A Devil's Innocence~
"I knew this mission was gonna go to shit. It always does when we start on that fucking ship and you two are involved."Angel had just about to part his lips to protest only for his words to fall short from the surmounting chaos, the Banshees had destroyed more than half the opposition through their over-drive, a terrifying spectacle that one. Angel had always pondered over the sheer scaling in power just via merging two alchemic drives, such was the genius of the Asylum link.
"I believe our cohorts actually believe we 'murdered' the management," Angel spoke with a rueful shake of his head.
"The path we tread is littered in the blood of our foes and allies alike," Rin replied, her callous tone bearing not a hint of guilt for the unfortunate that are trampled underneath the misfortune that hounds Ante Mortem.
"Quite poetic," the Lost Number crowed with a smirk has his spectacles gaze scrutinized the, once sacred and now bloodied, grounds of Ouros.
"Who are you!" A voice cried out from the death and decay, the aftermath of the overdrive.
"Ah yes, we haven't dropped this charade!" Angel clasped his hand in mock surprise.
"My lovely little partner is the Chrono Asylum known as Reri and I am -" "Crow..." The man spat vehemently, disgust is his tone. "The very existence of you two is profanity, I will watch you burn for this!" The executioner bellowed as he limped closer. Upon a closer look, the alchemist's was a tattered mess, his arm a mess of sliced flesh and bone and his leg attached by just the tendons. "Even if it means to sully myself in the forbidden!" As soon as the fool of a man screamed his final words, Angel didn't need to see the unnatural glow to realize the executioner had turned his very body into a bomb.
"You are dabbling in the archaic you fool, you do not even understand the magnitude of your folly." Even while saying those word the Reaper knew the executioner was no more and the shell that was his body had already gone critical.
'Sacrificial alchemy' he thought with his lips awry, as if tasting the foulness of it all.
"There is no containing this without incurring casualties."Even the thoughts of Rin came across as cold and stoic, but they bore the truth. With each passing time that shell of a body was continuing to draw in alchemic energy. Every alchemist has a defense mechanism that prevent them from over drawing from the source, continue and a 'backlash' occurs. There is only so much a human body can hold and if you ignore your limitations your body starts to tear apart.
"Eventually you die from that backlash and that deactivates your Alchemic Drive." As far as Alchemic theory went, what Angel had thought was the agreed norm but there were, far obscured, counter arguments.
Like say one sacrifices their very life to fuel their alchemic drive into overload, no conscious control means the backlash is useless and the energy keeps consolidating until...""BOOM!" The Chrono exclaimed, her hands gesturing the blast as if to emphasize it all the more. Even in this predicament, just like how her partner maintained his casual demeanor, Rena had her usual joviality at it's prime.
"Quite accurate little one. We leaving the Asylums as distraction and teleporting to a safe distance where we can watch Ourosboros be destroyed gloriously....." Even as the Reaper voiced his judgement he quickly appeared to raise his hands at his partner's pouty stare.
"You know we need to get the suspect!" Rena chirped as she chastised her partner, the glowing human bomb forgotten in the background.
"People in A.M.R.O don't like you big brother...and they want an excuse to hurt you....and I....I don't want you to fight....you're getting weaker..and.." Before the teary eyed Chrono could complete her sentence Angel had already dropped to his knees and embraced the child.
"Come now little one, there will be no fighting. There will be no running, we will find the girl, stop the Bloodlines from going to war and clear this Ourosboros mess. Now what say we do something about him huh?" Even though Rena had her face buried in Angel's chest, her quiet sobs eventually seized and with a smile the Chrono gave a nod and uttered a single word.
"Fall"
With that the floor under the executioner appeared to give way, and the one under that, and the next one. Very few knew exactly how many levels did Ouros have and so Angel stopped the count after what should have been the sixty fifth floor.
"Excellent thinking as ever, this should give us some modicum of relief, perhaps enough to escape," Rena appeared to beam at the compliment and at her partner's hand that nestled atop her head.
"I need you to help Cade, we need to find Anya and leave immediately." The Chrono merely nodded once more and vanished in a gust of superhuman speed.
"Oh yes." Angel clasped his gloved hands once more upon realizing he had completely forgotten about the Asylums. Apparently the Banshees and gained enough strength to stand and SenDep had cleared the remaining rabble of opposition.
"I would have offered to help but I see you all managed to kill everyone, oh woe what to do with all this time. And by that I mean the few minutes we have left before we all die excruciatingly," As if responding to the Reaper's sarcastic taunts, something appeared to crash through one of the walls, something big.
The Reaper couldn't help but tilt his head up to look at the monstrosity in front of them, an action he assumed that was mimicked by the others as well. What stood in front of the five (Lawrence, Olivia, Maeve, Kiara and Angel) was a behemoth. It stood at roughly fifteen feet, a terrifying bulk of writhing muscles covered with scales. Twelve inch claws appeared to protrude from its twisted webbed fingers and a massive tail whipped around the floor, upon a closer look you could see several jagged and sharp scales embedded in that tail. Though perhaps the most vile and or inhuman feature was the creature's face, while its eyes were human everything else was not. The abomination had a long snout akin to a crocodile which when opened revealed the cluster of predatory teeth.
In but a few heartbeats the creature's eyes appeared to meet with the Asylums and in the next few minutes chaos would start once more but before that Angel managed to raise a finger to silence the others.
"If anyone blames me for that," Angel pointed to the abomination in front of him as if to emphasize.
"I will kill you before another Chrono does or before the bomb does or before the collapse of the building does or before a 'Chimera' does..." It didn't take long after that for the creature to lunge.
Though right before the Chimera managed to land it's pounce, right before the five managed a last moment evasion, Angel's eyes finally observed exactly what Maeve was wearing and even the Chimera's scream couldn't overshadow Angel's echoing laughter.
Fallenreaper