The Forgotten Zodiac

Sylas groaned, coughing a bit, but he managed to grab his bow again and notch an arrow onto it. "Give it up already, human," The Phantom tutted coldly. "Look around at your friends and allies, boy." Sylas did, for a brief moment. Rush was incapacitated, as was Adahre. Aries was still stuck in a crown, her body being used by the enemy. L'arc's arm was broken and bleeding, and he was bleeding and in serious pain just from moving this much, and he wasn't even sitting up. The only one who seemed to be capable of actually fighting right now was Eve, who was still fighting, but Talos was apparently preparing an attack for the serpent already.

"Give up. No one can blame you." The Phantom said again.

"I-I'm not giving up!" Sylas panted, swinging his bow around and firing off his arrow. The Phantom caught the arrow in his bare hand. Sylas dropped his arms at that, exhausted and growing weaker by the second.

Saeo didn't have enough time to move away. Eve's fangs sank into his shoulder; he screamed, punching Eve's nose in fury.

Eve let go after coiling her serpantine body around him once or twice. She hissed loudly at him, focusing her attention on only him, not Talos or the Phantom.

Gabe, meanwhile, had scooped up the Crelliydad (i can never spell it the same way twice) tome. He chanted the spell, and was able to get it to hit directly on the Phantom.

((Crylliedad. Cry-llie-dad. Cry, Lily, said dad. Bwahaha, me and my fancy mnemonics.))

Saeo hissed back, struggling uselessly. Talos came from behind, several swords flying off the walls and towards the giant snake. Apparently, he didn't care that he might hit Verolen/Saeo too; as a matter of fact, he really disliked the stupid boy.

The Phantom let out a startled cry as the light blinded him. He stumbled back two paces, then blindly sent a silent spell at Gabe. It was a beam of black light, intended to stun and immobilize.

Eve twisted around, letting go of Saeo in order to evade Talos's attack.

((That's pretty good. I'll remember that.))

Gabe, however, had already enacted the Protection spell, and while it shattered, it protected him from the effects of the Phantom's attack. He ran over and began to shake Adahre, trying to get him to wake up.

((Haha.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how we're going to get out of this one.))

Saeo dodged around the oncoming swords, pulling one of them up from the ground and jumping up quickly, swinging it down at Eve's head. Talos forced the remaining swords into a U-turn, sending them back at Eve with all due haste.

The Phantom fired at the sound of the footsteps, though he missed completely. He stopped and waited for another sound, his spell primed and ready.

((That's not good. Not at all.))

Eve shifted back to her humanoid form, getting out of the way of the swords, but just barely.

Gabe was very quiet, reaching down to pick up, Adahre's heal staff. He wondered if he could use it...

((WHELL.

They still have to get Cicila out of that body. It's pretty simple; put the crown on top of the red sparky box, and make Cicila touch the box. She'll get stuck in the crown, and Aries will have her body back. Same with Verolen.))

Saeo grinned; this was what he wanted, of course. He could get through skin and flesh much easier than he could of tough scales. He charged forward, swinging the sword at her legs. Talos prepared another attack, more swords joining the swarm that was grouping behind him. He kept licking his thumb, the rune there glowing red as though it were burning him.

Phantom fired off a shot dangerously close to Gabe; he was following the rustling of the boy's clothes, of course. And from the way he was blinking, he was starting to get some of his sight back.

((That's simpler than I thought.))

Eve hissed, jumping over the blade and running over to the corner of the room. Her hand scambled around in her pocket for the pendant, hoping Saeo would chase her over here.

((Let's get Verolen back.))

Gabe ducked, letting out a small squeal of fright.

((What did you think it would be? xD Let's. I'm bored with Saeo. :I))

Manny looked up as Eve approached; he was still strapped to the chair, and still wired to the box and pedestal, both of which were still crackling with red energy. 'What are you doing? Look out, behind you!' The real Verolen cried out, not recognizing Manny. Of course, he had never seen the lump of Dark Matter before, and he couldn't sense anything through the pendant.

Verolen was warning against Saeo who was indeed quickly approaching. Talos had spotted where they were going, though, and angrily sent several swords their way.

The Phantom, instead of firing off another spell, took two steps forward and aimed a kick for Gabe's gut, more or less able to see again.

((Alright.

And I don't know, jsut thought it would be complicated.))

Eve twisted out of the way, dropping the pendant onto the box by Manny. "Come on, Saeo! Is that all you've got?" she taunted.

Gabe yelped as the foot made contact with his stomach, giving a dry retch as he fell back.

((Haha. Don't forget that 'Saeo' is still engraved on Gabe's head. You might want to get that off before it scars. xD))

Saeo growled angrily, throwing the sword aside and charging with claws outstretched instead, eager to sink them into Eve's skin.

The Phantom took a third step forward, forcing Gabe to the ground under his boot. "You people just don't give up, do you? I wouldn't be surprised if that rat of a moot came running in here any second, trying to attack me or something. Ridiculous," He pressed down on Gabe's chest, making a face of disgust. "You don't stand a chance. And here I was going to let you live; Lilith does need a playmate every now and then."

'What? Lilith? Did he just say Lilith?' Verolen asked, confused. 'That's impossible...'

((Oh, yeah. XD))

Gabe screamed, clawing at the Phantom's leg. He closed his eyes, just missing the sight of the glowing blue mist that suddenly enveloped the Phantom, suffocating him.

A few feet away, Bermuda looked very much dead.

Eve ducked out of the way, and Saeo kept going, crashing into the strange box that had Verolen in the pendant on top of it.

The Phantom gagged on the mist that attacked him suddenly. He stumbled, trying to shake whatever it was off. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see again, and he couldn't be sure if this was a trick or not.

Saeo and the pendant were covered with the crackling red electricity, though neither of them seemed to make much of a sound. It was Manny who did all the screaming, the electricy the product of his power being forcefully wrenched away from him.

Leave them alone, spoke a deep voice in the Phantom's ear, sounding far off and distant. ...I mean, you don't have a choice currenlty, do you? I'm just going to keep choking you until you go out for a while. We'll just leave.

Eve ran over to Manny. "It's okay, my boy, you'll be alright, shh, shh, I'm here now," Eve comforted, but did not reach out to him. She knew better than that.

The Phantom attempted to make a noise of rage, but it came out as a gurgled slew of nonsense. His eyes rolled back and he finally collapsed again, all semblance of life leaving his body.

The crackling stopped as quickly as it begun, and Manny's screaming petered down to tearless wailing. The box let out one last spurt of electricity, forcing Verolen and the pendant off of it. The pendant landed a few feet away, while Verolen collapsed after stumbling back a couple paces. He climbed shakily to his feet, opening his eyes and looking around. He grinned. "It worked! I'm me again! Yes!" He punched the air in delight, then immediately spotted the states that his friends were in. "Oh. Right, uh...crap." He double checked around the room; Talos had disappeared. He had probably retreated or something, most likely. Coward. Verolen ran to free Rush, cutting through the iron that had held the chimera-thing in place.

"Verolen," Rush coughed a bit, rubbing his throat. "Glad to have you b-back."

"It's great to be back! Good grief, I'm a little upset that you guys didn't realize it until now, though. Let me guess, he made up excuses to cover up for his bad attitude?"

"Something like that...hey, Eve, do you think the same thing will work to get Aries back?" Rush asked, climbing to his feet.

Eve nodded, looking to Rush. "Let's hope so," She said, going over to Aries's limp body and starting to drag it over to the box.

Adahre returned to Bermuda and the naiad sat up rather suddenly, picked up his heal staff, and went to help the otehrs as if he hadn't missed a thing.

Verolen stood quickly, moving over to help Eve. "Who is that?" He asked, pointing to Manny.

On the other side of the room, Sylas sat up with a groan after Bermuda healed him. "Thanks...skies above, that hurt!" He shuddered, rubbing his chest as he climbed to his feet.

Verolen stopped to gape at Sylas. "What happened to your eye?! Okay, someone is going to have to fill me in on what happened while I was out. Later, I guess..." He sighed, shaking his head.

"I'll let you know as soon as we're out of here," Rush sighed. At least Verolen wasn't a sadistic creep anymore.

Bermuda rushed over to heal L'arc, then turned and watched as Eve dropped the crown and Aries's hand onto the black box. "That's Manny. He's a mannequinn. I made him," Eve answered Verolen quickly, watching as Aries returned to her body. "How do we get him out of that?" she asked.

Manny screamed more as the electricity surged again. The crown was thrown off like the pendant had been, and Aries fell backwards, only to be caught by Verolen. "A mannequin, obviously, but that's a heck of a lot of Dark Matter...cool!" He grinned. "How to get him out? It looks like he's just strapped into it, but as for the tubes...if he's a mannequin, can we just rip them out and sow him back up later? I guess he does feel pain, if he's crying like that..."

"You can transmute him back together as soon as we're out of here," Eve nodded to Verolen, before running over and beginning to pull the straps off, the Dark Matter seeming to not have any effect on her, even in the state it was. Soon, Manny was free, and Eve pulled him out of the chair. "Alright, let's go," she said. L'arc tossed Verolen an Ether Shard.