4 Swords: Shadowed Truth ch14

Chapter 14: Sorcerer and Sorceress

"(Green) Wait!!"

Green tries to get past the wind wall, but can't. However, the barrier isn't meant to last long and he can already feel that it's weaker than before. Vaati leaves the room and heads down the stairs, exiting Sky-Tall Tower. As he waits at their base, the mysterious woman soon comes into view, heading towards him.

She has blue-green skin, slightly clawed hands, and one visible eye, which is red. Orange-red hair descends in a diagonal spike from her odd, scythe-shaped navy blue headpiece, covering one of her eyes. She wears a somewhat revealing maroon armor top that shows her shapely stomach and the tops of her breasts, as well as wrapping around her neck like a collar. It is adorned with large shoulder guards that have aqua designs on them and navy blue spike attachments on her elbows.

A cape-like cloth attaches to the tips of the spikes and hangs behind her legs. A long white skirt that completely covers her feet and trails out behind her in an almost ghost-like manner hugs her form, with a wide navy blue section in the middle of the white that has a lighter blue symbol looking a bit like an eye that's been rotated so that it's vertical instead of horizontal on it.

Maroon armor in the same color as her top fits over the skirt and follows the shape of each of her hips, arranged in three overlapping sections on either side. Her lips are either black or she's just wearing black lipstick and she's much taller than Vaati. All in all, her appearance gives off the feeling of a twisted, dangerous beauty, and is obviously more than a little bit sinister.

Vaati's mask is back in place as he mentally prepares himself for the challenge of trying to trick her. He bows, feigning ignorance.

"(Vaati) Milady, what brings you here?"

She isn't fooled.

"(woman) My dear little Wind Mage, I know your secret. That accursed Triforce has taken control of you in order to safeguard those four pesky little brats and their shadow, and I intend to free you from it. That piece belongs to the one that looks and acts so much like him, does it not?"

"(Vaati) To be frank, I honestly don't know what you're talking about, Milady."

She laughs.

"(woman) You can't lie to me, my dear. I already know my curse on him has weakened."

"(Vaati) Milady, the Triforce fragment has no control over my actions. Why would I betray you in such a way? I am your loyal servant, as you already know."

'So she thinks it's controlling me, hm? Hihihi... Let her think that. It truly does have no control over me... I am doing this because I want to do it, you scum! You could never understand!'

"(woman) Move aside, my dear little Vaati. The simplest way to free you is obviously to kill that brat, as I should have done in the first place."

Vaati gasps, stiffening at her words. His gaze hardens, shooting a determined glare her way.

'I swear by the Goddesses, I will not let you get your wish, 'Milady'! This is all my fault in the for doing nothing from the Sanctuary, from letting you have your way then! I will not let him die!'

She begins to advance towards Vaati and he immediately removes the gauntlet, enduring the sheer agony coursing through his palm and up his arm in order to deny her passage. Half of the triangular burn glows a fierce, raging emerald in response to her presence. The force coming from it is intensely powerful, and very, very painful.

Vaati drops the calm act, looking determined and a bit angry. He is no longer acting, but is instead showing his true feelings. The woman, however, believes that this is simply the Triforce talking and not Vaati himself.

"(Vaati) You are not getting past me! No matter what you do to me, I will not allow it!!"

She sighs, looking regretful.

"(woman) I see it has full control over you. I had hoped to avoid violence, but if you won't obey me, I will hurt you."

'Grrr... That thrice-damned power is always getting in my way! I HATE it!'

The woman's mood is quickly worsening in response to the Triforce of Courage. Whatever attack she ends up using will probably be very harsh as a result. Vaati's palm starts to blister, literally burning, but he grits his teeth and ignores it as best he can.

"(Vaati) I don't care, and I won't move. Hihihi... Do you have the guts to make me, Milady? *mockingly*"

"(woman) Very well. I will show no mercy, as this is for your own good, my dear rebellious little Wind Mage."

Vaati screams as she lashes out at him with whips made of a crackling black energy, leaving thin, bloody lines across the skin of his limbs and lower body as he shields his face and chest with his arms. She then 'grabs' him with one of the whips, violently slamming the unresisting youth into the staircase, which crumbles a bit from the force of the impact.

Bruised and bloody (as well as probably having at least one bruised or broken bone), but still determined, he gets back up and continues to block her path. His ruby gaze is completely unafraid to the point where it's somewhat unnerving to the woman for a moment.

"(Vaati) Hit me all you like, it won't change a thing. Your power doesn't scare me, Veran. This pain is less than nothing compared to certain... past experiences of mine."

"(Veran) Ha! A partial amnesiac such as yourself shouldn't talk so tough, my dear! Don't worry, that fearless attitude of yours will surely be long gone by the end of this! You can blame that accursed artifact for that since you're not in control of yourself at the moment, but I'm still not pulling any punches until this is over with, little Vaati!"

Veran's mood seems to have improved almost instantly... She's definitely a sadist. Grinning evilly and caught up in the sick glee of exercising her specialty, torture, she starts pummeling Vaati with countless spheres of the same crackling black energy the whips are made of, following up with even more whipping.

Blood drips freely from Vaati's right hand. His skin is crisscrossed with countless thin lines of blood from the whips, as well as already showing signs of bruising, his skin darkening towards an odd dark gray-purple in some places and a very ugly black in others. He holds his stomach, the breath knocked out of him, and picks himself up off the floor for a second time. The purple-skinned youth wobbles on his feet and promptly collapses back into a sitting position in a matter of moments, hitting the ground hard.

"(Veran) Yield, Vaati! The fact that you still do not fight back is a clear indicator that you have managed to retain some of your true self rather than let that blasted Triforce have full use of your body and power, so get ahold of yourself and stop this nonsense!"

"(Vaati) ..........."

Vaati begins to laugh the moment he catches his breath, much to Veran's surprise. Even though it obviously hurts even just to giggle, the loud peals of laughter continue to pour out of him as he clutches his stomach and rocks back and forth slightly, completely hysterical. Veran's confused and somewhat freaked out expression only serves to make him laugh harder. Eventually, he manages to get a few words out between all the laughing.

"(Vaati) No point in... wasting my strength... when I know... I won't win...! My goal here... is to not let you... get one step past me,... nothing more...!"

Veran stares at the still-laughing Wind Sorcerer as if he's gone insane. She obviously has a strong suspicion that that is the case.

"(Veran) You have a strange, strange mind, my dear... ^.^; "

Her gaze hardens and she glares at him. She's dead serious now and somehow seems angrier than before, in a cold, hidden-beneath-the-surface sort of way. This hidden anger quickly manifests itself out in the open as her frustration peaks.

"(Veran) Very well, if you won't come to your senses, I'll just have to cut off your hand along with the Triforce piece!"