One had fallen, smashed to bits by FanFan’s spiked gauntlets, but three remained still, hulking wolves that shot in the moment that monochromatic field fell. Their lives were disposable, but it was due to that disposability that they wanted at least a single moment of ecstasy before they disappeared. The one that Leena blocked leapt back just as quickly, Dawn’s greatsword missing by mere inches. The blazing arbiter’s sword turned the rubble to dust easily, and within that smokescreen, Anaya reached out, the combination of the Feral pack and Viva’s own daring escape giving the spirit puppeteer the leeway to snatch the guitar-halberd in that lapse of concentration.
It had been cold, inert when she first touched it. Nothing but an unwieldly, blunt weapon.
But as Anaya imposed her own magical energy upon it, tendrils of eldritch ink that crawled up her fingers, up her arm, and stopped only at her shoulder. A myriad of voices hammered in her skull, generations of lost hopes and broken dreams. Child stars who never reached the same heights once they became adults. Musicians that lost their own distinct style as the industry pushed them towards conformity. Students whose passions did not equate their talent or circumstances. Idols, careers lost in a fake scandal. Rising stars, turned to ashes by tragic accidents or malicious jealousy. Boys and girls, ruined by fake companies that promised celebrity.
The Endsinger sang for the dead, in place of those who no longer had voices.
She snapped out of her reverie, to see the guitar practically aglow with energy. Leena, FanFan, Dawn, and the Feral clones were immediately captivated by it. Handling magical artifacts was dangerous business, and Anaya had just triggered
something with her attempts to utilize it.
Soon, they all found out what.
The heavens split open, and the swirling clouds up above unleashed their wrath, a veritable waterfall of eldritch lightning crashing upon the stage, centered upon Anaya. Nothing was spared from the destruction, the ground beneath the girls feet disintegrating. Against such a wide-scale attack, the Feral clones could only wail as their bodies unravelled, what magical power keeping them intact failing upon injury, while the Ascendancy girls had mere moments to put up their defenses against the sudden onslaught.
Behind her, Viva could see the lightning fall as well, and from her vantage point, it looked almost like an upside down tree, hundreds of lightning bolts leaping from the clouds to converge into a pillar of lightning.
It felt as if the rain of lightning had continued for an eternity before it ceased, leaving only a crater of the mountain of rubble Endsinger once performed upon. In the epicenter, laid Anaya, unmoving, the hand she grasped the guitar with now turned into a charred, skeletal black.
And from the ashes of obliteration, the Ascendancy rose once more.
Yankee,
Altered Tundra,
Alisdragon911,
stone,
VitaVitaAR,
Animal,
LanaStorm,
Ohm,
Haha,
Shovel
