TheBestofSome

  As the magic from the Archbishop's spell swirled around them Fenrir caught a glimpse of the undisguised horror in her eyes before an impossibly thick darkness closed in around them, robbing him of all sight. The sensation of falling gripped him, then the next instant, as though he had been standing there all along, he could feel hot, hard dirt under his feet. Directly across from him stood the Saintess. For the briefest instant they stared at each other, then she cursed and scrambled backwards. Determined not to give her another opening, the soul-tearing agonies of her song still resounding through his body, Fenrir leapt after her, easily catching and pinning her to the ground.

  She struggled for a moment, but she was helpless. Fenrir expected her to try to use magic next, but instead she spat, "Well, what now, monster? Do you pn to kill me?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "Giving up so soon?"

  "I know when I'm beaten."

  There was something in her voice that gave Fenrir doubts as to whether she was actually as beaten as she would like him to think, but he replied, "But you haven't even tried to use magic yet. Don't try to tell me you've already exhausted your pool of spells."

  "You can't use magic in Apollyon, idiot. Not unless you have a Key."

  Both eyebrows went up this time. A quick test proved her right, the by now familiar welling of mana entirely absent as he tried to cast several of his limited pool of spells. To his greater chagrin, his abilities were simirly unusable. Even God's Eye refused to activate, leaving him feeling more vulnerable than he had since his reincarnation into Ruyanei.

  He returned his attention to his captive just in time to catch her wrist as she attempted to slip a slim dagger into his side. Ignoring the warm blood oozing from where the bde had sunk several inches deep, he wrenched the dagger from her grasp and tossed it to one side, causing the dark elf to let out a gasp of pain as her wrist was painfully twisted.

  "Any other clever little tricks you want to try?" he growled.

  Elmeria shook her head, tears in her eyes as she cradled her wrist in her other hand. She tried for a defiant gre, but her fear was now beginning to overpower her, and together with the pain the best she could manage was a frightened grimace.

  Satisfied she was subdued for the moment, Fenrir turned his attention to his surroundings. Hard brown earth surrounded them, a harsh gre beating down on their bodies, though when Fenrir raised his head he could not find a source for the light. They appeared to be on a featureless brown pin, the few small scrubby bushes that were visible dry and obviously long dead. In one direction through the heat haze Fenrir thought he could just make out the outline of mountains, but it was impossible to be sure. He stood up, looking around, but there was nothing else to see.

  He looked back down at Elmeria. The Saintess had rolled onto her side, clutching her hurt wrist to her chest and closing her eyes tightly. Fenrir felt a pang of sympathy. Sure, she had just tried to banish him to an inhospitable desert from which he could never escape, and yes, she had also just tried to kill him, but he couldn't help but remember what he had read regarding her past. 'A rough childhood doesn't even begin to describe it. And looking at her right now, I can believe it, too.' He sighed. 'Me and my bleeding heart. Well, it doesn't really matter how I feel about her. She clearly knows quite a bit more about Apollyon than I do and that could easily be information I'll need to get out of here, so I'll have to take her with me for now. If she does try anything, I can easily overpower her. No magic is a double-edged sword; on the one hand, she can't really do much without magic, so that all but removes her as a threat, but on the other, having my own abilities locked off is a real gut-punch. Well, still better than the Cathedral. I can't believe I completely forgot about my Divine Oath. By all rights I should have died to her then and there.'

  Reaching down to take her uninjured hand and ignoring her flinch as he touched her, Fenrir pulled the girl to her feet. "Listen up," he said. "Is there any way to return to Ruyanei?"

  Elmeria said nothing, staring pointedly at the floor. Then she gave another gasp of pain as Fenrir reached around behind her and pulled roughly down on her hair to force her to raise her head. Not releasing his grip on her hair, Fenrir told her in a voice that was almost gentle, "If you refuse to answer me, I will be forced to hurt you until you do."

  In a tight voice she replied, "There's no way out without a Key."

  Fenrir let go of her hair, and she immediately turned away. "A Key of Apollyon?" he asked.

  She nodded.

  'Damn, maybe I should have gone for that instead of Mark of Submission. Ah well, what's done is done.' Aloud he asked, "Is there any way to get our hands on one in here?"

  Elmeria shrugged.

  "You'll have to do better than that," Fenrir said, putting a little growl into his voice.

  Her shoulders tensed, and she murmured in the same strained tone, "I don't know. The research I've done on Apollyon seems to indicate that Keys of Apollyon are extremely rare, and the only account I've ever found that talks about where they come from cims his was given as a divine gift. But not everyone who has entered Apollyon by using one has returned, so assuming they died here, their Keys might still be here as well."

  "So presuming we can even use a Key of Apollyon which hasn't been specifically granted to us, all we have to do is find the remains of one of these heroes that bit off more than they could chew. Unless..." Fenrir trailed off, thinking.

  Elmeria gave him a cautious gnce. "Why did you say we?"

  "Hmm? Oh, that's because I'll be taking you with me, of course. If you're a good girl and behave, I may even bring you out with me when I return to Ruyanei."

  Elmeria gave a disbelieving scoff. "No monster who's been banished to Apollyon has ever escaped. What makes you think you're any different?"

  "No monster has ever survived your Divine Song, either, but here I stand, alive and well," Fenrir grinned, making Elmeria flush. "I also have several other trump cards up my figurative sleeve. Like you, for instance."

  Elmeria subsided, turning away again. Fenrir resisted the urge to shake himself as the phantom pain of the Saintess' song rolled over him for a moment. He was well accustomed to pain; it had in varying intensities been a near constant companion in his old life, but never had he felt anything which even remotely compared to what he had felt back in the Cathedral dungeon. That had been agony of such acute severity that he had no words even to begin to describe it. His Light-based soul had kept him alive, but at the cost of his Dark-based body feeling as though it were being disintegrated at the molecur level.

  Rolling his shoulders to banish the memory to the back of his mind, he focused on the present. Taking her back to Ruyanei with him was a significant risk, but so was leaving her. The disappearance of one Saintess was sure to bring the wrath of the other four down on him sooner or ter, probably sooner. On the other hand, unless he was able to brand her with Mark of Submission or perhaps simply break her the old-fashioned way, he would be essentially signing his own death warrant by releasing her from the magic ban that Apollyon enforced. 'But of course Mark of Submission is just as inaccessible as the rest of my abilities. I can't even turn off Warmth anymore.' He suppressed a sigh.

  'Well, let's take stock. I can still use my cws, and my hearing, sense of smell, and strength haven't been diminished in any way. My levels have- wow. Yeah, okay, those have gone up a bit since I st checked them, and my Assassin css even evolved into Spectre. I assume that's because I was sneaking around the capital so much.' His Barbarian css hadn't risen too much, only going up by seven levels, but his Assassin, now Spectre css had risen by a full twenty-five levels. He had also gained four Core levels, and thanks to his css evolution he had even gained a new ability, Target Mark, which allowed him to mark any living being and gain the ability to know exactly where they were for twenty-four hours. 'Not that I can actually use it yet. Still, I can see that being useful if I ever do get out of here.' All this put him at level thirty-two in Barbarian, level forty-two in Spectre, and level nineteen for his monster Core.

  He turned his attention to his physical situation. 'I only have the fur on my back, but I'm in fine fighting shape aside from the little poke Elmeria gave me, and that's already almost stopped bleeding. Stings, but that's nothing I can't handle. As for Elmeria herself...'

  Spoiler

  (Image taken from the original prompt)

  [colpse]He looked the dark elf over. Long straight white hair covered her back, the hat which she had been wearing having been knocked off in their scuffle. It y crumpled and forgotten in the dirt. She had bright hazel eyes set in a singurly beautiful face, marred only slightly by the cold and arrogant expression which seemed to be the norm for her. Her body was fit and tight, accentuated by her outfit, which to Fenrir looked like a cross between an admiral's dress uniform and a skin-tight bodysuit. It did an excellent job of showcasing her assets without openly seeming to funt them. 'Speaking of assets...' Fenrir eyed what he could see of her breasts appreciatively. They were not particurly rge in comparison to those sported by some of his succubi, but they fitted her frame well, much like her hips and ass. Slim legs and delicate feet, half encased in ornate greaves, finished off the picture. In the dungeon she had seemed taller due to the authoritative aura she had then projected, but in its absence Fenrir noticed she was actually quite short, less than five and a half feet tall.

  'Say what you will about the Saintesses, at least they're pretty. I probably shouldn't count on her being able to fight if we do meet anything unfriendly, though. She seems to have specced mostly into magic, and I figure that dagger of hers is only there as a backup option.'

  Fenrir gnced back up at the horizon where he had thought he had seen mountains. 'Well, time's wasting. Probably, anyway. If I remember correctly, that twink angel Ariel mentioned something about time not passing in Apollyon, but it seems to be progressing as usual.'

  He stepped over to where the Saintess' dagger had nded and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. It was simple in design, but elegantly made of well-polished steel. His blood was still dripping off the first inch or two, but that was quickly remedied by the simple expedient of wiping it off on his thigh. Impressed with the quality of the craftmanship, Fenrir tested its bance. 'Huh, perfect. I suppose I should have expected that a Saintess would have the best equipment avaible, peripheral or no.'

  Turning, he approached the Saintess in question. "Okay, so here's what's going to happen. You're going to come with me, and you're not going to cause any trouble, understand?"

  Elmeria fixed him with a withering gre. "Or what, you're going to kill me?"

  "Of course not. What a waste that would be. No, what I will do if you misbehave is rip your clothes off, tie you up with them, and carry you with me."

  The dark elf flushed, but her gre remained unsoftened. "Figures. Even Dark-race males think about nothing but sex."

  "Who said anything about sex?" Fenrir asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Elmeria's flush darkened. "W-well, that's- ...I mean, y-you're threatening to strip me naked, so..."

  "Do you see any rope around here? No? Then I must make do with what is avaible. You're the one who tried to make it sexual."

  Her face by now a brilliant red, Elmeria muttered something indistinct and scowled at the ground.

  But Fenrir didn't give her much time to stew. "Come now, will you behave, or do I have to tie you up and throw you over my shoulder?"

  "Okay, fine," she muttered in an undertone.

  "What was that?"

  "I said fine. I'll come quietly. For now," Elmeria snarled, looking at Fenrir with so much vitriol that he had to suppress a smile.

  "Do I have your word as a Saintess that you'll obey my orders and you won't try to stab me in the back? I mean that both literally and figuratively, by the way."

  Her only response was a death gre.

  Fenrir sighed, a little more dramatically than necessary. "Ah well, I suppose I'll make better time anyway if I'm carrying you," he said, stepping towards her.

  Elmeria's eyes went wide, and she backpedaled so quickly she almost fell over her own feet. "Nononono wait! I'll do it! I'll give you my word!"

  Fenrir stopped. "Well?"

  Elmeria swallowed. "Okay, fine, you have my word."

  "That...?"

  Elmeria gred at him. "You have my word that I won't try to backstab you and I'll do what you say until we get out of here. ...So long as it's not anything weird," she added under her breath.

  "Good enough, I suppose," Fenrir decided. "Now come, follow me." Turning away, he started in the direction he thought he had seen mountains earlier. As he did, he thought, 'Now I guess we'll see how much honor she has. It's easily possible that she doesn't view breaking her word as that big a deal, especially since she gave it to an enemy and a Dark-race, not to mention it was done under duress, but it's an interesting experiment either way. Who knows, maybe she really is strait-ced enough to keep her word despite her distaste for me. That'd be nice.' From behind him he heard a defeated sigh, and then the sound of footsteps as the dark elf began to follow him.

  It was an exhausting walk. Little puffs of dust rose beneath their feet at every step, while the same harsh gre beat down on them from everywhere and nowhere all at once, sapping their strength to an unnatural degree. There was no wind, not even an occasional puff of breeze to stir the dead air. The only evidence that they were making any progress at all was the line of their footprints, which stretched out behind them in a double ribbon until they became lost in the distance. After some distance Fenrir began to worry that they might end up going in circles due to the ck of any real ndmarks, so from then on he adopted the method he had read about for avoiding traveling in circles in a forest, namely, picking a feature in the distance, walking to it, then picking another in a straight line beyond it. Every once in awhile through the heat haze he thought he caught a glimpse of mountains ahead of them, but he could never be sure it wasn't just a mirage.

  After what must have been hours of this, Elmeria spoke up. "Can we- please - stop -to rest?" she gasped.

  Fenrir paused and looked back. The action of walking, even with the complication of having to hold a straight course, had been quickly become automatic and he had fallen into brooding on what could happen to Safara and the rest of his girls if he was not able to get back quickly. Now he realized that his companion was clearly exhausted, clutching at a stitch in her side with her uninjured hand as she took ragged gasps of the dead air. "Sure," he replied, watching as she immediately dropped to the ground, relief clear on her face.

  Fenrir sat down next to her, and for several minutes there was no sound save for their breathing. It took far longer for Elmeria's breathing to settle than Fenrir expected, and he realized that he himself was breathing noticeably more quickly than was normal. 'There's probably less oxygen in the air here than we're accustomed to. It'd track with everything else about this pce being annoying and inhospitable.' He looked down at the dark elf at his side. 'I expect she's regretting trying to banish me right about now. It would certainly have been easier for her if she'd just hit me with a fireball or something.' Her breathing now having mostly stabilized, Fenrir stood up again.

  "Can we rest a bit longer? Just five more minutes?" Elmeria pleaded, even forgetting to be haughty and resentful in the depth of her exhaustion.

  Fenrir sighed, then reached down and lifted her to one shoulder, making the dark elf squeak in horror before she realized what he was doing. "Grab my fur to steady yourself," he told her. "Just keep your hands off my ears or we're going to have problems."

  "Okay," she said in a very small voice, burying her hands in the thick fur at his neck as he set out again. It took her quite a while to rex, even though she must have quickly realized that she was in no danger of falling off.

  It must have been hours ter that Fenrir finally paused again. The ck of any visible sun made it difficult to tell how much time had passed, but the fatigue Fenrir could feel in his legs, more than after a full day of walking on Ruyanei, attested to the distance he must have traveled. 'Of course conditions are changed enough that I can't be sure of anything, but either way I need rest, and somehow I doubt that night will fall anytime soon.'

  Reaching up, he lifted Elmeria down from her perch. She stretched and yawned, wincing a little as she worked the cramps out of her muscles. "This is as far as we go for now," Fenrir said. "Now, since I don't know if I can trust you to keep your word, I'm going to have to tie you up while I sleep."

  Elmeria took immediate offence. "Absolutely not! It's bad enough that I'm stuck with you in this purgatory; I'm not going to be tied up like a - a -"

  "A prisoner?" Fenrir asked. "You are one, best get used to the idea. Just be gd that I'm only tying you up while I rest, and not all the time. You've certainly given me cause to do so."

  Elmeria's eyes fell momentarily to the dried blood which matted the fur at Fenrir's side, her expression wavering, but then it hardened again as she replied, "But it's humiliating! I gave you my word I wouldn't hurt you, isn't that enough?"

  "Considering I have little or no assurance that you'll actually keep it, no, it's not. Now come here."

  She retreated another few steps. "No! I refuse to be treated in this way! I am the Archbishop of the Church of Marstolle, a Saintess of the Light, and I will not be treated like a toy for your sick amusem- eek!"

  Losing patience with her, Fenrir had taken two swift steps forward and grabbed the recalcitrant girl, pinning her arms to her sides. "Would you rather I had left you back where we started? You know as well as I that there's no way you could have kept up with me if I had done so, and I wouldn't take any bets on you surviving too long out here alone."

  Elmeria struggled to escape for several moments, then subsided, contenting herself with gring resentfully at Fenrir. "I hope you get eaten by a dragon," she muttered.

  Fenrir just grinned.

  Several minutes ter, Elmeria's hands and feet were securely bound with strips torn from the edge of her coat, and she was lying several feet from the recumbent form of the monster who had taken her prisoner. He had fallen asleep almost instantly regardless of the unnatural light which constantly permeated this godsforsaken pce, but despite her own fatigue, Elmeria found sleep elusive. Her thoughts were consumed by doubts, fears, and (though she hated to admit it) her companion.

  Her dealings with him were supposed to be short and sweet. She would order the imprisonment of that traitorous high elf bitch, wait for whoever came to rescue her, interrogate them to discover what their purpose was in infiltrating the Cathedral and to discover what exactly had caused the giant surge of magic up in the mountains, and then kill them. She had been a little surprised when what was clearly a Dark-race had shown up, but it hadn't been anything she couldn't handle, or so she had thought. But then everything had started going wrong. First, he had intimated that he knew about her past, a past she had buried as deep as she possibly could. She had thought she was free of it, but then he had said Ria, as if he knew exactly what that name meant to her. She shuddered compulsively on the ground, curling into a ball in a vain attempt to protect herself from the memories that came flooding back.

  A mocking ugh, a familiar voice, but so much colder than she had ever heard it sound before. "It's nothing personal, Ria, it's just good business..."

  Her own voice, higher and younger, desperate and choked with fear and confusion. "No, please, I can do better! Please don't! Please!"

  Then the merciless hands, grabbing and pawing, a sp which rocked her to her core when she tried to resist.

  Two voices in the distance, half heard through a haze of pain and cold. "The little one? Half price for her."

  "Half price? Why?"

  "She's not fully broken yet. Plus one of the boys got a little too rough with her, so she'll need some time to heal unless you don't mind her dying on you."

  "What's her name?"

  "Whatever you want it to be, but the guy who sold her to me called her Ria."

  The times she thought she was free, then again the sleazy ugh and the pawing hands. "You thought you could buy your way out? I own you, Ria, so that means I own what you make. Now hand it over like a good whore."

  The nights spent out in the cold wearing too-light clothing, trying her best, and hating what she tried for.

  A sp. "That's not as much as st week. Do better, or it's another night in the Pit for you."

  The cold, the constant pain, the moments of unwanted pleasure, but mostly the despair.

  That first monstrous betrayal.

  Curling tightly, Elmeria sobbed into her knees. She had overcome. She had risen to a position of respect. Thousands bowed when she walked among them, without prompting. She was one of the most powerful beings in the world. But all it took was one mention of that name and she was a little girl again, once more watching her world shatter like gss.

  And he knew. She had no idea how, but what he had said had been too pointed, too perfectly aimed to have been accident. Then he had survived her song. Her Divine Song! The ability granted to her by the gods themselves, that had killed thousands of minions of the Dark at once no matter their size or strength. It had clearly taxed him, but that he was able to withstand it for even an instant was impossible, or at least it should have been. She had panicked then. Looking back, she should probably have used one of her more destructive spells then despite the colteral damage it would have inflicted. Instead she had tried to banish him to Apollyon. She gave a bitter little smile. At least that had worked. There was just the small problem of her having been caught in the spell as well thanks to his absurd speed. Someone that big had no business moving that fast.

  And then he had the audacity to not even seem particurly bothered by his banishment. From his reaction one would think that he had merely been dispced to the far end of the country instead of to a pne from which there was no escape. She wondered what he thought he would accomplish with this journey. Was it just something to do, something to fill the endless hours, or did he actually have a pn? He had mentioned the Keys of Apollyon as though he thought he could find one, but even if there were Keys of Apollyon left here by those heroes who had come here and not returned, would their bodies not be guarded by the things that had killed them? Maybe he intended to trade her for access to a hero's belongings. She shuddered, and her gaze fell on her dagger, held loosely in one of his rge, strong hands. If she could get her hands on it, it would be so easy to slip that keen point between his ribs. But no, she had given her word she wouldn't hurt him and she would keep it, if for no other reason than because he had doubted that she would.

  Maybe once he awoke she could ask him what his pn was. He really had been shockingly polite for a Dark-race, she reflected. Not all the time, and he had tied her up in this humiliating fashion, but he hadn't actually stripped her as he had been threatening to do, and he hadn't really been openly hostile to her most of the time. She doubted he would tell her the whole truth, but she might be able to get enough out of him to guess the rest. Or maybe he would just tell her everything. After all, he thought she was completely in his power, and while she hated to admit it, he was right. Without magic she was little more than a normal dark elf. A little stronger, a little tougher, but still definitely no match for him.

  Or anything else that might be here. They hadn't met anything yet, but any text that dealt with Apollyon mentioned the various monsters banished there. It was only a matter of time, and alone she would be easy prey, but with the wolf monster... She gnced at him again. She didn't know what abilities he actually had, but his strength didn't seem to be affected by the loss of them judging by how effortlessly he had carried her for however many miles. As much as she hated and feared him, he was her best chance of surviving, for now at least. She turned over, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. Maybe the other Saintesses would be able to rescue her. Citrinas was ...odd, but she had never known her to meet a problem she couldn't solve, and Tomoko would do anything to rescue her. Alkadabuki was more taciturn, but she was always willing to smash through whatever walls the rest of them required. Once Commander Valtos and Bishop Tavill contacted them, they wouldn't rest until she was safe again.

  Elmeria yawned. Yes, surely it wouldn't take them too long to come to her rescue...

  TheBestofSome