FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 51: Red Touching Yellow

9:50 pm, The parking lot of a Glyfada mall

...

It started at the edges of her limbs; Assassin's still body began to petrify. Already like a statue, the only difference was the color and texture as the stone began to crawl up her hands, her legs.

The worst part was her eyes: frightened eyes that begged for mercy while her mouth couldn't. She was helpless, and from where Monica stood, she could see the beginnings of a smile on Chrysaor's face.

Monica could only stand and stare, she didn't know what to do. Whenever a thought would rush through her mind, it would ram into a wall of confusion and insecurity and be dashed back into the depths of her consciousness, never to return.

What was the priority?

-Keeping herself safe?

-Defeating Assassin?

-Capturing Assassin alive?

...Or making sure that Chrysaor wasn't too far gone?

She wasn't sure. Although, indeed, Assassin had tried to kill her, not once but twice, she couldn't bring herself to hate her. She was more confused than angry, and the tears that touched Echo's indigo cheeks caused her heart to squirm and turn inside her chest, even as she tried to convince herself it was for the best...

But, no matter how she tried, she just couldn't believe that this was right.

"Saber! That's enough! We've beat her!"

He didn't move. There was no indication at all that he even heard her- his hair continued to writhe as if alive, and his hands kept twitching and grasping at nothing.

She tried again, "Stop! Close your eyes, or- I don't know- something! Just stop!"

Chrysaor only rolled his shoulders- but, seemingly, not because of her. As his shoulders popped and cracked, he began to walk forward, as if stalking prey, or, more accurately, approaching a cornered animal.

Now, it was Monica who was starting to cry, though she wouldn't have been able to say why. Tears gathered and fell down her face, as if welled from her squirming heart- her voice, her desperate cries, getting caught in her throat.

"Stop! I said 'that's enough'! Can't you hear me? Saber!" She hesitated, almost thinking better, but couldn't stop herself, "Chrysaor! Listen to me!"

He walked slowly, almost a prowl, further towards Assassin.

Desperate for anything, she shot out her arm again, the crimson serpent becoming alight once more, ethereal formless light cast out from under her jacket, hand tensed to release the energy, the will building in her arm and in her heart- but she clenched her fist and forced her arm down. She couldn't bring herself to use another Command Seal, not yet. Was Assassin's life worth it? She couldn't justify it to herself, but neither could she justify standing idly by.

She rushed to Chrysaor and grabbed him by the shoulder, trying to force his body to turn away from Echo, continuing her cries of "Stop! Please stop! Please!"

-But his body was tense and muscular. It was the first time she'd truly grasped his muscle for herself, physically and mentally, and trying just to hold him back was hardly different than trying to bend the trunk of a tree, or pushing Sisyphus' boulder. Rather than pulling him back, he was pulling her forward, her feet tripping over themselves as they dragged and stumbled across the uneven pavement against her will while she sobbed, "Stop! Why can't you hear me?! Stop! Chrysaor!"

Finally, his body slowed, if only slightly, as if tiring against her will, and a flash of hope flickered in her chest-

As fast as that hope, his tensed arm fired into her stomach with all the force of a cannon, his elbow digging deep into her abdomen. Without any time to brace, or to accept the fact of what was happening, her stomach was purged, and a wave of puke cut through her throat and out of her mouth onto his shoulder.

Her world spun 'round and 'round as her ears rung and eyes spun, stumbling to her hands and knees. Every time she went to breathe she would only cough up vomit, and her lungs ached horribly with each retch. She couldn't see; her tears stung her eyes and blurred her vision. She couldn't hear; her ears rang, and even though Assassin could not speak at all, she could swear that she heard screaming.

Finally- she took a breath. Her stomach was empty, and with one, two, three more heaves, oxygen was entering her lungs again, though it felt as if these lungs would collapse with even the slightest touch. Just as her mind began to clear, another sound cut through the chaos: the clacking of hard shoes across pavement.

Through the tears, the figure of a woman in a sundress appeared in the corner of her vision; tall, slender, foreign, eastern. The woman dashed into view and in front of Chrysaor, her small shoulders just barely covering Echo's face with her increased height; her eyes clamped shut and determined not to meet Saber's gaze while she cast her arms to the side, protecting the vulnerable nymph.

'Assassin's Master?'

Monica shook to her feet, her young, pale face stained with sweat, tears, and vomit, what little makeup she wore smeared on her face. A whimpering sound escaped her aching throat, "...Stop. Please... stop....That's enough. Please."

As fast as he'd been with her, his hand lashed out like a viper, clasping around the poor woman's side and throwing her away- her overly-thin body skipping across the earth like a leaf in the wind, and a horrible yelp bleating from her mousey lips with a flash of red blood from her exposed arms.

With nothing left in his way, the possessed Chrysaor gripped Echo's beautiful face by her round chin, lifting it so that her terrified, sheepish eyes could only meet his gaze, and that empty, venomous grin. The woman- presumed to be her Master- screamed in anguish, a hoarse voice like an infant's first cry. The stone crept faster across Echo's smooth skin, cutting into her shoulders and crossing the border of her bottom: a lamb for the slaughter.

Through the tears that blurred her vision, the vomit that stuffed her nose and stuck to her face, the horrible, rasping breaths that tore at her throat, only one thought could rise through the turbulence of her mind-

She shakily raised her left hand once more, the crimson becoming as it had been not long ago, red glow shining from her sleeve. Though with less confidence, less will, and barely enough volume for even herself to hear, she nonetheless declared between her sobs: "Chrysaor... please... become a sword."

The body of the serpent burst like breaking glass, only the head remaining, its job complete.

Chrysaor tensed- she worried Echo's porcelain skin would break in his grip, but he fell away from her, gold light trailing his body as rose trailed his eyes, his body shaking, turning and convulsing with horrible spasms, screaming-no- roaring like a lion ablaze, before the gold that trimmed his body began to eat into his form, and he collapsed into another shape: a sword.

Forming in the air, it fell to the pavement with a clattering clang, but wouldn't be still. It continued to shake and wobble on the ground, as if being ruptured from the inside. The woman followed the strange blade with her eyes; Echo's petrified body stuck gazing upward- her blinking eyes assuring the other women of her still-beating heart.

Monica's own heart threatened to burst from her chest as she scuttled across the empty lot, her weak knees unable to bear her weight and collapsing at the foot of the unresting blade. It was the same as it ever was, except that the blue light that began at the hilt and carved waves into the blade was now a pink-red color. More worryingly, at the base, where the bands of light began, the color was starting to disappear entirely, becoming a horrid shade of deathly black.

She knew what she had to do, she knew the moment those words rose to her mind. The only way to get Chrysaor back...

-Was to retake his mind by force.

She looked to the eastern woman, not knowing what she was trying to find. Was it forgiveness? Reassurance? Finding only fear in those eyes, she returned to the shaking blade and- taking one final gasp of fresh air through the smell of her own puke- she grasped the hilt with both hands.

...