Darcy POV 

(Lost a lot of motivation recently so sorry if the chapter feels dry. Been struggling a bit with life ngl.) 

"Wait a minute, run this by me again." Ari said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "There's a book, this book, that has hundreds of different prophecies that are slowly coming true, and you just happened to come across it?" 

"Sounds legit." Aalto said, braiding her long silver hair down her shoulder. I swear her hair is literally gorgeous like what, how the fuck does it always look perfect, I wait two minutes and it looks like I just rolled out of bed. 

Tsuki grinned. You could see the shadows under their eyes. We've really gotta get them to sleep again. "Yup! A dead-" 

"Supposedly dead." Aeron corrected. 

"A supposedly dead god guided me to a cave in the ocean view cliffs of Mezalea, through a few passages, and into the small tunnel which housed this!" They smiled. 

"How do we know it was a god and not your subconscious leading you to the place?" Aeron said, raising a thick black eyebrow. "The human subconscious is a strange thing that we don't really know. It may've just been you." 

Aeron did have a point. The subconscious of a human is insane, same with a god! One time, Ignius and I were having a sleepover, and he got up and walked into the kitchen and made himself a fucking cheese toastie while asleep. WHO JUST DOES THAT?

Anyway, enough of my tangent. 

Tsuki sighed, jabbing at the book on the table. "I know what I felt! Besides, when have you seen a trail of fucking stars in your subconscious?" 

"Tsuki, I get migraines." 

"...fair." It chuckled. "Anyways, the sun's coming up so I best be off." 

Aalto and I both stood up. "Same, to be honest. I have a contraption I need to finish, so..." I slowly made my way to the door, gesturing to it with finger guns. 

"Next one'll be at Gilded Helianthia." Ari said, sighing. "War room." 

I nod, rushing out the door and jumping on the back of Apollo. The black skin under it's scales rippled as he flew. He looked like reverse magma, if you think about it. Reddish orange on top, black underneath. 

The beats of his wings against the early dawn breeze wafted cold air over me like a blanket. The air was thin, but like, we're at a really high altitude so what did you expect. 

The corrupted empire of Werrenville rolled below me and Apollo. Huge red tendrils burst out the floor, wrapping around the floating islands, looking like they were almost pulling them down and pushing them up. 

Chills ran down my spine. It's truly horrendous to see this on images sent on the chat, even worse when you're there, in the  flesh. The veins in the tendrils of deep black magic, twisting and moving around, emanating more and more corruption. A wall of bones, pulsing with dark energy. It looks like Evangeline has learned necromancy. 

Need to jot that down. 

As I flew over the border between Rivendale and Werrenville, a strange whistling filled the air. The sound was coupled, a few seconds later, with a strange warmth trickling down my ear. I pressed my fingers to the spot it was coming from. When I drew them back, I felt sick as hot, sticky, deep red blood covered the tips of my fingers. 

I dodged another one, now realising that arrows were flying at me and Apollo. Presumably the undead soldiers were shooting at me, not very funky. 

Holding onto Apollo's reigns in one hand, I shot fire balls down at the undead soldiers. Some fell down, some only shot flaming arrows back. Considering I control fire, I could just return the arrows, but Apollo isn't very brainy or immune to fire -he's a fire dragon so that's really confusing but we deal -so we just dive out the way. 

We were being shot at on all sides, Apollo's metal underbelly being better at defence helped massively, but we were still being hurt greatly. I felt like the end was near, like the armour I had built for Apollo wasn't gonna hold up. 

Another whistle hit my arm, sending a burst of pain through it. I yelled, ripping the arrow out and throwing it on the floor. 

"INCOMING!" I heard a shout next to me, before a bright flash of purple filled the air and Tsuki's magic shot down at the skeletons. An ear-splitting screech, then they all collapsed. 

Ok, then Tsuki, being the chaotic badass they are, yelled, "BYE BITCH!" and threw a bandage back at me. 

I caught it, looping the reigns around my arm and using my actual arm to wrap the bandage around my injured arm. Apollo flew home, touching down and letting me get of before walking himself into the stables. 

Walking to the front door, Usha, my advisor, waved. Her dark brown hair was tied in a pair of neat boxer braids. HOW DOES EVERYONE KEEP THEIR HAIR NEAT WHAT THE HELLLL!!!

"Sir, there's been a letter for you." She said, passing me a dull beige envelope. I ripped it open. 

Darcy, 

It has been a long time, good friend. We should meet up again, shouldn't we? 

Please come to the meeting room in the centre of my empire three weeks today. Arrive before 6pm in formal wear. 

Thank you, my friend, 

-Evangeline

WHAT THE FU-