Adapt to Live [Part 14]
Nov. 14th, 2015 10:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
esp_dragonFandom: Noblesse
Summary: It's been a long time since Tao had seen an angel, not since ze left Heaven and turned into a demon. Ze hadn't thought it was possible to pass through the barrier between Heaven and the physical realm without changing. M-21's task in the physical realm is to kill as many demons as they can. Except the pieces aren't fitting together.
Contains: Brief violence.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General
Word count: 2,610
Total word count: 31,712
Status: Work in progress
There wouldn't be anything they could do against those numbers, even if those angels didn't know how to fight. But they would.
The angel disappeared again, and M-21 flitted away to a small distance away from where they had been standing, just enough to stay out of the sword's swing.
They had it just right, and when the angel reappeared next to them, M-21 leaped at them, trying to use their claws. The power fizzled away before anything materialised.
It was still enough to be able to grab the angel, and the angel's eyes widened as M-21 drove them to the ground. The angel narrowed their eyes a second later, and M-21 flitted away as they heard Tao roar something.
They'd flitted away just in time - the angel had stabbed through where M-21 had been.
Tao cracked their whip at the angel's hand, causing them to drop their sword and-
Sliced through the angel's neck with their whip, black wisps trailing behind where the whip had been.
M-21 watched the angel dissolve into light, not going limp in the way M-21 had gotten used to with demons. It was like they were frozen like that, trapped in that position as their body disappeared.
"Kid, are you all right?" Tao strode away from where the angel had lay, going to M-21.
"You killed them," M-21 said, their voice faint to their ears. That was what it looked like when an angel died. Why had they killed them?
"We don't have time," Tao said, touching their wing with their own. "You heard them - they were part of a batch-"
M-21 looked away at that reminder, their hand going to their mark. They couldn't touch it like they wanted, their glove too thick and they couldn't pull the sleeve back easily either. Why had the Lord made an angel like that?
"-and that means there are more of them." Tao stepped closer, placing a hand on M-21's shoulder. "We can't talk with them like I did with you."
Something appeared in front of them and M-21 jerked, trying to draw power again, but it was Frankenstein, holding their hands up at Tao's raised whip.
Tao relaxed at the sight of them, dismissing their whip. "Boss..."
"Are you two all right?"
"Had a bit of a shock," Tao told them.
"Yes?"
Wait. They shouldn't... M-21 backed out of Tao's hand, shaking their head.
"I think...Crombell might have cloned the kid," Tao said, though they gave M-21 a small frown. "Hey, kid, it's all right."
"It's not." It wasn't. "I shouldn't stay with you." M-21 backed up another step when Tao tried to get closer again. "That angel knew what I did. They wouldn't have learned that in Heaven." It had to be them. Heaven had to know what they knew somehow.
"Kid," Tao said, their voice soft. They reached out, but M-21 shook their head, flapping their wings at them.
They should get away. If the Lord knew what they did, if they stayed with Tao and Frankenstein, they would make things worse. M-21 didn't know how, but they just knew they would. Their heart was thudding in their chest again, and M-21 wanted to run.
"Child," Frankenstein said, and there was something in Frankenstein's voice that made M-21 look at them. There was no anger in Frankenstein's face. "Are you still connected with the Lord?"
M-12 prodded at where the connection was, shaking their head before they checked. They knew what being connected with the Lord felt like, and the hole in their head was still the same. They would know if they were connected with the Lord again.
"Then you don't need to worry. Crombell may have taken information you learned when you were an angel, but you're no longer an angel, are you?"
No, they weren't...
Frankenstein opened their arms, spreading out their wings and M-21 glanced between Tao and Frankenstein. Tao gave them a small smile and a nod and it was an invitation for M-21 to go closer.
They should still leave. Frankenstein could be wrong; they could still be telling the Lord something without realising it.
But...they didn't want to be alone.
M-21 took a hesitating step forward, testing if they really wanted to do it. It was a small relief to do so, and neither Tao or Frankenstein moved away.
M-21 took another step, then another, and then they were in Frankenstein's arms, Frankenstein enveloping them in both their arms and wings.
They wrapped their arms around Frankenstein, clutching at their jacket.
* * *
There was no way the three of them would have enough power to fight one-hundred angels at once, if that was even the number that Crombell had made. They could have made more.
Maybe if Crombell sent the new batch one by one it would be doable, but if that one angel had been a test and Crombell sent the rest of them all as one afterwards...
Boss was still hugging the kid and Tao couldn't see any part of them except for their feet, Boss having wrapped them up into their wings entirely.
Boss shared a look with Tao and Tao nodded.
Tao walked over and Boss raised a wing, allowing Tao to duck into the embrace as Boss stepped back.
"Wha-?"
Tao wrapped the kid up in hir own arms and wings. "Boss just needs to do something right now, kid, don't worry."
"Okay..."
Tao petted the kid between the ears and the kid melted a little in their arms, leaning into the touch. Good. They were responding to it.
Boss walked a few steps to where Tao had killed the angel and extended their wings, raising a hand.
The hair at the Tao's neck rose at the feeling of magic in the air as black tendrils spread out from Boss' feet, scoring a ward into the snow and mud, leaving the space between them untouched.
The kid stiffened and turned to watch Boss as the sky darkened above them.
"They're sealing the barrier," Tao explained before the kid could ask.
It wasn't long until the weight of magic eased. When Boss lowered their arm, the tendrils disappeared, leaving the remnants of the spell in the slush.
And it was raining again.
It only lasted a few seconds before it started snowing again, the dark clouds brightening.
"I didn't," Boss said, turning around and shaking their head as they walked back towards the two of them. "I was only able to strengthen the barrier to make it harder for others to pass through, but not seal it off. I can't."
"Boss...?" Tao said, frowning. That didn't make any sense. They couldn't have forgotten how to, right?
Boss gave them a tight smile. "I was an angel when I helped make the barrier."
Well, yeah. Tao knew that...
Oh.
Boss wasn't an angel anymore. They didn't have the same power that resonated with the barrier to seal it off.
Shit.
* * *
M-21 listened to the other two while still trying to work out their own thoughts. They had to help fix this. It was because of them... It was because of them the Lord had made multiples of them and was trying to kill all of them. If it hadn't been for them, then...
No. Even if the Lord - if Crombell hadn't created the M-21 batch -the very thought of that churned M-21's stomach, like their body was trying to crush it out of existence- Crombell would still be sending angels to the physical realm one way or another.
They'd quickened the process, but Crombell was still doing what They'd been doing from the start.
"So..." Tao said, "there's no way to properly seal it off then. Not unless we kidnap an angel and somehow grab their power to seal the barrier - we wouldn't be able to convince them to help a bunch of demons in the time we had."
They needed someone with angel powers. Pure angel powers, unlike what they had now.
"No, we wouldn't. That being said," Frankenstein continued, "the barrier was never made in mind to change that many angels at once." They started to pace, their arms folded as they tapped their chin.
"...Boss?" Tao said. "What do you think would happen?"
"We never tested what would happened since we didn't expect that many to leave at the same time."
They stopped, taking deeper breaths. "If I were to guess, I would think the barrier would only transform parts of all the angels, and I would rather not think about the effect of that if they made it here. Another possibility is the barrier would merely collapse under the strain."
Then all the angels would get through.
"...Uh, Boss?" Tao's hand stopped. "If the barrier falls, that could mean Crombell can get through too. That..." Tao exhaled. "That might have been the reason why Crombell was sending angels and trying to make angels that didn't change - They didn't think They could get through the barrier without changing Themself."
"That may have been Crombell's original intent." Frankenstein started moving again, their wings rustling. "And without the barrier, They would be free to come here as They please. If They found-"
M-21 froze, sensing power hurtling towards them and both they and Tao flitted out of the way.
One of the trees behind them thudded, a fresh gash in its trunk as the snow clinging to the leaves fell in one clump.
M-21 whirled around, their hands tingling as they tried to find the angel-
It wasn't an angel.
Seira and Regis skidded to a halt, their auras lashing. Their auras dimmed for a second when the two saw them.
"Angel...?" Seira said, and M-21's ears flattened while they nodded. They were the angel they knew. Just....different.
Regis glowered at Tao, the huge lance solidifying in his hands. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Tao said, waving their hands around face height. "I didn't do anything to change them."
Were they blaming Tao for what happened? M-21 shook their head. "I did it," they said. "I rejected the Lord and..." M-21 stared at the two as something clicked, and then glanced at Frankenstein.
Frankenstein tilted their head, but of course, Frankenstein wouldn't know, would they?
"You told me you had angel powers," M-21 said to Seira. They heard the sharp exhale from Frankenstein.
Seira nodded, through a frown tugged at her lips as her eyebrows drew in together. "Yes. Is that important?"
"Very important," Frankenstein said. "There's a chance the barrier between this place and Heaven could collapse if we aren't able to seal it off with angelic powers."
"And?" Regis said, the lance not disappearing from his hand. "That sounds like it would be good for humans."
"It's not," M-21 said, shaking their head. "It's not just angels that would come through, but the Lord as well and-" Their words locked up in their throat.
"You know what I'd been finding out since I came here," they whispered, their hands curling into fists. "My batchmates had been sent here to turn into demons; I'd been lied to about everything of this task. The Lord didn't care about us and was just using us as tests!" M-21's voice rose until it cracked, their chest squeezing around their lungs and making it hard to breathe.
"The Lord isn't who's supposed to be there, but if They come here and find the actual Lord and kill them..." M-21 squeezed their eyes shut. "It would keep happening. The Lord would keep creating more angels for whatever They felt like and...who knows what They would do to this realm." Would they start making a mix of humans and angels, just because They could?
"The real God is...here?" Regis said, his eyes wide.
"Yes," Frankenstein said, nodding. "We-" They indicated themself and Tao with both a sweep of an arm and a wing. "-have been trying to find Them for millennia."
"How do you know They're here?" Seira asked, her scythe head lowering a little.
"Because it's the only place They could be, and I refuse to think that They would leave for Crombell-" Frankenstein's lip twisted. "-to take over. They're not dead."
This time, a small smile curved Seira's lips. "You have that much faith in Them."
"Of course."
Seira and Regis shared a look. Regis' lips thinned, and he glowered at Tao and Frankenstein. "If this is a trap-"
"It's not, we swear," Tao said, shaking their head.
"On what."
At that, Tao's face blanked for a second. "I would say all the clothes on my back because you don't know me well enough to know what's important to me and being cold and wet sucks. But okay, the kid's life." Tao patted M-21's head. "I swear on the kid's life."
Regis exhaled and Seira studied M-21.
M-21 had no idea what they were talking about.
Seira dipped her head, walking closer. "If you're swearing on...their life, then we'll help you."
Frankenstein bowed, their wings flashing out. "Thank you."
* * *
M-21 couldn't stay still as they watched Frankenstein talk with Seira and Regis away from them and Tao. They wanted to do something, move in some way but it also didn't feel as if that would be enough. It was like their body was filled with power that needed to be let out right away.
"I think you're anxious, kid," Tao said, their wing wrapped around M-21. "And I don't blame you."
"Are you?" M-21 said, looking them over. Tao seemed still, their breathing even, but M-21 had started to understand that their bodies could do something that wasn't so easily seen from the outside.
"Yeah," Tao muttered, their gaze steady on the other three. "This has to work. We don't have anything else we can do if it doesn't."
Oh.
Frankenstein stopped talking with Seira and Regis and they backed off from each other. M-21 straightened, trying to make sure they could see everything that was happening.
The three moved away from Frankenstein's ward and stood an equal distance away from each other.
M-21 saw the tendrils reaching out from Frankenstein first, and then Seira's scythe and Regis' lance appeared. They were different from before though, looking like they were made out of condensed light.
With each second that passed, the tendrils grew thicker and wound their way towards Seira and Regis, leaving marks in the slush.
Seira and Regis' auras were also expanding around them, first going towards each other and then moving inwards.
All of M-21's attention was on watching what was happening, a dull awareness of the weight of magic increasing as the trees started to shake, depositing the snow they held.
It was raining again already and when Frankenstein's tendrils touched Seira and Regis' aura, it seemed to thin out, Seira and Regis' aura taking over it and running through the path Frankenstein's aura had traced out.
The mark being left behind was more intricate than the previous one, the lines smaller and winding across each other in designs M-21 had never seen before.
It glowed, almost as if with its own light and the weight of magic continued to grow.
The auras disappeared and Frankenstein, Seira and Regis slumped, panting, their breaths coming out in bigger gusts.
Frankenstein span to M-21 and Tao. "You have to go to the barrier!"
M-21 jerked at Frankenstein's sharp tone; they'd never heard Frankenstein talk like that before.
"We made safeguards - it doesn't matter at the moment." Frankenstein shook their head, sweeping their hair away from their face. "We can't seal the barrier because there are angels in there now."
Summary: It's been a long time since Tao had seen an angel, not since ze left Heaven and turned into a demon. Ze hadn't thought it was possible to pass through the barrier between Heaven and the physical realm without changing. M-21's task in the physical realm is to kill as many demons as they can. Except the pieces aren't fitting together.
Contains: Brief violence.
Rating: PG-13
Genre: General
Word count: 2,610
Total word count: 31,712
Status: Work in progress
There wouldn't be anything they could do against those numbers, even if those angels didn't know how to fight. But they would.
The angel disappeared again, and M-21 flitted away to a small distance away from where they had been standing, just enough to stay out of the sword's swing.
They had it just right, and when the angel reappeared next to them, M-21 leaped at them, trying to use their claws. The power fizzled away before anything materialised.
It was still enough to be able to grab the angel, and the angel's eyes widened as M-21 drove them to the ground. The angel narrowed their eyes a second later, and M-21 flitted away as they heard Tao roar something.
They'd flitted away just in time - the angel had stabbed through where M-21 had been.
Tao cracked their whip at the angel's hand, causing them to drop their sword and-
Sliced through the angel's neck with their whip, black wisps trailing behind where the whip had been.
M-21 watched the angel dissolve into light, not going limp in the way M-21 had gotten used to with demons. It was like they were frozen like that, trapped in that position as their body disappeared.
"Kid, are you all right?" Tao strode away from where the angel had lay, going to M-21.
"You killed them," M-21 said, their voice faint to their ears. That was what it looked like when an angel died. Why had they killed them?
"We don't have time," Tao said, touching their wing with their own. "You heard them - they were part of a batch-"
M-21 looked away at that reminder, their hand going to their mark. They couldn't touch it like they wanted, their glove too thick and they couldn't pull the sleeve back easily either. Why had the Lord made an angel like that?
"-and that means there are more of them." Tao stepped closer, placing a hand on M-21's shoulder. "We can't talk with them like I did with you."
Something appeared in front of them and M-21 jerked, trying to draw power again, but it was Frankenstein, holding their hands up at Tao's raised whip.
Tao relaxed at the sight of them, dismissing their whip. "Boss..."
"Are you two all right?"
"Had a bit of a shock," Tao told them.
"Yes?"
Wait. They shouldn't... M-21 backed out of Tao's hand, shaking their head.
"I think...Crombell might have cloned the kid," Tao said, though they gave M-21 a small frown. "Hey, kid, it's all right."
"It's not." It wasn't. "I shouldn't stay with you." M-21 backed up another step when Tao tried to get closer again. "That angel knew what I did. They wouldn't have learned that in Heaven." It had to be them. Heaven had to know what they knew somehow.
"Kid," Tao said, their voice soft. They reached out, but M-21 shook their head, flapping their wings at them.
They should get away. If the Lord knew what they did, if they stayed with Tao and Frankenstein, they would make things worse. M-21 didn't know how, but they just knew they would. Their heart was thudding in their chest again, and M-21 wanted to run.
"Child," Frankenstein said, and there was something in Frankenstein's voice that made M-21 look at them. There was no anger in Frankenstein's face. "Are you still connected with the Lord?"
M-12 prodded at where the connection was, shaking their head before they checked. They knew what being connected with the Lord felt like, and the hole in their head was still the same. They would know if they were connected with the Lord again.
"Then you don't need to worry. Crombell may have taken information you learned when you were an angel, but you're no longer an angel, are you?"
No, they weren't...
Frankenstein opened their arms, spreading out their wings and M-21 glanced between Tao and Frankenstein. Tao gave them a small smile and a nod and it was an invitation for M-21 to go closer.
They should still leave. Frankenstein could be wrong; they could still be telling the Lord something without realising it.
But...they didn't want to be alone.
M-21 took a hesitating step forward, testing if they really wanted to do it. It was a small relief to do so, and neither Tao or Frankenstein moved away.
M-21 took another step, then another, and then they were in Frankenstein's arms, Frankenstein enveloping them in both their arms and wings.
They wrapped their arms around Frankenstein, clutching at their jacket.
There was no way the three of them would have enough power to fight one-hundred angels at once, if that was even the number that Crombell had made. They could have made more.
Maybe if Crombell sent the new batch one by one it would be doable, but if that one angel had been a test and Crombell sent the rest of them all as one afterwards...
Boss was still hugging the kid and Tao couldn't see any part of them except for their feet, Boss having wrapped them up into their wings entirely.
Boss shared a look with Tao and Tao nodded.
Tao walked over and Boss raised a wing, allowing Tao to duck into the embrace as Boss stepped back.
"Wha-?"
Tao wrapped the kid up in hir own arms and wings. "Boss just needs to do something right now, kid, don't worry."
"Okay..."
Tao petted the kid between the ears and the kid melted a little in their arms, leaning into the touch. Good. They were responding to it.
Boss walked a few steps to where Tao had killed the angel and extended their wings, raising a hand.
The hair at the Tao's neck rose at the feeling of magic in the air as black tendrils spread out from Boss' feet, scoring a ward into the snow and mud, leaving the space between them untouched.
The kid stiffened and turned to watch Boss as the sky darkened above them.
"They're sealing the barrier," Tao explained before the kid could ask.
It wasn't long until the weight of magic eased. When Boss lowered their arm, the tendrils disappeared, leaving the remnants of the spell in the slush.
And it was raining again.
It only lasted a few seconds before it started snowing again, the dark clouds brightening.
"I didn't," Boss said, turning around and shaking their head as they walked back towards the two of them. "I was only able to strengthen the barrier to make it harder for others to pass through, but not seal it off. I can't."
"Boss...?" Tao said, frowning. That didn't make any sense. They couldn't have forgotten how to, right?
Boss gave them a tight smile. "I was an angel when I helped make the barrier."
Well, yeah. Tao knew that...
Oh.
Boss wasn't an angel anymore. They didn't have the same power that resonated with the barrier to seal it off.
Shit.
M-21 listened to the other two while still trying to work out their own thoughts. They had to help fix this. It was because of them... It was because of them the Lord had made multiples of them and was trying to kill all of them. If it hadn't been for them, then...
No. Even if the Lord - if Crombell hadn't created the M-21 batch -the very thought of that churned M-21's stomach, like their body was trying to crush it out of existence- Crombell would still be sending angels to the physical realm one way or another.
They'd quickened the process, but Crombell was still doing what They'd been doing from the start.
"So..." Tao said, "there's no way to properly seal it off then. Not unless we kidnap an angel and somehow grab their power to seal the barrier - we wouldn't be able to convince them to help a bunch of demons in the time we had."
They needed someone with angel powers. Pure angel powers, unlike what they had now.
"No, we wouldn't. That being said," Frankenstein continued, "the barrier was never made in mind to change that many angels at once." They started to pace, their arms folded as they tapped their chin.
"...Boss?" Tao said. "What do you think would happen?"
"We never tested what would happened since we didn't expect that many to leave at the same time."
They stopped, taking deeper breaths. "If I were to guess, I would think the barrier would only transform parts of all the angels, and I would rather not think about the effect of that if they made it here. Another possibility is the barrier would merely collapse under the strain."
Then all the angels would get through.
"...Uh, Boss?" Tao's hand stopped. "If the barrier falls, that could mean Crombell can get through too. That..." Tao exhaled. "That might have been the reason why Crombell was sending angels and trying to make angels that didn't change - They didn't think They could get through the barrier without changing Themself."
"That may have been Crombell's original intent." Frankenstein started moving again, their wings rustling. "And without the barrier, They would be free to come here as They please. If They found-"
M-21 froze, sensing power hurtling towards them and both they and Tao flitted out of the way.
One of the trees behind them thudded, a fresh gash in its trunk as the snow clinging to the leaves fell in one clump.
M-21 whirled around, their hands tingling as they tried to find the angel-
It wasn't an angel.
Seira and Regis skidded to a halt, their auras lashing. Their auras dimmed for a second when the two saw them.
"Angel...?" Seira said, and M-21's ears flattened while they nodded. They were the angel they knew. Just....different.
Regis glowered at Tao, the huge lance solidifying in his hands. "What did you do?"
"Nothing," Tao said, waving their hands around face height. "I didn't do anything to change them."
Were they blaming Tao for what happened? M-21 shook their head. "I did it," they said. "I rejected the Lord and..." M-21 stared at the two as something clicked, and then glanced at Frankenstein.
Frankenstein tilted their head, but of course, Frankenstein wouldn't know, would they?
"You told me you had angel powers," M-21 said to Seira. They heard the sharp exhale from Frankenstein.
Seira nodded, through a frown tugged at her lips as her eyebrows drew in together. "Yes. Is that important?"
"Very important," Frankenstein said. "There's a chance the barrier between this place and Heaven could collapse if we aren't able to seal it off with angelic powers."
"And?" Regis said, the lance not disappearing from his hand. "That sounds like it would be good for humans."
"It's not," M-21 said, shaking their head. "It's not just angels that would come through, but the Lord as well and-" Their words locked up in their throat.
"You know what I'd been finding out since I came here," they whispered, their hands curling into fists. "My batchmates had been sent here to turn into demons; I'd been lied to about everything of this task. The Lord didn't care about us and was just using us as tests!" M-21's voice rose until it cracked, their chest squeezing around their lungs and making it hard to breathe.
"The Lord isn't who's supposed to be there, but if They come here and find the actual Lord and kill them..." M-21 squeezed their eyes shut. "It would keep happening. The Lord would keep creating more angels for whatever They felt like and...who knows what They would do to this realm." Would they start making a mix of humans and angels, just because They could?
"The real God is...here?" Regis said, his eyes wide.
"Yes," Frankenstein said, nodding. "We-" They indicated themself and Tao with both a sweep of an arm and a wing. "-have been trying to find Them for millennia."
"How do you know They're here?" Seira asked, her scythe head lowering a little.
"Because it's the only place They could be, and I refuse to think that They would leave for Crombell-" Frankenstein's lip twisted. "-to take over. They're not dead."
This time, a small smile curved Seira's lips. "You have that much faith in Them."
"Of course."
Seira and Regis shared a look. Regis' lips thinned, and he glowered at Tao and Frankenstein. "If this is a trap-"
"It's not, we swear," Tao said, shaking their head.
"On what."
At that, Tao's face blanked for a second. "I would say all the clothes on my back because you don't know me well enough to know what's important to me and being cold and wet sucks. But okay, the kid's life." Tao patted M-21's head. "I swear on the kid's life."
Regis exhaled and Seira studied M-21.
M-21 had no idea what they were talking about.
Seira dipped her head, walking closer. "If you're swearing on...their life, then we'll help you."
Frankenstein bowed, their wings flashing out. "Thank you."
M-21 couldn't stay still as they watched Frankenstein talk with Seira and Regis away from them and Tao. They wanted to do something, move in some way but it also didn't feel as if that would be enough. It was like their body was filled with power that needed to be let out right away.
"I think you're anxious, kid," Tao said, their wing wrapped around M-21. "And I don't blame you."
"Are you?" M-21 said, looking them over. Tao seemed still, their breathing even, but M-21 had started to understand that their bodies could do something that wasn't so easily seen from the outside.
"Yeah," Tao muttered, their gaze steady on the other three. "This has to work. We don't have anything else we can do if it doesn't."
Oh.
Frankenstein stopped talking with Seira and Regis and they backed off from each other. M-21 straightened, trying to make sure they could see everything that was happening.
The three moved away from Frankenstein's ward and stood an equal distance away from each other.
M-21 saw the tendrils reaching out from Frankenstein first, and then Seira's scythe and Regis' lance appeared. They were different from before though, looking like they were made out of condensed light.
With each second that passed, the tendrils grew thicker and wound their way towards Seira and Regis, leaving marks in the slush.
Seira and Regis' auras were also expanding around them, first going towards each other and then moving inwards.
All of M-21's attention was on watching what was happening, a dull awareness of the weight of magic increasing as the trees started to shake, depositing the snow they held.
It was raining again already and when Frankenstein's tendrils touched Seira and Regis' aura, it seemed to thin out, Seira and Regis' aura taking over it and running through the path Frankenstein's aura had traced out.
The mark being left behind was more intricate than the previous one, the lines smaller and winding across each other in designs M-21 had never seen before.
It glowed, almost as if with its own light and the weight of magic continued to grow.
The auras disappeared and Frankenstein, Seira and Regis slumped, panting, their breaths coming out in bigger gusts.
Frankenstein span to M-21 and Tao. "You have to go to the barrier!"
M-21 jerked at Frankenstein's sharp tone; they'd never heard Frankenstein talk like that before.
"We made safeguards - it doesn't matter at the moment." Frankenstein shook their head, sweeping their hair away from their face. "We can't seal the barrier because there are angels in there now."