The Hellhound barrels into the room, taking five Obsidians with her, all of whom who shatter into pathetic pieces underneath her massive paws. One turns into a buglike being with a large, spear-like face, and dives straight for her head, and she deflects it with one horn, causing the Obsidian to screech down the side of the hard bone before Vivian bucks it off. Another takes the form of a unicorn, which she blasts mid-charge, and then she's a blur of fire and fury, spitting wayward sparks at the bars and holding off half our aggressors at once.

Natrina breaks free of the other Obsidians, joining her old friend in combat, and the two of them wheel about each other like they'd never left the other's side. No Obsidian comes close and they begin going for the other Sentients in the room instead, but a quick blast from Natrina's wyrmflower puts an end to several and drives the other back. When they finish, the floor sizzles and a thick smoke wafts up from the floor where Vivian's sparks fell.

Iris's jaw crunches solid stone, breaking a final Obsidian, and Snow Hare and I cower in the corner. Many of the other beings, alien to us, have escaped their cages as well. A few disappear down the halls or hide in the back of the cages, quite a few attempt to turn invisible, but most come down to meet us. A babble of noise fills the air, and I catch traces of the Obsidian common, the prisoner language used between those of us with audible language. Its harsh, fast tones fill my ears- I'd almost forgotten how much of Sentient communication was either body language or telepathy, merely supplemented by the tone of voice.

In the midst of it all, Natrina and Vivian lock eyes. The two of them are near the same size, which is disorienting on both sides. Natrina is older, just judging by the condition of her coat, but both of their horns are around the same size, and Vivian has sheer grit going for her, so the formidability cancels out.

"You're alive." Natrina whispers. "It's been thousands of years-"

"Five." Vivian flinches, turning her face away. "Best I can approximate."

Natrina's eyes swim with pain.

"I wouldn't say my estimation skills are all that good, Nat."

"We should move on." Natrina insists, eyes roving the exit, tail half-tucked.

Vivian rounds on her. "Is she- Is Lotus-"

My mind flashes back to that white Canis hanging in a tree, strangled by vines. This is a story I already know the ending to. "It's been an eternity, Vivian. What do you think?"
Vivian lets Natrina pass, head dipped, her eyes watching the steel. The room is full of the thick hum of Obsidian common now as prisoners file in, and I see the scars of former battles across their body, at least for those who do scar. A few are too abstract for me to recognize, but we share a common vengeance today. By contrast, the cluster of Sentients looks small, and I'm relieved for the assistance.

A Sorrowful Lily is engraved into the metal, marking our presence, and then we are gone. Iris holds to my side and I hold to hers, searching for anyone who could have survived my less-successful missions. I see no familiar faces, nor bodies, and my heart falls. Even Vivian's entourage is devoid of anyone who fought in the last battles, looking immortal as Natrina just by virtue of the short lifespans of all those around her. The menagerie of foreign beasts cloak her form, and I remember the reverence with which they treated her when we found her group, close to a year ago.

Iris mouths the words of the chant- the light of a sun will shine upon our backs, in this life or the next- and we remember, together. The memory is so fuzzy that it feels false in my mind, that it no longer belongs to me but a ghost of myself who has faded into the past- the ghost whose fear tracks me down these halls, padding in my pawsteps.

The halls are already rife with more Obsidians, their empty eyes gleaming from their sockets, but hope comes in the form of reinforcements. Canira flood the hall, and I recognize the gem-studded Canira from our time with the Evelscan Defenders, up in the mountains. Her gem shards batter Obsidian stone, scoring long lines down the side, and I feel my body kick into gear without me, shooting a quick burst of fire in the direcion of her opponent. It lands, and my tail sparks. I look for Iris, who is already gone, fighting with the best of them. The Obsidians have no clue how to handle her. She is sparing with her attacks, blasting only the more dangerous foes with pure, concentrated light, but she's effective. I almost kick myself after her, running behind her through the unending fray, but I get almost nothing in before the battle seems to have dispersed.

The entire group stalls, then those in the interior begin filing back towards the front. Snow Hare is gone, and I step over bodies and shards, hoping with every fiber of my heart I won't see her amongst the dead.

Never to come home, I think.

Iris holds my gaze.

"Do we... are we..." I ask.

"Why would you give a weapon a soul, Torch?" she sighs.

I tuck my ears and tail as I continue. We emerge into one of the plazas. All the alarm lights have been bashed in, as well as the pitch generators. The Obsidians usually herd escapees into areas like this, in order to transform into larger forms and anhilate them. I grow dizzy as I look down the sprawling hallways, branching out around me into dozens of paths that can only lead to death. Only Iris at my side and the army, at my back, remind me that we are not here to be hunted. We may have come to die, but if all goes well, we will be the last.

I scent smoke.

Vivian marks our path with another Sorrowful Lily, engraved into the far wall and half-hidden by all the others filling the room, but I catch the outermost petal. Iris twitches her ear, shaking the parallel curve of her own tufted fur.

Natrina approaches Vivian through the steely silence. Though there are larger aliens, the aura the two radiate is something else altogether. Even the dragons reel back when Natrina passes. The Green Canis leers Vivian down."What is that."

Vivian steps away to give Natrina a better view, courteously. "It's a memoriam. You might never see them, but there have been hundreds in the Factory. Perhaps thousands." Vivian's green eyes blaze with defiance. "It's a lily caught on fire."

One of Natrina's branches, laden with thorns, whips out faster than in battle and knocks Vivian across the face, leaving a bleeding slash across the side of her muzzle. "How dare you."

"I never expected to see her again." Vivian yells back.

"Did you think this would make up for everything? A symbol that you still loved her, was that enough? If you loved her, you wouldn't have left us." The crowd swells. Noise breaks out around them, although none of them can understand what the other side is saying. Iris and I, the only links between Natrina's smooth Dreamlandian dialect and the coarse common Obsidian, listen as chaos arises on both sides. All the Sentients are horrified as two figures of myth clash, while the Obsidians are seeing an outsider opposing their trusted leader. The whole room is ready to pounce.

"I was a Defender. My duty was to her second, but my world first." My heart jumps. Vivian, a Defender. Vivian, one with the pack. It makes too much sense. Of course Vivian was one of us, how could she be anything else? "The world needed to be saved. I was willing to sacrifice myself and any life I could have had. If that means your good graces went, well, can't say I'm suddenly overcome with remorse."

"You didn't save the world." Natrina snaps.

"I saved you. I saved them." Vivian says, with a jab of her horns in our direction.

"We could have saved ourselves-"

"Lotus would have wanted this."

"Lotus tried to hang herself after you left and spent the rest of her natural life pining over you!" Natrina's form wavers, her whole body spiking up in unnatural directions. Her muscles seize up and her branches wither, her breath choking on every single intake of air. When she returns to herself, she's hunched over the ground, doubled over with pain. Her brown eyes search the floor for an answer.

"What did Aislyn do to you?" Vivian whispers.

Natrina turns her head away, like she's been hit.

Several of the Sentients have burst into hot dispute, and I hear catches of "suicide mission" on the air, like we didn't all know since the beginning what the risk would be. I freeze up, searching my dry mouth for the right words to say, and Iris bursts into light.

Her dark fur shines through the glow, giving her the semblance of form, but every white and refractive fur on her body is radiant. Her ears glow gold, flecked with brown, and her wings are transelucent enough that their pastel membranes cast her own glow across the walls. She is no longer photokinetic, she is the light, the sun, everything. Her eyes, the only familiar thing about her, stare into mine, and she mutters, "Please move."

I shuffle out of the way, and everyone else steps away in hurried fashion. I hear a few of Vivian's crowd begin to recite the chant, low at first, but as the old speech rises Iris hisses, "Silence, please."

The room goes dead.

Speaking in both languages at once, she says, "I can sense the fear in this room. It is not unwarranted- this may be our last battle. It has been for many of us, some of whom died knowing eternal rest had just been snatched from them and others of whom died knowing home was just beyond their reach. There is no bravery like what we are undertaking. More importantly, though, there will never be another chance like this.

The Obsidians are being distracted by an army back on Dreamland as we speak. If we fail today, we fail. They fall, we fall, and the Obsidians' grip on the worlds will spread like a plague to all the still-living worlds, in all timelines. This is the last battle- this is the day of days. We can not fall from the inside. Put aside your quarrel, lay down your fear.

We are of one body today. All we have now is to continue."

"Who are you?" one voice drifts up from the crowd, and I recognize Vivian, squinting into the light. An unsaid question rests beneath it- Lotus?

"I am the Hope Virtue of the Obsidian Factory." Iris says. A cry rises up from the whole crowd, and we have found one holy word to unite universes- hope. She raises her head like the sun and turns it towards the dark halls ahead, to Nethera's throne and the end of times, and I smell something unnatural up ahead. Iris's mouth teems with light, which grows until it fills her throat. She shoots a beam down the hall and I can taste the purity of the air. "There is no need to be afraid. I will protect you all."

The crowd roars, readying their own weapons. Iris leads the way down the hall, now with Vivian and Nat following behind in silence, and I keep her side. My own tail sparks with a bed of embers, nowhere near her in power, but she almost leans into me, so that we lead each other.

"Can you hear them?" I whisper in her ear.

She looks to me, in the depths of her manifest, and a smile spreads across her face. It's not Iris's expression, but it is familiar in a way I can't quite parce. "Yes."

"Are they angry?"

"Beyond comprehension." she says. "They are full of emotion- but there is one thing we agree on, even over that."

"Yes?" I ask. Darkness looms around every corner. We both sense the presence of danger, the fighters on our flanks and the Obsidians out front, their chests covered with other minerals. They begin bounding down the halls and the world turns around us into a blur of fear and panic.

"I love you." she says, and we draw away to face the end of the world.

(A/N: Was going to post this last night but got sidetracked. Wb)