Pain.
The Demon Boy coughs blood.
Both Twilight and Eclipse are no longer in his hands; the impact of his enemy's attacks is far too great.
So… this is the power of the Light Bringer.
He feels his body shudder with each breath, his organs screaming.
The golden marble beneath him is slick with his blood.
All of that was from a single swing!?
His enemy floats down, twelve wings of white and black furled. His shoes touched the red carpet at the foot of the stairs that the Boy was guarding.
"Resistance." His voice is beautiful, as if he were the first singer of a song from heaven in a chorus of angels, sung in the first light of morning. "You make me remember some terrible memories, boy."
"Yeah? I'm glad I could finally make you feel something besides your prid—GAH-HAHK!" The opponent's blade of pure light pierces his back.
"Where are your wings? I thought you awakened them some time ago." He moved the blade of pure light inside The Boy's body, as if stirring a cup of tea. The Boy's body squirms with agony with each stir.
The Boy looks up, mouth bloodied by the damage he sustains, and smiles deviantly.
"…Don't need 'em." He spits. The stain blooms on the white leather of his opponent's shoe.
"You had better unfurl them if you want to live." The opponent is unfazed.
The Boy looks down once again, focusing all his strength in his legs; he just needs a small window of opportunity, grab Twilight, and try to move past the opponent to grab Eclipse.
"No." He looks up once more. "I don't think I need to."
With an extremely swift movement, he rolls to the right and jumps to the side, his eyes searching his vicinity for the magical signature of one of his daggers. If it's Twilight, great, he can use it to strengthen himself and perhaps live for another six seconds. If it's Eclipse…
Well, if it's Eclipse, he just has to improvise.
"…!!!" He finds something! Within his magical perception, he sees one of his daggers that was thrown toward the direction he's going now, stuck in a pillar of cloudspire, cracking the impossibly hard material.
He dashes and vanishes, reappears with his hand on the hilt, both feet braced high on the vertical pillar. One push. He vanishes again with the blade and the cloudspire detonates into a thousand shards under his heels.
He has a half-thought to use Dimensional Step, to slip in and out of existence, but against the Seventh, the strongest of the Lords, it would not matter. The Lord would simply catch him the moment he reenters the world.
So he uses speed.
"Where do you think you're going?" The Seventh Lord, all twelve wings unfurled, glides alongside him.
"Fuc—" He never finishes. The Lord's left hand backhands him, and the Boy pinwheels farther down the Stairway.
"The maiden shall not open the gate." The Lord refurls his wings and descends the steps in measured grace, Lightblade easy in his right hand. "I have ordained it so."
He continues. "She is the answer to all my prayers. Consider, after all…" He stops beside the Boy and pins his head with one foot.
"…this…" He grinds the front of the Boy's skull into the marble.
"…time…" His eyes flash gold, hair turning to sun for a heartbeat. Golden horns shimmer into being, then vanish.
"…that one of my prayers is at the last answered." He resumes his immaculate, angelic form, shaped by the hands of his Father.
"…," the Boy wheezes, coughing more blood. Everything feels wrong. The girl surely cloaked him with Shadowshell, yet the damage is passing straight through. Not even Inner and Outer Shade blunt the strikes. "You truly are… coughs"
"Perfection."
"No." The Boy clamps his fingers around Twilight. "A pain in the ass."
Shadow pours over him, a slow, intelligent tar, layering him in absence. It steps forward from him, a second self, Twilight in hand, standing right in front of the Lord in defiance.
Miracle Art, School of Shadow, "Emptiness."
"A mere shadow? A jest, surely." The Lord scoffs. The Other Lords weren't lying when they said that Pride was the highest of them all.
The Shadow vanishes and reappears behind him, Twilight driving for the spine. Without looking, eyes still locked on the Boy, the Lord angles his Lightblade back and parries.
The Shadow flickers to a cloudspire's peak, kicks off, ricochets to another, then scythes down diagonally toward the Lord's crown. Again, without shifting his gaze from the Boy, the Lord deflects, though one black wing jerks—clipped by something. Golden blood beads, glows, and evaporates to motes of raw mana.
"…?" He glances toward the strike and sees another Shadow standing there with another Twilight.
He looks back, and the Boy's Shadow has multiplied. Dozens, all gripping Twilight, some already airborne, momentum carrying them into a converging storm of cuts.
The Boy stabs the leg, pinning his head. The real Twilight bites clean through the calf.
The Lord does not feel pain, but he feels Twilight's magic-negating property sing through his blood.
The Boy's grin hooks. "Heh…"
The Lord looks at him with a look of pure hatred. Behind him, the Shadows are coming like a massive storm of darkness.
"…Made you look."
For a single, stolen instant, Shadow overpowers Light. The world is swallowed by the absence of day.
The storm rages on and on and on.
A single mote of brilliance endures.
Light overmasters the unceasing dark as the Lord unveils his true form.
Twelve beautiful, heaven-wrought wings blaze with daybreak. And the one who bears them is the most terrible beauty of all, looking down with eyes that burn with creation while holding, within that light, the purest intention of evil.
---
---
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Gasp.
The Boy opens his eyes.
I fell asleep. Dangerous.
He swipes his mouth. Drool. If his party had seen him dozing, they would never let him live it down.
The same dream, again.
The wind hums around him. Somewhere far below, ice calves off a ridge and thunders like distant drums. His fingers find his dagger's hilt where it rests beside him, and the mere touch steadies his breath. He sits up slowly; his ribs complain, the old bruises of training and the newer aches of survival.
What's that about, anyway? I can't seem to remember.
His eyes move far; he scans the treeline, the rim of the camp. Quiet. Only the low creak of laden boughs and the soft hiss of falling white.
It feels like I've been having that dream often; it feels like I failed to do something...
He sits back down and looks up.
Oh, well... next time it is, then.
An owl, flutters by and perched on top of a branch above him.
The snow is falling.