh… How could I forget you?” Petra scorns at the question as her voice turns hoarse and angered. “You’re the one who made my life hell.”

“Oh, dear me, do you still hold onto that grudge, my darling? Although, I didn’t think that you’d be this… unmotivated when you finally have the chance to see me again.”

“Oh, believe me, I’d love to skewer you right now, but my body doesn’t allow it.” I can hear the clanging sound of metal, possibly from her slamming her hands onto the bars, as she continues to grunt with disdain at his question. “No thanks to that damn comrade of yours, now I have this stupid wound that isn’t healing any time soon.”

“Oh, dear. I must tell them later to aim more properly, then.” The man lets out a sinister grin. “To miss your vitals in that close a distance… the small fries are just too much to handle sometimes.”

“I’m not stuck in here just to hear your rambling, Pierre.” Petra scoffs at the man in retaliate. “Out with it; what are you here for?”

“Pierre…? Right, I did use that name when I met you, huh?” The man puts his finger on his forehead to act like he’s in some thoughts. “Well, I guess now is as good a time as any. I’m known as the Archangel of Guidance, Uriel. I do hope that name will be etched into you when you go to the afterlife.”

His words shake me to the core, making me swallow a gulp of air in stress and fear. Archangel, a special class of Angels that essentially makes them direct disciples of God. Each of them has unmatched strength and skills compared to even the most veteran soldier, and not only that, they all have some form of special abilities unique to them alone. As of right now, there are only four bearing the title of Archangels, each acting as the supervisor of a continent in the world. Yeah, I remember now. We’ve learned about these guys in world history for all our lives. Uriel of the North, Gabriel of the South, Raphael of the West, and Michael of the East.

“And as for my purpose of being here, it’s due to a certain… special request. I’d say she’ll be here any time now.” Unaware of my thoughts about him, he continues, looking outside as if expecting someone to come down to this dark, murky prison. A special guest, he says? In my head flashes an image that makes my throat dry as a desert. I can only think of one person right, now, but let’s hope she doesn’t do anything rash.

My hope is soon shattered as I see the familiar silver-haired figure approaching through the front door. With a worried, yet firm, look on her face, Beatrice points towards my cell:

“That’s him, Sir. Let him go.”

“It’s certainly hard to decline an order from the First Princess of England.” The man, now Uriel, answers with calmness. “However, Your Highness, let me ask you one thing first: why are you here, in France, in the first place?”

“Her Majesty the Queen gave me the task of visiting our allied nations to maintain a peaceful relationship, and this will also act as a practical lesson for my future rule. This young man is my escort for the time being.”

“And you sure he didn’t do anything wrong?”

“Of course. His actions were purely in self-defense.” Beatrice answers. “I can attest to that.”

I’m still having trouble getting used to this “princess” side of hers, but in times like this, I’m sure glad to have it around. However, her reasoning isn’t foolproof, but whether this Archangel is smart enough to notice it is the real question.

To my expectations, outside the cell, Uriel lets out a smile and asks:

“Well, that explains of everything, then. However, there’s only one last procedure left if I were to let your chaperone free. Your Highness, can you show me a decree from the Queen?”

Looks like he noticed after all. That’s right, the excuse has a big loophole in it, and that’s the fact that the Queen never allowed Beatrice to leave the country. She essentially forced herself to go with me, so the chances of her preparing something like this is nigh impossible. Bea… don’t try to push your luck. Back away when you still can.

“Ah, yes, the decree…” As I suspected, she’s in trouble. Look at her eyes shifting around; she’s stuck. Meanwhile, still trying to buy time, she lets out an awkward laugh and stutters in search of words. “I think… oh, right, it’s probably… still in my inn! That’s right!”

“Then you can just head back and bring it here, can’t you? I’ll be happy to fulfill your request as long as you can provide me with the necessary items.” The man, still with a smile on his face, answers.

Leave, Bea. You can’t go further. Try and think of another way. I intently stare at her, in hope of letting her know my advice. As her eyes once again shift around, they finally come into contact with my own, and, without wasting another moment, I slightly turn my head towards the door, signaling her to get away from here.

However, it looks like she doesn’t want to listen to me at all, as she lightly shakes her head, still desperately trying to find a good enough excuse to get me out of here. What are you doing? What do you hope to achieve? You can’t get us out of here yet! Even if you want to, the best thing to do is to patiently wait for an opening! Why can’t you understand that and …

“Get out!”

My shout echoes through the small chambers, making the bars vibrate in unison to the surprise of both the young princess and the Archangel. Crap. I blurted out by mistake. What do I do now?

“Ehe… Please, forgive his words just now. He’s a bit… difficult to handle sometimes…” Bea lets out an awkward laugh once more. Meanwhile, Uriel, for the first time since setting his foot inside the prison, looks towards my cell with the eyes of a curious individual seeing a caged animal:

“That’s not the way to talk to a lady, young man…”

He suddenly pauses as he glances at my face. I guess he’s as shocked as I was at first. I mean, seeing someone exactly like you for the first time in your life surely has to shake up something within you. His smile soon disappears, as he asks me with a curious, but serious tone:

“Boy… what is your name?”

His gaze towards me feels like it can pierce through my heart at any moment. No, Peter. You can’t show fear towards him. Anyone else is fine, but not him. Especially not him.

“… Peter.” I try to give a clear answer as I finally confront the angel’s intense glare.

“Your full name,” Uriel asks once more; this time fully void of emotions.

“… Pendragon. Peter Pendragon.”

If there are any traces of his smile left before he heard the answer, now it’s completely gone. With his teeth gritted, his fist clenched and his skin turning red as the sun, Uriel is like a volcano just waiting to burst. Bea, meanwhile, seems to be scared and weirded out by his expression enough that she finally accepts my, albeit loud, suggestion, and stutters while pointing towards the door:

“Well then, Sir Uriel… I think I’ll head back and get the decree…”

“No, you don’t need to do that anymore.” Uriel, suddenly turning calm like a river, as if his fire has suddenly been put out. “For the boy dies here, right now.”

“What? But he was only defending himself!” Bea lets out a deafening shout before the seemingly irrational decision. “How can you declare him with the death sentence just like that?”

“But I can, Princess.” Uriel lets out a smirk, delighted before the scene of a poor girl trying her best to defend her friend. “For you see, this isn’t your palace. It’s my nation. In fact, this entire continent is under my control, including your precious England. I make the rule here… Or if you wish to join the boy right now, I’ll be much obliged.” The man’s look turns into a fierce gaze burning with anger, as he grunts each word as if ingraining them into her mind.

I grip onto the cold bars with all my might and grit my teeth. Capturing me is one thing, but threatening to kill my precious friend? Who are you to decide that?

“Hey! Leave her out of this!” I shout towards the two people outside. As if the thing that has been holding him together has finally snapped, the Angel immediately jumps at my position in the cell, banging on the bars like a wild animal, and shouts out his lung:

“Quiet! A piece of garbage like you don’t even have the choice to speak right now!”

I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but the way he looks like he’s about to eat me alive as soon as I utter a single word is strange beyond compare, so much that curiosity has even taken the place of fear in my mind. With utter confusion, I gaze towards him and ask:

“Why are you… like this?”

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“Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up!” With each shout, the man punches the bar with all his strength, and what powerful strength it was. Each punch is strong enough to bend the bar so that one could visibly tell the difference, and the banging sound vibrating in the air is enough to scare the life out of a person faint of heart. With his last punch, however, the bars have taken too much damage. The bolts holding the top and bottom part of the bars to the stone walls have finally given up, and are sent flying inside the prison room along with the heavy metal frame, taking me along with it. In the split second of reaction, I have no other choice but to reflexively raise my hand in an attempt to cover whatever part of my body. But at that moment, something clicks within me.

On my hand, a burning sensation arises, and along with it is a surge of vitality unlike anything else I’ve experienced, as if I could lift a boulder with my bare hands. From the sensation, bright light emerges, lightning up the dark prison, like the sun illuminating the night. The hilt starts to appear on my hand, and the following suit is the familiar blade with the royal blue line in its body. As Excalibur appears in my hand once again, it has already sliced the bars in half without me even noticing the movement. Twitching with surprise, excitement, and adrenaline, I ask my partner inside my mind:

“Was that you, Balam?”

“Not at all, my King.” His voice sounds. “But I must say, you’re quite a forgetful one, aren’t you? Have you no recollection of our conversation while inside the sanctuary? I told you how your conditions then caused Excalibur to be sent back, and you could call it out whenever you want.”

“I have no idea.” I shake my head instinctively. “After I woke up, my head felt all fuzzy. Then there’s the whole conversation with Petra, and then this guy shows up, so I didn’t try to remember.”

“This guy? Who is-” Balam stops all of a sudden as if looking at the scene himself. With a heavy sigh, he sounds, almost mumbling to himself. “I see. So, he’s here at last…”

I know that the Angels and Demons have fought each other for millennia, but something in Balam’s voice feels… different, as if both nostalgic and regretful at the same time, unlike something you would say to your old enemy. I ask in my head:

“Do you know him, Balam? Like, know him better than the other Angels?”

“You could say that.” The demon sounds in response, his voice still has that unsettling feeling from before. “He’s…”

“That sword… That accursed sword!” A scream echoes through the cell rooms, interrupting our conversation. Turning towards the direction of the sound, I can see the Angel now with his eyes completely red with anger, his fists gripping so hard his hands are bleeding crimson.

“So… got any plans, Balam?”

“At the state you are right now, fighting him is impossible. If you’re lucky, you can maybe lure him into breaking out.”

“Okay, so how…”

A blazing fast punch interrupts our conversation once more, as I am only barely fast enough to dodge his strike and push Bea, who has already hidden herself behind me when the bars broke down, away from harm. His fist collides into the wall, and, in a split second, makes a hole on the spot of the collision point. Seeing the occasional rays of sunlight shining into the cell, Balam shouts in excitement:

“It’s daytime! Now’s our chance! Break the walls, my King!”

“How do I do that?” I scream inside my head, dodging another one of the Archangel’s punches, this time hitting the floor to create another hole.

“Use Excalibur! Its earth manipulation should be enough!”

“How do I do that again? Last time it was a fluke!” I sound, jumping away from his crazed assault this time the hole is on the sidewalls, connecting the cell we’re inside with Petra’s. Seeing a chance of reinforcements, I shout:

“Petra! Help us fight him!”

However, to the contrary of my expectations, her cell remains silent. Almost too silent, as I remember the whole duration of the conversation. Why is it that she only answers him up to a certain point, but then stops completely? Why isn’t she reacting to all this commotion? I try to peek into the hole to see the situation, but the rampaging Angel just wouldn’t let me. Lightning-quick punches and kicks keep firing towards me like an endless rain, and every hit I take feels like my bones are shattered into pieces. And the attacks don’t even have any patterns to them, so predicting his movements is nigh impossible – the angel has turned into a mindless beast with only the intention of annihilating my entire existence. Thankfully, as I’m forced to block his punch with Excalibur, Bea has taken the chance to see what happened over the other side:

“Petey, she’s unconscious! But I don’t see blood coming out, so it’s not because of the wound she had!”

“Not because of the wound?” Oh, that’s right. She was shot along with me. Her recovery speed definitely couldn’t be as fast as mine, but to see no wound after a similar amount of time would certainly be impressive. However, if she’s not wounded, then why would she be unconscious all of a sudden? Unless…

“She’s most likely in her Trial.” Balam sounds to confirm my suspicion.

“Well, what now?”

“We hope we’re buying her enough time to finish her Trial, and that she’s willing to help us out of this mess.”

“And if she doesn’t?” I ask within my head while successfully getting away from another kick that breaks open the floor by the skin of my teeth.

“Then we follow our previous plan: break the wall connecting to the outside, and either run away or try to beat him there,” Balam answers, but I can hear the uncertainty in his voice. To be honest, following a plan that relies mostly on chance like this isn’t my thing either, but we have to work with what we have.

“Sounds good enough.” I let out a grin to hide my anxiety, trying my best to shake off the angel still furiously breaking apart everything on his path towards me. Putting all my strength into my arms, I raise my sword horizontally to block his hands and push him towards the side with all my might. However, the Angel isn’t one to give up, as he once again charges at me using his bare fists. Flurries of punches are thrown in blistering speed, so much that I can’t possibly hope to react to all of them, and as an obvious result, I am soon pinned down onto the ground, suffering from consecutive punches to the face, as the Angel lets out a crazed mixture of laughter and scream:

“Die! Die! Die! Die! ...”

“I know what you’re trying to do, my King.” Balam sounds inside my head as I eat punches after punches. “I said that your regeneration is almost unmatched, but even it has its limits.”

“Busted, aren’t I?” I let out a bitter laugh as my mouth and nose bleed a stream of red-hot blood. “Yeah, considering he’s only aiming at me, I think this is the best way to keep him occupied. How long can I take his hits?”

“Five more minutes, max.” Balam answers. I can feel his head shaking in my mind.

“As I said, I don’t like leaving it to chances, but looks like that’s what I have to do now,” I answer, closing my eyes both to ease the ever-lasting pain and let my mind focus on Excalibur’s healing properties.

I say that, but the feeling of your bones breaking and healing in a matter of minutes is not a pleasant one, to say the least. As each second passes, my face is more and more drenched with my own blood, so much that I feel like I’m crying with all the liquid on my face. Meanwhile, my head feels all hot and fuzzy, both from the multiple concussions and the healing factor from Excalibur, so much that it’s getting hard to think straight.

How much time has it been? Is the five minutes over yet? I’m not even sure anymore.

I muster all the strength I have left and glance towards the cell next to me. Ugh, it’s hard to see anything with all this blood on my face. I don’t even know if the wall is busted or not. Is she awake yet? Doesn’t look like it, huh?

“My King, Excalibur’s regeneration is starting to lose its effect.” Balam says with a concerned tone. “There is another way left for us to escape this situation, but…”

All of a sudden, the attacks stop, as if interrupting our conversation for one last time.

As I open my eyes once more, Uriel’s hands and legs have all been tied up to something. However, the ropes binding him isn’t any ordinary string. Their intense heat, flickering movements, and bright orange color give away everything. Those aren’t strings or ropes that are holding him back, those are flames. Their fluid and vivid nature almost make them feel alive, as if they were dancing to the commands of their controller. Feeling his wrists and ankles sizzling from the burning fire, Uriel finally snaps back to his old conscious, and along with it comes a scream of pain and rage:

“Who is it? Who dares stop me from punishing the sinned?”

“Geez, shut up.” A familiar voice sounds behind him and emerges a girl in jet-black armor covering from neck to toe. The crownpiece on her head shines a mysterious black, perfectly contrasting the bright orange wings on her back – wings made from a black skeletal frame and fire acting as its skin. The girl, Petra, now in her new gear, continues:

“That’s enough for you, Pierre. I won’t let you hurt anyone else anymore.”

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