"Anima?" Achilles muttered in response. Upon hearing the name, Achilles thrust forward, causing the vines restraining him to tear. His wound re-opened, and blood began seeping from the opening once again. He grabbed Shadow by the collar. Though still weak, his grip was much firmer than the last time he'd grabbed her. "Where do I find Anima?" His teeth gritted as he spoke.
"I'm dissapointed," A voice came from behind Achilles.
Achilles froze. His grip loosened, and the voice behind him sent a shiver down his spine. He turned his head. Anima. He released the woman from his grasp and turned to face his new foe.
"I supposed that your skills were able to combat a target that could defend themselves. But I admire that you could tell that it was time to retreat." Anima lifted his hands up to his face mask, peeling it away from his skin. He pulled it down, revealing a unnerving grin. Around his mouth was several gruesome scars and many patches of scorched skin. He sighed happily, "I do like the breeze on my face after such a long time." He looked down at Achilles "You." he pointed at him, "Achilles Nimbus. Look at your scarred chest."
Achilles made no effort to hide his discomfort. He rubbed his chest, concious of what Anima was referring to.
"Your soul belongs on the planes of the Afterlife." Anima blinked forward. Electricity coursing through his veins. He held up his hand and let rip a lightning strike.
A large mound of sand quickly burst into the air, blocking the bolt. The flinching Achilles opened his eyes, not to Anima's scarred face, but to a dune or burned sand.
"Y'know, I'm really pissed off. I mean really pissed off. You know how long I was standing there looking for-" Isaac's seemingly disembodied voice was cut short. Achilles turned to see his returning companion attempting to assess the situation. "...this *****?" He groaned, noticing the bow on Shadow's back. "I need to relieve some pent up aggression, and you sir have given me the perfect medium through which to channel that anger." He grinned, as he shouted over the mound to Anima.
The mound rose into the air, hardening as it did so. It then began to fly at speed, headed straight for the male outlaw.
"Shadow, do take care of this pest." Anima let out a bored exhale as he blinked aside avoiding the flying sand. Shadow nodded. She activated her camouflage. She cut the spouts from their stalks. She retreated in to the shadows. Then she took off, running up and around to Isaac. She strung her bow and aimed it at Isaac. Meanwhile, Anima walked up to Achilles. "To be honest, I don't really care if or not if you see the beauty of the Astral Planes. But perhaps you wouldn't like your precious girlfriend to die. She is worthy, but he is not." He said the next phrase with a deadpan, intentionally bland and emotionless, voice. "How heartbreaking."
Isaac coated himself in metal, causing the arrow to bounce pathetically off of his steel frame. He clenched his fists. Fighting wasn't his ideal pass time, but it was certainly good for relieving stress.
"Achilles, you think you can handle eyepatch over there?" His focus switched to Shadow. Achilles clutched his slung arm.
"Not really." He muttered, not nearly loud enough for Isaac to hear. Without acknowledging his partners response, Isaac charged at the woman with his fist in the air.
Shadow turned invisible and laid down preparing to trip him up.
Isaac braced himself as the bright light from before appeared again. His body tumbled to the ground, however the metal casing allowed him to minimise the impact on the ground. The same couldn't be said for his impact with the metal itself though.
Achilles glanced over at his teammate, unsure of what to do.
As he re-orientated himself, Isaac raised two large rocks from the ground, slamming them into each other where his opponent was standing. Shadow rose up her hands, focussing her magic to her palms, her magic erupted from her palms and the wind picked up around her hands pushing the earth outwards. Anima grinned at Achilles, "I think I have something of yours." Anima brought out Achilles' spell book, Anima opened it and started to read it casually. Anima held up his hand to Achilles. "Move and die." Anima continued to read it non-chalantly. He then closed the book and put it away. He started to cackle, before glancing at Isaac. Anima reached in to his holster for his dagger. His magic went ecstatic, a large ball of lightning manifested itself in his hand. The outlaw blinked behind Isaac, he whispered to him. "Metal conducts." Isaac barely had time to fully turn, before the bolt struck through his side.
Watching helplessly on the sideline, Achilles could do little more than grovel as his only concious ally was pierced by a lightning bolt. The metal that had encased Isaac's body begin to flake, and fall from his body bit by bit.
Meanwhile, his partner clutched his sword. Every ounce of grievance in his body turned to anger, rage, regret; Anima was not going to get away with it again. He took his feet, drawing the blade as he did so. The sword was coated in a fierce lightning energy.
"Anima." He said plainly, wanting to catch the outlaws attention before attacking.
"I don't believe in last words." Anima glanced at Shadow. He pulled up his mask, since the wind from Shadow's attack kicked up some sand.
Achilles grinned at the response, despite it being a death threat from the man that had caused the death of three of his freinds, he found it amusing. He blinked behind Shadow, placing his hand on the women's back. Before she had time to react, he sent a surge of electricity through the woman. Shadow felt the electric surge through her nerves. Her limbs locked up. She became helplessly paralysed. Achilles stood over the fallen woman. He had no intention of killing her, for the sake of upholding his moral. He stepped over her and began walking towards Anima.
Anima blinked backwards, towards Charlotte, he placed a hand on Charlotte and began pulling her out of range of Achilles' minimum proximity to use his spell book. He held a electric palm by her neck. "You will not stop my Crusade." He picked up Charlotte by the arm, still holding the electric ball by her neck but also simultaneously draining her life energy through his hands, a spell of his own, an experience which no waking mind can retell.
Achilles began to charge his target, but became hesitant as the ball of lightning sparked up slightly. He had two options: hopelessly chase a dying friend, or stand around and watch her become a corpse. He sighed.
"Hey!" He shouted, testing his own voice. "It's my life you wanted , right?" Everything seemed against him at this point. He quickly realised that giving his life for some one that was already dying, and would die without him, made little sense. He could only hope that Anima wouldn't realise that.
"You are marked for death. Yes." He listened intently. Anima looked at him, observing his desperate measures, he had a link with this girl. "Prove your worth or she will recieve exaltation."
Achilles paused. He had no idea what this strange man valued, all he'd seem him do was kill for no reason. He looked back a Isaac, whose face was planted in the sand.
"I've killed over two hundred people, all of whom were worthy!" He tried to remain as composed as possible, it would've been obvious to a child that he was lying.
Anima burst in to laughing, his cackle was hinted with real laughter, not just the hysteria of a mad man. The boy's lie was paper thin and pathetic. He was very amusing. "Do you even deserve to feel the afterlife? You don't even believe in Gaudium. He commands obedience. Tell me, why did you come here?"
Achilles raised a brow at the question. He'd just been minding his own business before Anima showed up, and had the nerve to ask a question like that. Was Anima some sort of guardian of the desert? We he'd originally attacked Achilles in Fairbell, so that would be nonsensical.
"Why did I come where?" Achilles sighed.
"South."
Achilles paused again, was telling the truth really his best option here. He himself had almost forgetten the reason he'd travelled south. Chances were he'd been there so long the girl had either been found, or worse by now.
"I'm looking for a child. She went missing, and a few rangers have been sent to find her. I'm one of them." It almost sounded strange calling himself a ranger again. It felt like he'd been south for years.
Anima grinned with delight, he had him where he needed him. He took out Achilles book and dropped it on the ground, he blinked forward. His iris started to glow, swirling like a vortex would in to the ground. "It's fun to watch a man try his best to stay in this Hell." He walked closer. "Last time, I didn't kill you because you gave up a part of yourself in favour of your pride." He paused. "Come closer, peer at the face of Shillace before you die."
The invitation seemed sinister, but Achilles had no intention of passing up the opportunity to make ground on Anima, especially if it meant recovering Shillace. He began to walk slowly towards the outlaw.
Anima stepped back, taking out his gun and pointing it at Charlotte. He let Achilles walk closer.Achilles stopped. Not reacting beyond halting the movement of his feet. Anima looked in to Achilles' eyes Unveiling the sight of a crying Shillace locked in to a cage. Around her was images of Anima's murders playing and replaying.
Achilles quickly broke eye contact.
"Anima, what exactly do you gain from all this? This Gaudium of yours, what does he teach? Surely he doesn't preach senseless murder." He backed up slightly, after finishing his short monologue. Overstepping the boundaries with a character as dangerous as the one he was dealing with wouldn't end well for the hostage.
"Gaudium has created the perfect world that is only accessible after here, Now. I need to finish up buisnes." He let his lightning strike rip, it shot through the air heading straight for the fool.
Achilles dove forward, he momentarily felt his magic return and used his static ability to send the bolt straight through him. He stood up, and again looked at Anima, and again avoided eye contact.
"Like I said before, you want me, not her. If you let both Shillace and Charlotte go, you can have my life, on one condition." At this point, he effectively felt as though he was striking a deal with the devil. Though, there wasn't much more that could be taken from him down here.
"I want to let everyone meet Gaudium, some just need to suffer first" He stepped closer to Charlotte.
"What if we're not ready to meet Gaudium? What if he's not ready to meet us?" He brushed himself off, panting slightly. "You take Charlotte and Isaac to the priest in Fairbell, have him heal them, then let them go."
"You want me to reward 1 unworthy, sinful soul, and heal his friends, you must be stupid." Anima was bored of this, he brought up his shotgun and shoved it towards Achilles, shoving him in the stomach he pushed Achilles away and pulled the trigger, the shot sped out of the barrel and the shotgun shoot with recoil.
Achilles was pushed back by the force of the bullets flying into his stomach. He instinctively clutched onto the hole that had been torn through his stomach. He didn't dare to remove his hand from the wound, as he could see the blood spilling through his fingers. His body froze, his legs gave way and he fell to his knees.
Shadow felt her bones start to loosen. Her limbs reacted when she told them to move. Anima strode over to her. Shadow stood up tentatively. Anima scowled at Achilles. "I have a plan, we need to move. I need you to tell the plants to keep him alive. We're taking the girl. See to it that you stabilize her too."
Shadow nodded. She dropped a seedling in the ground near Achilles, she forced her magic to talk the seed. "He musn't die." The root burrowed in to the ground and then it grew out and wrapped itself around Achilles. Shadow took some of the leaves, "I'm sorry, but this is important." Achilles looked up at her, with his eyes full of pain. Shadow then stood and ran to Charlotte. She crouched down and wrapped the leaves around her, but saw the state Charlotte was in.
Anima blinked next to her, "Ready?" Anima looked at the girl.
Shadow looked to him, frowning, "She won't survive if she isn't treated immeditately. I'm afraid even the Seeds of the Windcaller can't help her at this point."
Anima nodded, he pulled down his mask and whistled for Cereberus. The hell-horse galloped up, "Take her to the pretender. If she'll survive, we have some plans for her." He lifted the girl on to the horse.
Shadow mounted Cerberus, "What's your plan?" Anima simply grinned at her.
"She'll be seeing the face of Gaudium soon, dead or alive."