The Devil In White: An AA Online Novel

"Join you?" Mourning asked, incredulous. "Kneel? You'll allow it?"

"Yes. You have been alive for a thousand years, but if my friends and I had a thousand years we would be far stronger than you." Amelia decided, feeling fairly liberated as she spoke her mind without a filter.

"That may be so, but there is no more time. Void comes!" Mourning said, hate filling his face.

"I do not think we need to be enemies," Amelia said again, though without much hope. She made sure to say her next words slowly like she was talking to a very small child. "Kneel, call off your army, and join me before I am forced to erase you."

"Erase me?" Visage Lord Mourning straightened himself. "Do you not see the difference in our ability? Of our strength? What can you hope to accomplish against Void?!" Fury started to make him actually pace back and forth like a trapped animal.

"You don't see it." Amelia swept a gesture off into the distant night. "Everyone who is watching, and has been watching, will already predict the outcome. Please. Join us. I can tell you did this because you feared to lose your world. We too, fear losing our world. This is your last chance." Amelia narrowed her eyes and there was a coldness there.

Every sense she had was heightened at this moment as if the game were aware of the exhilaration of the moment. She could see herself reflected in his black eyes. She could see the utter cold certainty in her own eyes from the reflection. He was already dead. He couldn't see it. AA wasn't the type of game where you could fight the lunacy that Amelia was about to unleash. Crazy always seemed to win, and Amelia had been traveling with crazy for some time now.

A strange and petulant thought crossed her mind. 'Vienne won't let me in her hall, huh? Hmph.'

"I will slay you now, and watch you and your friends resurrect as my visage. With this army, we will fight the evil god!" Mourning declared. "If he is a life eater then we will fight him and defeat him with no life. Let us end this thread once and for all."

"I see." Amelia nodded gravely.

"Amelia?" Aidan asked over the party channel. He seemed to want to know what was going on. There was nothing to tell him. Amelia was borrowing from them all now.

"I'm not alone." Amelia finally said. "Keep fighting until I return."

Amelia turned to the Visage Lord who was preparing his mightiest spells. It might have been because she had listened to his whole spiel that he didn't just walk up and stick her with the pointy end. It might have been that her quiet attitude made him think she was sandbagging and she still had something up her sleeve.

It didn't matter what he might have thought. She was just one Transient wizard. He had already handily slain dozens of Transients and seemed to have no doubt that she would be just one more. She supposed that if she were Mourning, she would be thinking the same thing. Truthfully if he had attacked her immediately she still would have had time for what she'd planned.

"Rule 10." Amelia said unexpectedly, and then casually reached down with the end of her staff and touched a small scale of the statue that wound its way around the plateau. "[Transform Stone]."

As expected nothing happened immediately. Visage Lord Mourning laughed when nothing happened and readied a shadow spell to deal with her, purposefully increasing the size larger and larger in the palm of his hand in order to frighten.

Amelia did nothing because there was nothing left to do. Her move would pan out or it wouldn't. Fortunately for her, it didn't take long for the d.e.s.i.r.ed effect. The ground trembled and a pressure bore down on her that made it difficult to stand upright. She braced her staff against the ground and stood against it, determined not to fall to a knee. Even still there were shockwaves as the ground broke and re-settled and both she and Mourning had stopped their face off in order to remain standing.

Far below, some people looked nervously at the top of the mountain, feeling a pressure change in the atmosphere as if something huge had entered the world and was pushing the air to make space. A warmth flowed down the slopes of the mountain almost as if a dense stormfront was moving in from warmer climes. Conversely, a cold dusting of sand and shale began falling in an ominous, if small, noticeable wave down the sides of the mountain.

Shuddering under tons of rock, the Dragon, now capital D, slowly freed himself from the rock that had confined him for over a thousand years. Carefully the Dragon that stood over the gravesite of the fourth hero turned to Amelia. Larger than he was in statue form, and that was saying something, the transform stone spell had caused him to expand even more tremendously than she had imagined. The color and depth of life that glistened off his scales made him an overpowering and stark contrast to the white and the darkness.

"You. You have a lot of courage to be waking me! You have foolishly ended your life well before the end of its cycle! What do you have to say for yourself you deviant?! I will eat you with or without an answer so be quick! Answer me!" The Dragon that had turned from stone snarled at Amelia. He was repeating himself, delirious. Perhaps he was still waking up? Amelia didn't care at all. Right now she wasn't the Chronicler Amelia who went with the flow. She was the Amelia that had told Mourning to kneel before her or perish.

Amelia was ready, and when she spoke she imagined Aidan was standing in front of her shouting instead of herself. "You're a guardian of this land aren't you? I don't think I'm the one who has to explain anything. Look down the mountain! Can't you feel the death of this land or are you too sleepy? You had better take a good look around before you casually lecture someone else!"

Keristrazly, the close personal friend and Dragon of the fourth hero paused then, the faintest sliver of doubt entering his great serpentine eyes. With a quick glance, he looked down toward Blutonsi. Surprise caused him to pull his head back, and interest filled his eyes as he took one lumbering step and then another to the edge of the plateau and viewed the scene of carnage below. His very form seemed disjointed and perplexed, as if he weren't quite capable of understanding just what the hell was going on. He had all the time in the world to eat the human, so at first he had just been humoring her by taking a look. It became apparent as that giant serpentine body stiffened that he no longer even remotely recognized where he was. Moments later he connected the dots and pulled his head back. His cry of anguish echoed out across the sky and his voice shook the rock that Amelia stood on.

How to describe the anger and horror of a creature that stood taller than a house. How to describe the strength of a creature that could accidentally turn and crush you and maybe not even realize it. We think of how powerful and terrifying bears are for their size, of rhinos, and hippos, and elephants. Keristrazly was, quite simply, bigger than all of the aforementioned combined in any direction you chose to stack them.

"Do you not see then? The defiler? The one who has used your friends and her descendants?Used them for an evil purpose, and yet stands before you without reproach? I hope it was a good nap!" Amelia cried again. She wondered if she were layering the sarcasm on too thick but decided not to stop.

"Look at the one who has made a mockery of your vow! Can't you feel the evil aura of this creature? Do you not sense the death that hangs over him! The death of your charges, your people? I am glad that the Halves were wiped out by the great evil god. That they can't see this calamity and weep from shame." While he stood mutely under her verbal barrage, it was the word 'Halves' that seemed to jolt him from his reverie.

Keristrazly turned toward Mourning then, his eyes full of anger and madness, and his very stare shook the air between them. Amelia bet it was some sort of psychological or fear attack. "You…" His snarl then was indescribable. Mourning said nothing, a small chime ringing out as the fear check was made. Despite the terror in front of him and the ability used upon him, there was only a slight crease of concern on his face.

The great dragon growled low in its mouth, shaking the air and adding impossible sounds that could never have been duplicated by a human throat. A sound that immediately terrified everyone in the MKC control room. To Amelia, it came across all of her channels and was bad enough, but to them, it was some sort of bestial noise like someone had let an angry leopard talk into a hot mic. "Kkkffffffffffarrgghhhrrlrlllllgg."

"Ah. You seek to bring Keristrazly against me." Mourning said with some astonishment. There was the barest hint of concern still in his eyes, but it was only a hint. "He was frightening when I was young. Now he is merely an inconvenience." He started to cast something but stopped as soon as Amelia started to laugh.

"Sure." Amelia offered, already she could picture Raven's jaunty grin. The one she had when she thought something was really stupid. "I suppose you knew him. That thousand years ago. I keep thinking about how I would be way more powerful than you if I had a thousand years. Really you should be ashamed." Amelia knew from experience that you could cast Aura on a monster. Raven had sung to them and they'd gotten more powerful after all. She didn't know what Keristrazly would think, but for the moment she didn't care. This was her Dragon right now. "[Aura]."

Keristrazly paused, surprise flooding his features. All of a sudden the pressure pushing down invisibly on the mountain made the air thrum as if it were composed of a great many invisible strings. Cracks began to appear on the more fragile plates at the top of the mountain and another avalanche of stone caused nervous eyes to glance upward. No one had time to figure out what was going on up there, but there was something happening that was on par with Aidan's meteor drop that had been the size of Blutonsi. The threat hung in the air like the feeling of ozone before a lightning strike.

Khiafin, down below, gulped because his ability was telling him like crazy that he had better think about being anywhere else.

"Dammit! I'm going up!" Raven frowned and started to push her way passed the line. She hesitated, looking up at the top of the plateau and then back at the buckling line she was passing. "Ugh." She turned back and started swinging wildly back and forth trying to scythe visage in larger numbers. They kept her humble however by leaping back. They were learning fast, and it was annoying.

"It's fine…" Aidan said calmly.

"Oh?" Forsythe looked over at his friend who was looking up thoughtfully at the mountain.

"Yeah. If anything bad happens, all I gotta do is kill every damn thing between me and the mountain top." Aidan said, a vague expressionless look on his face.

Forsythe actually stopped fighting for a moment and stepped back, his saber dropping slightly with a truly concerned look on his face.

Everyone had their own reactions to the change in the air, for better or worse.

Up top, however...

Keristrazly was definitely reacting for better now that he had Aura on him.

His great eyes widened and his mouth opened and settled into a toothy grin. "Hooo… I think you made a mistake today, Mourning. When last we met you were strong, but I can see time has not m.a.t.u.r.ed you like a Dragon. In your gaze, I feel only chaos and the lack of growth or maturation. This woman behind me just fortified me with something I can only describe as YOUR DEATH. I do not know what you did to make an enemy of someone like her, but I am at least grateful that I can crush you with all of my might!"

Mourning didn't look impressed. "She had the chance to join me, as do you. No matter what she has done you are a pale ghost from a long-dead past. You didn't save your precious Victoria, you didn't save her people, and you won't do a thing now." Mourning raised his staff and prepared to fire another spell, though it seemed he couldn't resist one last taunt. "Tell me dragon? Did you believe your friend when she told you to go on and help the three heroes and that she would be fine? Or did you know you left her to her death?"

Amelia had played her cards, and now it was Forsythe she imagined beside her. He spoke calmly, looking at the scene.

'Transform stone revives things at 60% of their original power, at least initially. You have more than doubled his stats even though he is weakened, possibly bringing him up to a power greater than he has known, but your enemy has slain a group of mighty warriors and has yet to reveal his power. You must stand very still. Erase your presence. When you strike it must be calculated, full of fury and with all you have. But not now! Now, just stand very still and wait. There is nothing else. There is only the preparations that make way for the one thing you must do, and then the one thing after that. There is only the thought that as complexity appears you will acknowledge it and decide how you will deal with it.'

"Just like cooking." She whispered.

Keristrazly couldn't take the taunting. He faced Mourning directly, lowered his head, and screamed. It was unearthly, full of torment and rage, and actual spittle flew from his mouth in great globs before him. Mourning's robes moved from the force of the wind he generated but he still looked supremely confident. It was frightening that, knowing that her enemy was facing down one of the most powerful creatures Amelia had ever seen, he looked unthreatened.

"[Necromantic Third Form - Create Visage]." Mourning waved his bladed staff. Immediately all the lights of the Transients who had died on this huge plateau faded. They had been f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y released from their bodies and had no choice but to stop viewing and go to the other continents to resurrect. In their place, dark shapes appeared under their corpses and began to stiffen and bend in unnatural ways.

The great red Dragon turned an eye to this, watching the corpses writhe and dance and slowly take the reptilian shape of enemies. He turned and inhaled a great breath, his entire body expanding with the effort. His lungs must have been incredible. Instinctively Amelia backed away to the edge of the plateau behind the Dragon. This was a classic pose that any gamer knew immediately. Keristrazly breathed fire in a great line. He moved his head back and forth scything the fire over the visage and incinerating them while they were only half-formed. The breath continued for an incredible 20 seconds and even went far beyond the far edge of the plateau and out into the night sky's open air.

Down below many had seen the cone of flame and were anxiously keeping an eye on the mountain even though they had immediate pressing problems. Ridley looked over at Rat and asked her nervously. "What the hell?" She giggled awkwardly in reply as she shot arrows over his shoulder.

"You are children! Railing at an unfair world! He comes, Keristrazly! His very breath is on your neck but you would do nothing but offer it to be cut! With the army, we will fight him when he comes and we will prevail!" Mourning threw lightning, not bothering to invoke the words now. It was weak and bounced largely off of Keristrazly and powerlessly into the night, though from the way his great frame shook Amelia guessed it did actually hurt. "Can you not see? When he is defeated there will be hope! I will disperse my army, give up my immortality, and we will be free of his shadow!"

The dragon straightened himself and simply stared. "Any child knows that when evil appears you need simply fight and vanquish it; at whatever cost is necessary to ensure victory. Even this woman behind me knows this, and yet you scoff at her power. LET ME SHOW YOU THEN CHILD OF VOID THAT YOU MIGHT SEE YOUR ERROR." He roared the final words, hurting Amelia's ears.