Swan Song

The Unquiet Grave Part 3

Cheshire leaped at the elves, and managed to swipe his paw at one of them, throwing the unfortunate soul aside like a rag doll.

"What the hell is this!?" Lit yelled, looking at the cat's weird grin. He tried to slash at it with a sword, but the black feline pounced away with the grace of a house cat.

"Outlast it!" he heard Lock yelling, then turned toward Midas, a plan already forming in his mind.

"Sorry about this, pal," Lit whispered, and Midas gave him a worried look. "Oh, great lord of fairies, show us your wisdom!"

Cheshire promptly set his sights on Midas, who paled.

"We cannot do this without you," Lit continued. "Your power is unmatched! Without you, surely we will lose!"

Cheshire's grin widened. "Cheshire can match his power." Then, the cat attacked, and Midas did what he does best, and ran away. Cheshire gave chase, but the fairy servant zig-zagged, screaming frantically. The terror would've told any other opponent that Midas was harmless, but Cheshire was never known for being the brightest of Vanitas' servants.

Lit nodded to two of the fairies, who joined hands and started chanting.

Vanitas, wanting to preserve his magic for Lock and Robin, turned into his owl form to match the army of Pandorians. He swatted forward with a wing, sending some of them flying back. Alice rolled across the snow, ducking under the attack, and running toward the owl's feet, her sword raised.

Lit went to join Lock and Allen as the two fairies finished their spell, and dozens of arrows appeared out of thin air, and rained down upon Cheshire, who loudly meowed in agony.

"You just gonna stand there?" Lit teased, looking at Allen. The redhead turned red from both anger and embarrassment, then readied his own weapon.

"Let them go first," Lock told them, turning toward Robin. "Whenever Alice is about to be hit, blast her away. Can you do that gently?"

The gloomy angel shrugged. "Maybe. Don't know."

"Well, try."

Alice, in the meantime, was slashing at Vanitas' legs, while he tried to stop on her in return. Neither of them did any damage to the other, but then the rest of the army reached him, and they all began hacking away at the Owl. Screeching, the Fallen Earl brought his beak down unto Alice, who felt an invisible force push her back, and she avoided any damage once again. The owl, on the other hand, exposed its head to the rest of the knights, who gladly took advantage of it. Slowly, they managed to make minor cuts on Vanitas, but they only seemed to irritate him.

"What do we do?" Arthur whispered, holding unto Lock from behind. "Camelot's gone. Merlin said he's not gonna come back. What do we do?"

Lock looked at him with pity. "You don't need to do anything. Your people aren't here. There's no one for you to lead."

"I messed up," the boy king declared, tears in his eyes. "I couldn't do anything."

"You're just a kid," Allen assured him. "There's nothing you could've done. Besides, we haven't lost anything yet."

Lily then walked up to them, looking less like a queen and more like a regular woman. She was clearly tired.

"Your doing?" Lock asked, indicating the ground.

She nodded. "Not that it'll last long."

"How'd you get here?"

"The sleeper from the prison. He used his power to switch us with the people who lived here. I'll tell you the details later. What you need to know now is that he's using my magic to power this, and it won't last long. The rate they're going, they won't do much damage to Vanitas. You'll have to take it from there."