Sanguine Halo

Chapter Twelve: Athalia

And now the end comes near... Something very ancient and divine lurks in the corner of a dusty, old chest inside an empty room.

"What's the matter?" Fawkes asked Mirael. She held the latch of the door but never unlocked it. Fawkes moved closer holding her arms supporting her up.

"My chest... It feels like burning up." A seemingly dark scriptures of unknown words starts appearing in Mirael's body and glowed bright.

"I know we can't do this Mirael... Let's head back. Stop this madness..."
Fawkes tried helping her up and carries her upstairs but Mirael swayed his arms away from her and lifts up the latch and opened the basement door.

"You can't stop me. If this is the only way to save everyone... I will gladly become the sacrifice for this thing."

Mirael went inside and Fawkes followed her. He lifts him up. The wooden chest is shaking very violently. The contained power behaved erratically with Mirael being close to it. The scriptures appeared more and more and half of Mirael's body soon became dark like the color of the hypogeans.

"If you are the one who's going to save us all, please... by Dura's grace... I summon thee..." Mirael lifted up the lid of the chest letting out the bright relic's light.
The light shot far up to the sky like a concentrated aura.
Mirael fell on the floor unconcious and the hypogean skin on her body disappeared but a small scripture remained on her shoulder... It wasn't anything related to the hypogeans. Fawkes raised her arm examining the scriptures.

The sky above the castle glowed alight and the dark clouds dissipated leaving only white luminous clouds on it's place. A strong sound then echoed coming from the sky as if something is about to descend.

"They have done it." Estrilda murmured watching at the sky above them.

A woman with white wings and complete battle armor emerged from the sky and descended down without even flapping her wings. Her feathers shone bright.
She was like an angel. Her hands wielded two swords and her feet wasn't even ordinary. Her feet are made of swords themselves.

She landed down on the ground with grace and walked straight up to Estrilda.

"Who hath summoned me?" She asked her straight. Estrilda couldn't speak a thing. Knowing that a celestial stands before her, she's in a state of daze.

Fawkes carrying the unconcious Mirael hysterically went to the alliance.
"Please heal her. Please! She touched the relic and... and..."

Nemora jumped into action and seeing Mirael lying unconscious, she performed a healing spell the one that she made at Fawkes but the scriptures didn't go away nor Mirael did awaken.

Hearing the commotion outside, the woman stepped inside and saw Mirael lying at Fawkes' arms. She saw the dark scriptures and flinched.

"She's the one who had summoned me? An ordinary human?"

"How did you know?" Fawkes asked the brilliant woman in front of him.

"That's my name engraved in her skin... A-tha-lia... It says."

After the woman spoke, Mirael awakened and found the woman staring at her quietly.

"Wh-what the...?" Mirael had been taken by surprise. Estrilda did the talking...

"Well... The relic worked and now you've really summoned a celestial. Mirael, meet Athalia..."

Athalia removed her helmet and her shiny yellow hair and blue eyes showed. Apart from being in her armor, she is very dashing when she removed her helmet.