It was not a pretty sight the full moon shone down on. Almost an hour ago, the forest clearing had been a campsite where a group of robbers and killers had set up camp, fresh from their last raiding spree, where they had destroyed three small settlements in a week.

Their loot all lay in one corner of the settlement, where they placed four strong guards, all of whom knew enough not to steal from the pile, for their leader, Derrick Drogo, possessed powers they did not have. He had some skill in terms of the First Echelon abilities, and was not unfamiliar to the Second Echelon's as well. While he had not formed his spirit weapon yet, he could channel his spiritual energies into his fearsome broadsword, to give it the strength of a decent Second Echelon spirit weapon.

However, four red bolts of Shadow energy had pierced the four guard's spines the second they had taken up their posts, and now they could neither move, nor yell for help.

Then the Dark Lady of Death, She of the Lupine Pack, had arrived to pour vengeance upon them, and now the dire wolves ripped through flesh and bone, and tore through the band of killers and bandits.

She said nothing, her grey eyes flashing with emotion while she cradled a cute wolf cub in her right arm.

Finally, the wolves surrounded a single person.

The last one who remained was the leader of the now-dead group of robbers and murderers.

Derrick Drogo.

"So you must think you're a pretty powerful man, Drogo, to have murdered three settlements in three days with your little friends." Her cold voice of indifference and sarcasm mixed together wafted through the humid forest air.

The scoundrel simply shook his head smilingly, looking at the remaining wolves that surrounded him

"Why don't you take a look, pretty lady? Those pets of yours, the seven that tried to tear my throat out at least, all lie dead on the ground, felled by my sword. I do not fear you, lady of shadow. I only fear the Slaying Siren, who is not three miles behind me!"

"The Ice Maiden is close! And even if all of these useless wolves can kill me, that...that...Blood Violet will kill you as well!"

She actually has three cheesy names? Even I was only given one!

The six remaining dire wolves growled, and one of them howled for their fallen brethren.

The tall, slender woman held up a pale hand, and placed the wolf cub on the ground.

"Hold, my dears. Let this man's friends take his life for us."

Dark red energy began to gather around her fingers, and in the blink of an eye, shot out towards the body of the dead bodies that surrounded the man.

Slowly, phantasms rose from the bodies of the dead, and each one of them looked eerily like the person that it had spawned from. It seemed as if the souls were back to take their former leader with them.

Alexstrasza, however, knew better. The Dead usually gave up their souls immediately when Death struck, and while she was unsure where they went, souls usually went somewhere, and never stayed around unless God had allowed them to for some purpose.

These Phantasms were merely figures conjured up by her powers, designed to strike fear and regret in their victims.

It didn't seem to work on this one however.

"You are a fool, woman. These things can never hurt me!"

Saying thus, Derrick pulled out a crystal that gave off a golden glow from his pocket. Wincing with pain as he held it, the killer simply hurled the crystal into the ground, right in the midst of the Phantasms.

A shattering of glass sounded, and an explosion of light filled the clearing. She of the Lupine Pack closed her eyes, but she could feel the power emanating from the reaction peeking through the layer of protection that a Mistress of the First Echelon could form on their body to protect it from minor things such as a weak aftershock of an explosion of energy that had just taken place.

When she opened her eyes, the Phantasms were gone. They had been completely vaporized. Sniffing the air, she realised what the blast of power had been.

"A Holy Nova? But the sheer purity of Holy energy would tear a man like you apart! How did you come to summon it?"

Clad in a green army jacket over a mud-coloured tee with a pair of fatigues, Derrick Drogo was an ugly man, and he was even uglier when he smiled or did anything of the kind.

Laughter issued from his cracked lips, and he grinned. "That was courtesy of the Sorcerer who had been arrested by the Guardsmen a few days ago. That guy had figured out a way to store energy into a certain kind of crystal, and I bought a Holy Nova crystal from him. Never knew where he got it from though."

Alexstrasza sighed. She hated getting her hands dirty, but she couldn't risk too many of her dire wolves. There were not many in the world, and to change a normal, mangy wolf into a powerful dire wolf took a lot of Shadow energy. While there was much Dark energy in the world, taking too much of it and then converting it to Shadow energy nauseated her, and the levels of Dark energy she had controlled would have reduced her to shrivelled old hag by now.

Fortunately it didn't happen, for her body was dead anyway.

Her lips curled, and her once-black, now-grey pupils flashed red.

She lifted up her hands to her face, like a boxer in a fighting stance.

Then slowly, three grey claws began to slide out from between her knuckles on each hand. When they had reached their full length which was around a foot long, a dark red glow surrounded the blades.

Drogo was momentarily stunned. Then he shook his head.

"The Negating Bone Claws...?"

She merely smiled, and a touch of fear caressed his heart.

He shook it off.

Snarling, Drogo lifted up his huge broadsword, and he attacked!

And then he died.

Such was the alacrity of her attack that had left her claws deep within his heart, that he had not even time to finish the battle-cry that sprang from his throat, and it ended up as a death rattle that emitted from his throat.

Withdrawing from him, Alexstrasza cleaned her claws on the clothes of the dead Drogo before letting him fall to the ground. The claws, still covered in their eerie red glow, drew back into the spaces between her knuckles. She walked in the middle of the bloody clearing and closed her eyes.

Wearing a raven-coloured cloak that obscured her face with a hood, Alexstrasza wore underneath a t-shirt the colour of ash. Her long legs were complemented perfectly by a pair of black leather pants, and she covered her feet with a sleek set of black riding boots.

She of the Lupine Pack began to draw upon the evil darkness that was in the hearts of these men, and she began to neutralise the vileness of the evil Dark energy that lay dead around her, and when it became the form of a more neutral Shadow energy for her to replenish the little energy that she had expended, she absorbed it.

As the corruptive Dark energy began to drain from their bodies, their bodies began to decompose almost a hundred times faster than it should. Such was the effect of using skills that drained power from bodies.

It took her a few seconds to sense the sudden approach of frost from behind her. Turning around, she could see the clearing slowly become touched by a covering of cold ice.

Frowning, she called for her wolves to come around her. Afraid of this strange freezing air, they gladly complied, their sleek furry forms sliding around her.

The mysterious stream of cold air filled the clearing completely, and out of nowhere, a slow nagging fear touched her. She blinked.

And a girl with long black hair that covered her face appeared.

The Dark Lady sucked in a deep breath, and steadied herself.

So. This is the infamous Slaying Siren that everybody's been talking about...

Almost a year or two ago, she had suddenly emerged from seemingly out of nowhere, and had become the bane of all followers of the Evil Way within two months. She was rumoured to be one of the two unknown girls that the legendary Protector had sacrificed himself for, and also one of those that had destroyed the nefarious Darek Na, leader of the so-called True Life Church, alongside the Steel and Jade Patriots.

Her powers were also considered to be equal or possibly greater than each of the both of them; Captain Edward and the special agent codenamed Cadence Snake-better known as John to his friends- became the heroes of the nation overnight by using their talents and abilities to defend their homeland over and over again, and they were believed to be the most powerful supernatural warriors in the country.

Eyewitnesses described her as a spectre that struck fear deep into the hearts of any who laid their eyes upon her, and that when the battle fully consumed her, a series of ethereal melodies would suddenly resound in the air, and she would begin to sing as she slew, which earned her the name of the Slaying Siren.

Another terrible rumour that spread around, albeit more quietly, was that after the destruction of her enemies, she would begin to dance, slowly and gracefully, in the crimson pool that was the blood of her enemies.

If she sings like one of those Banshees from the Shadow Heart Remnant, I'll sew her lips up first.

All was still for a few moments, as both girls seemingly stared at each other, one beneath the shadow of her cowl, and the other covered by a layer of hair.

While the girl seemed to show no physical deformities or any translucency that may show that the girl was not human, or even alive, there was an unsettling aura about the girl that gave Alexstrasza pause.

The girl had the figure of a young lady who was in her early twenties, at most twenty-three, and the nightgown she wore was once white in colour, but now was a stained purple.

A voice, dreamy and sweet, broke the silence.

"...You killed...them?"

It took Alexstrasza a moment before she realised that it was the girl who had spoken. Surprised that such a fearful person had such a voice, she simply made a non-committal noise.

The wind suddenly blew from behind her, ruffling her cloak, and it blew back the girl's hair, revealing the face of the strange female.

It was a pallid face it revealed, with her eyes closed, her skin smooth as marble, and even under the moonlight and the glow of the freezing aura around her, an unearthly beauty still shone from her face.

Not that the Dark Lady cared anyway. She had seen far better. But there was a familiarity in that face, that face in which she thought she had seen many a time before.

"Death...so much death..." the girl mumbled absently, and her eyes could be seen moving beneath their lids. The pale blue light of the freezing aura touched the dead bodies on the ground one by one, and when it reached the tall cloaked figure standing in front of her, it stopped abruptly.

"You...you are dead too..."

She grinned. "You don’t like it? Too bad then."

The light touch of the chill air was at first like the air of the first coming of winter, where the cold seemed to wrap around one like a cooling blanket. But now it suddenly hardened, and the air became bitterly cold, like the terrible chill of a blizzard.

"Then down...you should stay."

Currents of air began to whip about the strange girl, and the freezing aura increased in power, causing bits of ice to form around her. She seemed to be unperturbed however, and a look of sadness and tragedy came upon her face, and lasted for a second.

Then it vanished, her pallid features became expressionless.

A glimmer of glowing blue energy particles appeared around her right hand, and as Alexstrasza watched in silent horror, rivulets of blood began to leak from the Ice Maiden's eyes and travel down and off her cheek, and floated towards the gathering of particles. Ice also began to materialise in the air, and even the preternatural wolves seemed to hold their breath in fascination as the blood, ice and blue energy particles began to twist and meld together.

The mysterious mix began to solidify and take the shape of a graceful sword, and the rich dark red of the blood within the spirit weapon suddenly began to turn purple in colour, giving the sword a strange purple glow.

Alexstrasza suddenly remembered something that she had learned about blood cells while she was still in school; that when they were starved of oxygen but somehow was still alive, they would be a purple, almost blue colour.

She was disgusted when she realised that the purple colours on the nightgown was actually blood stains drained of oxygen, and that somehow they were still kept alive on it.

Could it have had something to do with the extreme cold? Or is it her spiritual powers that drain the haemoglobin from it? ...Now I know why they call her the Blood Violet...

The spirit weapon had finally finished forming, and she saw that it was three feet or so long, and a couple of inches across, which tapered into a tip towards the end. The purplish-blue light of the sword shone against the girl's figure, giving her a mystic feel. The Ice Maiden's pale fingers slowly closed around the handgrip, like how one would very delicately hold the hand of a child.

Her eyes suddenly flared open, and the grey of Alexstrasza's eyes met the black of the girl's.

It was like looking into the eyes of Death itself.

They seemed dead and empty, like a graveyard that was devoid of even bodies, with nothing but only the darkness to speak to...

A chill went down her spine. But then Alexstrasza realised something else.

This...Ice Maiden has a screw loose in her mind! She's gone crazy!

From this distance, Alexstrasza could still sense the sheer supernatural power emanating from the beautiful sword that lay in the Blood Violet's hand. Knowing that her Claws would not be as efficient a weapon when faced against a weapon of such strength, she went for a different approach instead.

An image of the Grim Reaper appeared in her mind's eye, and in its hands was an enormous scythe, with a skull effigy at the place where blade and shaft intersected.

But this time, the skull that was in the hood was now replaced by the face of the Dark Lady.

Dark red energy particles gathered around her right hand, and a huge black Scythe emerged within her grasp. The shaft was six feet in length, even taller than her, and a wicked-looking, shiny yet black blade extended from the mouth of an ivory skull that was the intersection of shaft and blade. The words Death's Kiss shone a glowing red on the shaft of the Scythe.

The dire wolves, seeing the appearance of the terrible Scythe, quickly moved much further backwards, knowing that there would be a battle that was beyond their ability to help.

The grey eyes of the Dark Lady trembled, and the pupils turned blood red in colour.

The dead, black eyes of the Ice Maiden flashed once, and completely changed. The black pupils now flared into two spheres of bright blue light, and the whites of her eyes were now completely black.

The two of them floated off from the floor.

The Dark Lady struck first.

Death's Kiss hewed left and right, and Alexstrazsa delivered such a terrible flurry of blows that would have desiccated the Blood Violet had it not been for her ghost-like movements and speed, allowing her to parry every attack that Diana dealt.

Every time their weapons swung, there would a trail of colour that followed in its wake, the Dark Lady's reddish-black, and the Blood Violet's purplish-blue. It wasn't just displays of light that they could achieve though. Such was the strength of their blows, that when Alexstrasza missed the girl, a small bunch of fully-grown trees that was in the way was snapped into two.

Out of nowhere, the Blood Violet suddenly stopped and blocked one of Alexstrazsa's attacks from the right with her sword, and with her free left hand, she delivered a powerful blow that struck the Dark Lady's chest.

The burst of chilling blue energy slammed into her. She flew backwards into the trunk of a strong oak tree, and she broke it in half with her impact.

Sitting against the remains of the broken tree, a trail of blood began to flow down one side of her lips as she tried to gather her strength.

Not bad...This nutcase could actually hurt me.

The Ice Maiden would give her no quarter, and her elegant purple sword almost reached Alexstrazsa before she parried the blow with the shaft. This time, the Ice Maiden was on the offensive, and Alexstrazsa was impressed at the strength behind her blows.

Her spiritual strength, even when not at full capacity, matches my might at a third of my full power. With her incredible speed and her state of mind, no wonder that scum Derrick was so afraid of her just now!

There was something about the way she moved however. It was as if the whole thing was a beautiful choreographed dance of death, her black hair billowing in the wind, her sword sweeping from up and down, left and right, her lithe body twisting here and there to deliver strikes from angles that the Dark Lady had never seen before.

Too bad it isn't enough.

As the Slaying Siren thrust her blade at her with both hands, the Dark Lady knocked it upwards with the shaft of the enormous Scythe.

Alexstrasza fired a quick snap kick into the belly of the Blood Violet, and she bent forward with pain. Rearing her leg back again, she then delivered a powerful kick that slammed into the girl's face, and sent her into a somersault.

Reeling from the strength of the kick, the Ice Maiden flipped backwards and landed on her face, making a depression in the earth.

Slowly, she began to float upwards, and moved back into her stance or the lack of it anyway, since she simply floated limply in the air, her frightening blue pupils against black shining with absolutely no emotion at all, even when blood began to flow from her nose and pale lips.

They were a huge contrast when compared to the raging red pupils of her opponent, who now realised that they were quite evenly matched.

We have both mastered the First Echelon of our spiritual fighting prowess, and while I have already reached the last level of my Second Echelon Skills, the Thirteenth Level of my Dark Vengeance Axiom, this girl seems to also have maximised her potential in her Second Echelon skills...

The key is, has she reached the Final Echelon of spiritual power? I sense there is a great wealth of power within her still, and to have gained such a reputation for destruction...

The clearing was now completely covered with ice, and it was now twice the size of its original size, for their fight had been so destructive that the trees around its perimeter had either been cut down or destroyed.

No...to even reach the Final Echelon, one has to have a proper state of mind, to be able to fathom and wield the power that one has been given...This madwoman has reached such levels of power only because of she had been born with such a capacity...But unless she regains her true self again, her level of power can never surpass the maximum of the Second Echelon!

There seemed to be something strange going on elsewhere in the forest, as she could feel the touch of both sunlight and moonlight here and there. But the situation was too tense for her to simply leave and investigate it.

Knowing that the girl would now call upon her full prowess to try and destroy her, Alexstrasza summoned the Twelfth level of her Dark Vengeance Axiom; reserving the last level of power should anything go awry.

A dark red aura surrounded her, and her blood red eyes glowed with power. The air began to sweep around her, caused by the immense swirling and gathering of her energy. Still floating above the ground, the Dark Lady cut a fearsome figure, with the shaft of her Scythe now covered with red glowing symbols, and even the huge skull that had the blade sprouting out of its mouth looked even more fearsome as its eyes began to glow red as well.

The Ice Maiden raised her sword horizontally to the right, and her long raven-coloured hair began to billow in the wind, as she seemed to use all but her final level of power that she had attained. She became surrounded by a huge sphere of bright blue energy, and the freezing aura grew even colder. Her eyes were still the same, glowing cyan against jet black, and still there was...nothing in it.

There are some who say that the eyes are the windows to one's soul. Well, from your eyes, I can see that we're not so different after all. For I am a living soul that has a dead body, while you have a living body that contains a dead soul.

They floated before each other again, brooding red against shimmering cyan, one having the visage of the Grim Reaper and the other the appearance of a frightening apparition.

Suddenly, a bright light shone from the west side of the clearing, and as they turned to it, a gigantic wave of light engulfed them, and they could feel the power of the shockwave that washed over them.

The Dark Lady was shocked.

What...what kind of person has power of such magnitude?

She could sense the place where the unleashing of the Holy Light had taken place: it was almost fifty miles away, and yet she could see and feel the aftershocks of it.

It was the Holy Light...no question...The energy was too dispersed to have been a Holy Light Shockwave, and the area of effect far too wide to have been a Holy Shock. The thing is, the greatest Holy Light ever produced was made by the combined efforts of Master Tristan and Sir Arthur, the two of the four greatest Paladins in the world, and it was only a mere fraction of such a display...!

Even the Blood Violet seemed to be perturbed by it, and her eyes now scanned the trajectory of the bright light. She also seemed to sense that something was wrong, and her expressionless demeanour began to soften into something else.

Worry? This crazy girl's worried about someone else?

Suddenly she remembered that during the fight, she could sense both sunlight and moonlight being drawn from the skies towards...towards the place where the Holy Light had been unleashed!

Alexstrasza suddenly realised that it had been a Final Echelon skill-the ability to use the power of the Sun and the Moon-that somebody had been using, and she suspected that the particular somebody was an extremely close friend of the Ice Maiden, and even now she could feel the anxiety emanating from the girl.

A sense of pity suddenly came over her, as she began to see what the girl had once been before becoming like this. Sure, Alexstrasza herself had been nothing like her, and she didn't really like that particular kind of girl, but she could feel an innocence and purity within her that was rare as a rose in the Arctic Circle.

Whatever vestiges of sanity that continued to remain in the Blood Violet, remained only because she had this friend of hers. Without him or her, she suspected that the girl would have become completely insane. At this point, she still could differentiate between good and evil (though she made a mistake in this case). If she could not, who knew what kind of havoc she would wreak?

"It's your friend isn't it?"

The Slaying Siren turned, her eyes having returned to a normal black and white, though the look of utter emptiness was still there.

She nodded once, and Alexstrasza allowed her blood red eyes to fade back to grey as well.

"Go and find her then. I won't try to attack you."

"Better move fast though; a Holy Light of such power could have hurt her really badly."

I doubt it though. If that person was using Final Echelon skills, she would have had the speed and power to defend herself from it.

Before the words were completely out of her mouth, the girl suddenly seemed to vanish from her sight. She knew of course, that the girl had simply moved at her top speed to find her friend.

As she began to calm her Shadow energies down after dispersing the Scythe into pure energy to return into her body, she could feel a cold breeze brush across her face, and on it was a soft, sweet whisper:

"Thank you."

The tall cloaked lady rolled her eyes, though she had a smile on her face, and gathered her wolves to her side, cuddling all of them together, before lying down on the softened ground as the frost began to leave it.

The strange thing about being in her particular state of so-called 'death' was that even though she could not feel pain and extreme heat or cold anymore, she could still feel, and even stranger, taste, even though she had no need for food.

Lying amidst the warm bodies of her dire wolves, and using one of them as a pillow for her head, Alexstrasza stared up into the starry night sky, and took a rest to prepare for her next battle.



************

Hello everybody.

**big, happy grin**

It’s the return of the Fatesealer blog! And the super long, 'excerpts' that go long with it!

Well, for a while anyway. Nice to see there are people who miss it though. My green dolphin plushie wants to give you a bottle-nosed kiss!

Ah. It's been a long time since I wrote stuff. You know, I was really bored, and being away from writing takes the edge of your writing. I just saw someone's work end up in my laptop (I have absolutely no freaking idea who wrote it. Not my kind of work though, too dark and depressive. Like those cult novels by people like Chuck Palahunik-or-however-you-spell-his-name), and damn is it good. Beats me hands down. Ah well.

Ahah. Well, apologies to our dear Loo Yee, because I simply do not have the inspiration for your little story. Sorry man, I’ll make it up to you next time. However, rest assured, I have already thought of the setting for your little ditty.

Problem is, I am sure that the setting is actually for me, and not for you. Well, never mind what I’m saying. Nonsense is in my head.

Oh, and congratulations to my sister! She has just been allocated to my Joshua’s Hall of Story Characters! **claps** By the way, she’s under a different name. You guys should know which.

I've decided to use different names now, thanks to Terence’s little advice. I think it was what was bugging me the whole time too. Hee.

Oh, and notice the setting for it is different than the White Fortress. This is ermm, obviously not a formal project, but a rip-off from The Celestial Zone to keep me entertained. And also a place to test out new character personas as well!

In short, this 'universe' is basically a place where people can start developing supernatural yet martial arts-esque skills and powers, like causing an incredible amount of destruction in a simple fight.

Example: Can anyone guess who the Sadako/Psycho/Destroyer of Evil girl who fights with my sister is supposed to be? Drink's on me to whoever guesses it first!

I expect Shannon to win though. :D

So what has been happening seriously?

Other than the usual damn-school's-kicking-my-butt routine, I have also a huge shortage of money and an abundance of wants and more wants.

My ATM's running out of cash.

I buy a World of Warcraft game card.

My wallet's running thin.

I want to buy 2 sticks of 1GB RAM for my laptop.

My safe is completely empty

I want to buy an external hard drive.

See what I mean? I owe God some cash too. I keep forgetting to give them to Him. Seriously. Maybe that’s why I have this sudden shortage of cash all of a sudden.

Man. Not to mention the all the CDs I'm missing out.

But it's okay. While we sit here, complaining that we don't have enough money to buy stuff, thousands of others wonder where their next meal is coming from.

I think I have actually very little to complain about.

I guess this is where economics come in. You see, one of the key concepts for economics is that Mankind has an unlimited amount of wants, and as each are fulfilled, higher wants come in.

See? I listen in lectures too.

As this post is in Word format, everything written here is spread over a couple of days. A new and nifty gadget I got from Blogger…Meaning I can write in Word, and then transfer to Blogspot **snaps fingers** just like that.

I feel really depressed and stressed, as exams are like, the week after the next. And I’ve not started to prepare yet, and even worse, my attendance is like a ghost haunting me…I'm really scared I'll be debarred.

Not only that, my spiritual level's not at an optimum, and I've felt as if I've lost the broadband connection with God, and 'dialling' up is really retarded. Seriously.

I guess it's just everything that's on me; the burden of being a student of business(which right and wrong can be blurred), the responsibility of being a so-called 'leader'(of which I’m still trying to discover...), the weight of the souls of others on my back, the loved ones and those whom I do not know.

I just want to give up, know what I'm saying? Give up everything that I've been given, just simply tell everyone that, "You know what? More people have been in worse situations and yet become better and stronger, but I don't care! I'm selfish and I want to be weak! I give up!"

But I can't. I simply can't.

Even though it feels like a strategy game that I'm losing very badly, even though it feels like I've lost every single one of my troops, even though it feels like I'm completely outclassed by my foes, I just can't.

Why?

I wish it was because of some great and holy reason.

Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

I've not felt this much despair since the O's. No, I had more hope for the O's than I have right now. I don't know why, but it feels as though it's over for me already.

Well, it's been almost an hour after that above sentence.

I'm still alive, for those who still care ;)

For those who want me dead, I say, try harder next time.

**an aura of blazing blue-white light surrounds him**

Come ON!

P.S Actually this is posted on Sept 10, 7:12AM

************

The figure in white tossed and turned in his hammock, and his closed eyes moved about furiously as an ominous foreboding filled his being.

The image burned into his mind like a brand fresh from the furnace, and even as he struggled to wake up, all he saw was a girl in a purple outfit, bleeding from her nose, her ears and her mouth as her unmoving body lay sprawled on a forest floor.

"NO!"

The young man sprang from his hammock, his eyes wide with fear.

It was a fear not for himself, but for the girl he saw in that brief vision.

Birds chirped wildly, and the creatures of the forest scrambled for their homes, away from that fearsome cry that had emitted from the young man.

"What the heck..." His companion, the Special Agent Cadence Snake-also known as John to his friends- who was dressed in green, sat up in his hammock, his eyes still blurry. "What was that Dragon's Roar for? It's only four in the morning!"

Joshua blinked, before realising that he had used one of the skills from his secondary Second Echelon set of skills, Dragon Under the Cross Dictum, the Dragon's Roar, which involved charging a howl with spiritual power, making its volume equal to what a one kilowatt amp could produce. This happened to be also very, very loud, which explained the sudden withdrawal of every forest creature within a mile.

He shook his head.

"It's her, John! She seems like she's been deeply wounded! She might even be..." Joshua let the words trail off, not wanting to even think about it.

The green-haired John just stared at him, a lack of understanding obvious in his face.

Joshua rolled his eyes in exasperation, and he quickly prayed for the direction of which she may be. An urge suddenly made the Protector want to head towards the north, and he motioned towards the Jade Patriot.

"You stay here and pack up. I'm moving off to find her!"

The special agent raised his eyebrows, but his friend had already left in the darkness.

-------------------------------------------

The wind roared against his ears as he moved even faster than a deer at full speed, covering twenty to thirty metres with one spring of a foot. The fear began to gnaw at his soul as his over-active imagination began playing various scenarios in his mind, each of them worse than the last.

He whispered a heartfelt prayer to the Heavens, hoping that the Lord would not take her home so soon. It was swallowed up by the wailing of the wind, and his hands began to shake.

He was almost twenty-seven years old this year, and still there were precious few he truly loved and cared about. She was one of them.

Having travelled for about a quarter of an hour, Joshua grew more anxious still, having not seen any sign of the girl who had appeared in his dreams. He was about to increase his speed by half before he suddenly caught sight of a clearing.

A split second later, he sensed the glow of Shadow energy in the area, and his eyes narrowed. In a few minutes, Joshua reached the edge of the clearing, and felt the presence of a powerful supernatural warrior.

He slowed down, and as he fell to a walking pace, the Protector saw a figure in black with long hair the colour of its outfit, standing at the far end of the clearing with her back turned to him. He wondered for awhile whether it might be his sister, the Dark Lady of Death who also wore black, before realising that he would have known it a long time ago.

With the blood bond between them, it didn't take much for that to happen. Also, his sister's spiritual energy had the cold touch of Death to it. This one was warmer...more inviting...more attractive...

More seductive...

The figure turned around, and Joshua could see that it was a lady, possibly a few years or so younger than him. She began to walk towards him.

Knowing that something was amiss, he asked quietly:

"Were you the one who sent me the vision?"

"I see you have a great deal of feelings for this lady..." She smiled smugly, and folded her arms. "It took less than an hour for you to reach this place. Is she your wife?"

Knowing that she had planted that image to trick him into coming here, Joshua waved derisively, and glared at her.

"Why must love always be of that sort? Even if one has no blood ties to that person, love between the two of them does not have to be that of a husband and wife. Have you no idea what the love of a brother is about?" Joshua sneered.

Even at this distance, he could see that he struck a nerve.

"I do have three brothers and sisters, an eldest brother who only cares about the future while the eldest sister is dead, a younger brother who is always in a dream world and the youngest brother is gone missing. And as for the other two..."She shook her head "My twin has lost all hope in life and the youngest sister has lost her mind."

"Tell me," Her voice was now harsher, and he could feel pain spark from her being. "How could I have known the love of a brother?"

The sharp touch of pain suddenly stopped, and once again, the sense of inexplicable yearning returned. A tendril seemed to slip into his soul, and it wrapped around his heart, as a covering of velvet would.

"Come now, speak the truth," she continued, her voice now silky and soft. "I sense in your heart that you used to want her, once longed for her..."

"Unrequited love? How interesting... And oh, you have such a dark and sensual soul! It even rivals that of my own..."

Anger incomprehensible rose up in his chest, and he clenched his jaw, trying to keep himself from rushing forward and snapping her neck with his bare hands.

"I know not what darkness you wield, lady." His voice was cold and steely. "But let me tell you this: my heart belongs to me and my Lord alone, and let that be a warning unto you."

"What 'darkness' I wield?" She replied incredulously, repeating what he had said. "Can you even differentiate what Dark and Shadow energy is? And let me ask you; what is Shadow but a child of the Light?"

"'The lord of my heart?' God, you sound like one of those over-religious Paladins I killed yesterday." She laughed loudly, a mocking sound that resounded through the clearing, but then was cut off as a bolt of pain shot through her.

"What...? Impossible!"

"My God is the Lord of my heart. No one can know or have it save He alone." Joshua repeated, a firm expression set in his face.

She now stood three or four feet away from Joshua and he managed to get a good look at her appearance.

She was in black Chinese garb, like those in the sixteenth or seventeenth Century wore, and there were a few pieces of her clothing that was white in colour, which made it look very simple and yet nice. The woman herself however, was an entirely different thing.

There are many who have a kind of prettiness about them, which others may look upon and nod in acknowledgement. There are some had been blessed with very attractive looks, which may cause others to look, and wonder if their looks were made by God's hands or the surgeon's scalpel.

And then, there are the rare few, who are so striking, so gorgeous and so stunning, and it simply breaks your heart just to gaze upon them, such that one does not even want to see them anymore, because they are just so...beautiful.

This lady was a perfect example of those few, and as she walked even closer, Joshua felt his mouth go dry. To use mere words to describe her appearance was akin to insulting her, for what words could fully describe one so perfect to him?

Save that she was raven-haired, almost as tall as Joshua, and that she was slender and blessed with mysterious eyes the colour of the night like him, and that her strange clothes fit her very well, bringing out her well-endowed figure perfectly, there were no other words adequate enough to describe her.

The two of them just stood, staring at each other, and it was an odd sight, for Joshua wore a set of white, medieval Chinese clothing interspersed with lines of black and a white cape draped around him was attached to his left shoulder by a sapphire brooch.

For the lady it was the total opposite, predominantly black, medieval Chinese clothing interspersed with white areas and she wore no cape or cloak around her.

Finally, it was Joshua who introduced himself, the many years of training not lost completely, and he used his Draconic name.

"I...I am Novadrache, called the Protector."

There was a moment's silence, before she replied in a very formal voice,

"I am Orexis..." She hesitated for a split-second before finishing her sentence:

"...Desire of the Endless."

The Guardian raised an eyebrow. Orexis? Isn't that the Greek word for longing or yearning? She must be using 'another' name of hers, like me. Wait, Desire of the Endless...?

The Endless were a cast of almost all-powerful characters from a comic book that had garnered almost cult-like popularity. A passage came into his mind, which he had read in one of the comics which featured the Endless:


There are seven beings that are not Gods, that existed before humanity dreamed of Gods, that will exist after the last God is dead.

There are seven beings that exist because, deep in our hearts, we know that they exist.

There are seven beings that are called the Endless.They are, in order of age, Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire and Despair, and Delirium, who was once Delight.

"Is that so? I remember that Desire had eyes the colour of yellow wine," Joshua paused, and glanced at her. "Also, Desire was both male and female at the same time in the story."

His eyes scanned her figure, and had to call on his training to prevent himself from losing control, and dissolving into a pile of mush from the sheer beauty that radiated from her.

"You don't have yellow eyes, and well...while you look very much like a girl, you could also be a guy at the same time, if you know what I mean..." He heard himself say, and he quickly congratulated himself on not showing his weakness by using a friendly jab that he often used on his female friends.

Her face darkened, and Joshua knew that he had touched upon a sensitive spot.

Immediately, Joshua could feel her power suddenly rising to enormous heights, and her eyes seemed become two lamps of bright crimson light, such that even her pupils could not be seen anymore for a short moment, before the red light faded from her orbs again. But this time, there was a reddish tinge to her black pupils.

She was now floating several inches off the floor, and her voice resonated in his head. "I am fully woman, and I am nothing that remotely resembles a man. To look upon me, and then say that I am anything but a woman is to deceive one's own self. But,"

"If that is truly what you want," She spoke furiously, her voice trembling with passionate fury. "Then I grant your eyes the desire to deceive themselves."

A blindfold of Shadow energy quickly materialised around Joshua's eyes, and even before he could react, it poured into his eye sockets. While he felt no pain, an immense feeling of wrongness saturated his being.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand once, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw a clearing devoid of any being at all. Desire herself seemed to have disappeared.

Yet he could still sense her presence, and the touch of Shadow energy still remained in the area. He knew that this was another ability of hers, to make even their own body parts turn against their original purposes. It was exceedingly frustrating, for he was sure that she would try and strike at him, while his eyes refused to register her presence.

A thought struck him about his current dilemma, and he wondered:

This...this must be how Jesus must have felt, when we as members of the Body of Christ, refuse to obey Him, the Head of the Body...Indeed, how frustrating it is, to seem to have one's own body turn against what God has intended for it!

A soft whisper, this time mocking, came to his ears.

"Can you not see me, Protector?"

Joshua ignored her, and began to channel his spirit energy around his body, and as he checked his eyes, he found that there was a malevolent block of Shadow energy within each of his eyes. Elated at this discovery, he knew that he could disperse the blocks of Shadow energy, and regain his sight.

But this needed time to execute, and it was only a split-second later when he devised a method to even the odds.

"Two can play at this game, my Lady Desire..."

He drew upon the final and seventh level of his Dragon Under the Cross Dictum, and while he channelled his most of Holy energies towards removing the Shadow energy blocks, he unleashed one of his more powerful non-offensive skills.

"Blessed Sky Dragon Whirlwind!"

Even as the words left his lips he kept wondering why almost all of the skills had such cheesy names. Then again, "Huge Blast of Air Which Rips Stuff Up and Blows It Around" didn't sound too good either.

Violent gusts of air came out of nowhere, and under the guidance of his Holy energy, it tore up huge amounts of grass and dust from the clearing and around it, before circling back into the clearing. The buffeting air currents then whipped the mix of grass, leaves and dust into a huge dust storm, obscuring the view of 'Orexis'.

"Ugh!" was all he heard from the devastatingly beautiful lady, and he smiled at this.

Not wanting to take any chances, Joshua now drew power from his primary Second Echelon abilities, the Light of the Holy Word, and he called upon the thing that made others give him the name of "Protector".

While almost every other person, when having reached an accomplished stage of power, would form spirit weapons of any kind that fit them the most; the Steel Patriot his powerful butterfly axe, Cadence Snake his razor-sharp katana and Alexstrazsa her Bone Claws and enormous scythe.

However, the uniqueness of 'Light of the Holy Word' was that it could only be used to "protect, defend and guard the innocent". Therefore all of the skills learnt from it could only heal and hurt but not kill; so a spirit weapon was not what he formed.

Instead, he could form a suit of spiritual armour around his body called the Divine Armour of Heaven, such that he could stop evildoers while not taking their lives at the same time. The power of the Armour was measured in various Marks, and the more powerful it became, the more cosmetic changes there would be.

Covers of blinding light now enveloped his whole body, save for his face only, and then faded and solidified to form a suit of bright silver armour. Several areas of his armour, like parts of his greaves and his gauntlets were gold in colour. Covering much of his head was a regal helm, and a gold circlet with a cross in the middle lay where his brows were.

'Orexis', managed to snatch a good look at the Protector, and from various eyewitness reports and information she had gathered about him, she concluded that it now bore the Mark of the Guardian, which was allegedly also its most powerful level.

A couple of feet away, Joshua now concentrated on purging the dark power that had twisted his eyes' purpose. He calculated that even with the Whirlwind surging around him, there was still a chance that she could hit him.

Unfortunately for him as well, the Whirlwind could only spin for a few minutes more before fading away, and he knew that the Shadow blocks could not be dispersed such a short time. Moreover, maintaining the Mark of the Guardian stage occupied 80% of his Holy energy, and he was afraid more of the so-called 'Endless' could ambush him.

The armoured man was deep in thought when he suddenly caught sight of a black-garbed figure trying to find him the dust storm before she disappeared again. His expression brightened as he realised that he could see her more and more as the Shadow blocks were being dispersed.

He knew that she would strike him the moment the dust storm faded, so he decided to channel all of the Armour's power into a single right hook punch to knock her out when she attacked him.

His right fist trembled with power as he got to strike, and his Armour began soften just a little. Only a couple of feet away from him, he could sense her preparing an attack.

Just a few more seconds...

He began to breathe deeply unconsciously to calm himself down as he saw flashes of 'Orexis', her hair billowing wildly in the seemingly-crazed dust storm.

Man, she’'s going to need to wash her hair after this. Joshua thought randomly, not remembering that the invisible protective layer around her would prevent her from getting dirty.

The dust storm stopped.

'Orexis' leapt forward, her glowing red right hand in the shape of a claw, ready to slash his face.

Joshua punched, his right fist moving in an arc, looking to land itself against her side.

The Armour flashed a brilliant white, and it moved to cover only his gauntleted fist, leaving the rest of his body unprotected.

Her claw curled, seemingly to allow for more damage to be done to him, and her sleeve fluttered in the wind.

'Orexis' did not take into account that there might be a leaf that would fell across her vision, and Joshua did not take in account that his eyes might lose sight of her when he attacked, and therefore it happened:

Joshua missed.

'Orexis' also missed.

Their bodies continued to move forward, momentum bringing the both of them together. Joshua's right arm now curled around her waist, and Joshua could feel a light breeze of air as her right hand narrowly missed tearing his ear, and moved around his neck.

She now stood less than an inch away from him, and he could smell the heady scent of her hair. His face was now right in front of hers, and he could also feel her breath against his lips. The young man was also all too aware of her well-endowed chest touching his, and his blood began to race.

He was already almost overcome while there was the short length between the two of them, and in such close proximity to her, the several years of training he had now began to evaporate.

His eyes stared into hers, and he seemed to drown into the blackness of her eyes as he unconsciously leaned forward slowly, tilting his head ever so slightly. A nanosecond later she did the same, her lips edging forward, her head moving to match his.

"Eh!"

The shout startled Joshua out of his trance, and so did Orexis. They both turned to look at the newcomer, and spoke at the same time.

"John!" "Snake?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she glared at the green-garbed special agent. "It was you I planned to fight..."

She turned to look at Joshua's confused expression, and whispered softly:

"Not you."

'Orexis' suddenly gave Joshua an excruciatingly painful pinch on his left arm with her right hand, and he screamed girlishly. She then performed a back flip, narrowly missing his chin with her feet, and landed several feet away from the two friends.

"I'll be back to kill you Snake! You just watch out!" She fumed as her gaze fell upon John. But as she turned around, the expression of her eyes changed to confusion and uncertainty as her gaze met Joshua's for a brief moment. Then she ran into the forest behind her, disappearing behind a grove of trees.

John, being John, simply nodded, his eyes glowing green.

"O-kay!" He gave a thumbs-up and grinned widely. Then when it seemed that she had left, and he turned around and glared at Joshua.

"Eh, you wake everybody in the bloody forest up; make me carry all our things and follow you, and then you run sixty-five km in a forest just to kiss a girl is it?"

Joshua groaned, still recovering from the pinch she gave him. He rolled up his sleeves, and found a quickly darkening bruise on his left bicep, and sighed.

"John...It wasn't like that I swear! We were in the midst of a battle!"

The green-haired Cadence Snake snorted in derision.

"You two were hugging and kissing each other lah! Fight my ass ah!"

Even before Joshua could embarrassingly state that their lips never touched at all (although they almost did), John continued to rant.

"Wah lao, when I reached ah, wah! The leaves and flowers falling all around the two of you sial...Like as if I walked into some Chinese romantic movie lidat."

Joshua reddened, and with an awkward expression that comes from trying not to smile on his face, shook his head.

"No lah! But seriously ah, it was quite a close battle. I thought I would get my butt kicked even with powers of my magnitude...Remember that Holy Light I executed in the forest two years ago? Luckily she didn’t manage to kill me out or something."

John shook his head, his expression darkening. He pointed to the ground by Joshua's feet.

"I don't think so."

Joshua looked down, and behind where he had been standing just now was a small dagger. He knelt down and picked it up, noting its sharp edge.

"When you guys were about to kiss just now, I saw something in her right hand, which also happened to be behind your neck, if I remember properly."

A chill ran down Joshua's spine.

"She could have killed you just like that. But I don't know why...I've seen people who hesitate to kill their target, and their hand just...refuses to move, just like hers."

A sinking realisation made Joshua take a huge gulp. He had been completely defeated. She had actually spared his life.

Joshua stood up, his black eyes now probing the grove of trees of which she had disappeared behind. The wind suddenly blew against him, causing his cape to billow wildly, a soaring canvas of white flapping around him.

Desire...

"You like her right?"

Joshua turned, his pale face actually turning red. Flustered, Joshua raised his hands helplessly.

"No!"

John merely smirked, one that often earned him the ire of Edward, and his punches that followed.

"Don't lie lah Joshua. It's damn obvious lah."

"No!"

"Stop denying lah Joshua! Okay, okay, then I ask you: If I asked you to swear before God, what would you say?"

"..."

"Ah see! Nothing to say right, Josh? Heeheehee..."

Joshua kept silent and as he walked to retrieve his stuff from where John had placed them, he made himself remember that when they got back, he would go and find Edward first, and then beat the hell out of John together.

That is, if they could catch him at all.

josh fatesealer turned back time on 8/30/2005 11:34:00 pm.