The Blessed Stones <Complete>

The Final Showdown

Evelyn's last opponent stands, waiting, for her across the city square. Theres a deathly presence in the air as they stare eachother down. His expression had changed now, from being calm and secluded, to being serious. Evelyn even thinks she senses some fear. They wait, anticipating. Neither of them wants to make the first move, but one of them will have to.

"Are you ready to fight for yourself, for once?" Evelyn doesn't even bother looking at him, a darkness covers her face, an inner fury even. She grows more angry when he just starts laughing.

"Why... are you laughing!" She screams.

"Why... why would I bother fighting myself, when I can summon an army of undead to do it for me? Seriously, why would I put myself at risk?" He curls his hand around the air in front of him and a dark energy fills it. He raises it, and with it, around 20 skeletonsrise from the ground. Evelyn takes a fighting stance. She doesn't break much of a sweat trying to take out the first one though, it almost just crumbles as soon as her blade touches it.

"Hah, is this a joke?" she laughed "I hope so, because this is simply pathetic!" Eventually she's just standing in what looks like a graveyard where the bodies were never properly buried. Vayne growles and raises another swarm of minions, except this time, they actually have flesh. Evelyn takes a few scratches, which heal in seconds, but still manages to kill them all.

"That's enough, let's see how you handle this!" Vaynes hands fill with a black an d purple void of dark energy. He pulls them from the ground as if he's lifting a dumbell that weighs 200kg. When they reach their peak, a skeletal figure climbs out of the ground, except this one was a hell of a lot bigger than the ones from before. This time it almost filled up half of the city center alone. It came in the form of a dragon, a dragon of pure bone! Evelyn shudders with fear at the sight of it.

"What's wrong? Don't think you can handle it?" asks Vayne. This snaps Evelyn straight out of it though and she dives in with her brandished steel. She hits its skull but it doesn't do a thing leaving a scratch on the surface aside. It roars in anger and leans in to bite her. She jumps back though not letting it touch her. She stands back, watching how it moved. She noticed that it's joints almost just come apart whenever one of them moves.

"That's how I'll kill it..." She says, under her breath. She avoids its jaw and flanks it from the side, taking advantage of the mistake of summoning something so big in such a small space. She slashes the joint connecting the wing to the body, and as she assumed, it easily just drops of. Vaynes face turns once again to shock as she makes quick work of the rest of its limbs.

"Are you... afraid of me...?" Evelyn asks, looking Vayne straight in the eye. Vayne hides his shocked expression, "of course not?"

"Then why do you fight as if you are? So far, all you've done is possess my best friend to try and catch me off guard and summon countless numbers of mere minions for me to feed my blade. Why don't you stop being a coward...?" She asks.

"I'm not being a cowa..."

"Then fight me, yourself..."

"Fine."

Evelyn stares straight into the beasts eye. She doesn't seem to care how powerful she knows he is.

"I am going to slaughter you..." she says. "I am going to cut you up, limb by limb, gut, you and literally murder you!" Her calm voice progressively turns into a loud scream, ringing in his ears. Vayne doesn't answer, just conjures a crossbow from thin air. A dark, magical bolt spawns inside it, and he shoots it straight at her forehead. She jumps to the side to get out of the way and charges at him with full force and her sword raised above her head. Vayne throws his crossbow to the side, and replaces it with a sword as long as   he is tall, but only as wide as an ordinary sword. He holds the handle in one hand and holds it to the side, with his other hand holding the bottom of the blade to stablize it. As soon as Evelyns cutlass clashes with it, his hand starts bleeding. His own sword digs deeper and deeper into his own flesh but he eventually manages to push Evelyn back. All the city was filled with echoes of swords clanging together and occasional groans of pain. Vayne shoots a gust of dark energy at her, launching her into the structure behind, the final objective of her mission. She gains her footing and climbs to the top of the city's center-piece. She grabs her bow from behind her back ad draws an arrow. She shoots three arrows off quickly which all get blocked from his sword. She grabs the last three arrows from her quiver and draws them in her bow all at once. She pulls them back at full strength and lets them fly through the air towards Vayne. He manages to block one of them, but the last hits him in the hand he uses to hold onto his weapon. He drops the blade on the ground but picks it up in his other hand, without seeming to be affected. He bites the arrow and rips it from his skin using the force of his jaw alone. A few drops of blood bleed away, but Vayne is back in fighting shape again quickly. Evelyn throws her bow and empty quiver to the side and jumps back down to the ground below. They charge at eachother again both blades brandished and the city fills with the same repetitive sounds of steel clashing and groans of pain until finally, Evelyn has him on the ropes. Vayne is blocking with all the might from his one good hand. He adds pressure from his other hand on the blade, trying to force it back. Both blades are shaking, both fighters getting their strength tested to the limit. Suddenly though, Evelyn feels herself grow stronger, as if, something imbued itself within her, "Tyde...?" She asks.

"Did you forget? He's dead... look, his body is right over there, and your body is going to join it!" Vayne threats. Evelyn continues ignoring him though and forces his blade out of his hand. He tries to get away but she points her cutlass right into his throat. When he stays still, she slices through his right shoulder, tearing off his arm. He screams in agony which drowns out the sound of his other arm getting cut clean off.

"Prepare... to die!" She raises her sword and lights runs out of her pocket and imbues her sword, making it flash blue, green, red, white and yellow. She stabs it straight down, piercing Vaynes heart, killing him instantly, and leaving her free to place the stones in the structure.

Evelyn lets go of her sword, leaving it in the mans chest.

"It's over..." She says, letting out a sigh of relief. She turns around and looks at Tydes body on the ground, "You're death... it wasn't for nothing. She places the stones in the slots associated with each element. Once the last one is in place, a blinding light fills the area. Vayne's body fades away, and so do the bodies of his minions. Tydes body however, stayes where it is, rather, it was cleansed from Vaynes bidding. All evil within a huge radius is banished. Evelyn waits for the light to die down and when her vision is restored, she sees a man stood in front of her. A hooded man. Evelyn can see straight through him as well.

"A... ghost?"

"I prefer the term 'spirit'..." Evelyn recognised the voice, and when the man lifted his hood, sure enough, it was the spirit of Tyde.

"Tyde! I'm... sorry..."

"Evelyn, I told you, it isn't your fault, don't feel guilty. You've done a great thing for this entire world, and for that, its people will be forever in your debt."

"Tyde..."

"It's time for you to go home, Evelyn." The spirit points at the completed structure and in the middle of it, opens a swirling vortex of colour.

"Jump in, and you'll be back in Earth, it was an honor meeting you, Evelyn Grey..." Evelyn can't bring herself to reply. She can't bare the thought of never seeing Tyde again. She stands at the edge of the vortex and takes one last look at her friend.

"Goodbye Tyde, I'll never forget you..."

Tyde raises his hand in salute, and Evelyn turns back to the vortex and jumps in.

The next morning, Evelyn awakes in her bed back in her university dorm. Sure enough, it's still filled with empty beer cans and bottles. She just lays there in bed for a while, doubting her own memory.

"Did all that really happen? Did Tyde exist? Did I just rid a world from terrible evil?" She's not sure for a moment if those questions will ever be answered, but when she looks around her room, something on her desk catches her eye. It's a blue gemstone, very similar to the Blessed Stone of Water, except it doesn't glow. She picks it up and gazes into it in her palm. After a while, a face appears inside the gem, it's Tyde.