Chapter 44: The Battle for Oakridge

{Mara}

The Primal Demon stood before them, its purple eyes cold and emotionless. Mara had seen many horrors in her time as an angel, but Primals were something else entirely. The air around it rippled with power, making the hairs on her arms stand up.

To her left, Diana looked like she’d seen a ghost. The normally confident warrior was visibly trembling, her sword grip unsteady. To her right, Grace looked more confused than scared, strangely.

The fallen angel behind them laughed, delighted by this turn of events.

“Oh my. It seems our special guest has arrived,” she purred. “How fortunate.”

Mara took a deep breath. Someone had to take charge before they all died standing here.

“Diana,” she said firmly. “Diana!”

The warrior angel didn’t respond, her eyes locked on the Primal.

Mara slapped her. Hard.

“OW! What the—” Diana blinked, rubbing her reddening cheek.

“Focus,” Mara ordered. “We have a situation.”

“No shit,” Diana muttered, but at least she looked less catatonic.

The Primal Demon took a step forward, its attention fixed squarely on Grace. That was… interesting. And concerning.

“Here’s the plan,” Mara said quickly. “I’ll take the Primal. You two handle the fallen angel and her pets.”

“You can’t fight a Primal alone!” Grace protested.

“I’m not planning to win,” Mara replied with a small smile. “Just keep it busy. The real target is the nest. Destroy that, and we might have a chance.”

Before either of them could argue further, the Primal moved. One moment it was standing fifteen feet away, the next it was directly in front of Grace, one massive hand reaching for her throat.

[Dammit!]

Mara’s mace connected with the demon’s arm, sending it staggering sideways. The Primal’s head turned toward her, those empty purple eyes narrowing slightly.

“Go!” Mara shouted, positioning herself between the demon and Grace. “Now!”

—

{Grace}

Grace stumbled backward, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might break her ribs. That thing had moved so fast she hadn’t even seen it coming.

Diana grabbed her arm and yanked her toward the fallen angel’s position.

“Move your ass!” Diana hissed. “Or do you want to see Mara die for nothing?”

That got Grace moving. The two of them circled around as Mara engaged the Primal, her blue robes swirling as she dodged the demon’s strikes. For someone whose primary role was healing, and had such an… abundant body, Mara was surprisingly quick on her feet.

The fallen angel watched their approach with an amused expression.

“The little angel who can kill demons,” she said, her voice like honey laced with poison. “How delicious.”

Diana flinched beside her.

“Shut up,” Grace said, pointing her rapier at the angel. “Release these people. Stop whatever you’re doing to them!”

The fallen angel laughed.

“So bossy for one so young.” She spread her gray wings, black corruption running through them like veins. “Let me show you what true power looks like.”

With a gesture from the fallen angel, the corrupted villagers lurched forward, moving with jerky, unnatural steps. Behind them, five regular demons growled, their eyes glowing red in the gloom.

“We are so screwed,” Diana muttered.

Grace glanced at her, then at the approaching enemies.

“Just focus on the villagers. I’ll try to get to the angel.”

“… Alright.”

Diana launched herself at the nearest group of corrupted villagers. Grace ducked around them, trying to make a direct path to the fallen angel.

A corrupted villager lunged at her. Grace thrust with her rapier, aiming for where she could see the corruption core pulsing in the villager’s chest. Her blade pierced it cleanly, and the villager dropped like a puppet with cut strings.

[One down. A million to go. Great.]

Behind her, she could hear the sounds of Mara battling the Primal — the crash of her mace against the demon’s hide, the whoosh of air as massive claws narrowly missed their target. She didn’t dare look back.

“Focus on what’s in front of you,” she muttered to herself, taking down another corrupted villager. “She can handle herself.”

She cut her way through three more, each one falling as she destroyed their corruption cores. But something felt off. Diana should have been carving through these villagers twice as fast as Grace, yet when Grace glanced over, she saw the warrior angel struggling.

Diana’s movements were sluggish, her attacks lacking their usual precision. She barely deflected a corrupted villager’s clumsy swing, stumbling backward in a way Grace had never seen before.

“Diana! What are you doing?” Grace called out as she dispatched another villager.

“Shut up!” Diana snapped, her voice tight with… fear?

The fallen angel was watching it all with a smirk on her face, clearly enjoying the show.

“Your friend remembers,” she said to Grace. “She remembers what it feels like to face a Primal. To know you’re going to die. To want to run.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Grace shouted to Diana. “She’s just trying to get in your head!”

But Diana wasn’t listening. Her eyes kept darting to where Mara fought the Primal, her movements becoming increasingly erratic.

One of the demons lunged at Grace, forcing her attention back to her own fight. Its claws raked across her arm, tearing through her sleeve and drawing blood. Grace hissed in pain, spinning away and thrusting her rapier into the demon’s side.

Unlike the corrupted villagers, the demon didn’t drop. It howled and swiped at her again, its wound already closing.

[Right. Only I can kill demons permanently, but I still have to actually kill them first!]

She stabbed again, this time aiming for where a heart would be on a human. The demon staggered, black ichor spraying from the wound. Grace pulled her blade free and struck once more, and this time the demon began to dissolve, its form breaking apart into swirling particles of corruption.

A scream drew her attention. Diana was on the ground, a corrupted villager looming over her. Her sword lay just out of reach, and her eyes were wide with panic.

“Diana!” Grace shouted, running toward her.

The fallen angel stepped into her path, gray wings spread wide.

“Not so fast, little killer.”

Grace didn’t slow down. She lowered her shoulder and barreled straight into the fallen angel’s midsection, tackling her to the ground. They rolled together in the corrupted muck, Grace struggling to keep hold of her rapier.

The fallen angel’s fist connected with Grace’s jaw, sending black stars exploding across her vision. Grace returned the favor, smashing her forehead into the angel’s nose with a satisfying crunch.

“Bitch!” the fallen angel spat, blood streaming down her face.

Grace didn’t respond verbally. Instead, she kicked at the fallen angel’s midsection, making just enough space between them for Grace to scramble away.

She staggered to her feet, in time to see Diana finally grab her sword and dispatch the villager that had nearly killed her. Diana’s face was pale, her breathing ragged.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Grace demanded, keeping one eye on the fallen angel who was slowly getting back to her feet.

“N-None of your fucking business!” Diana snarled, her voice cracking.

“It is when you’re fighting like a drunk toddler!”

“Oh, I’m sorry my fighting isn’t CONVENIENT for you right now!”

A corrupted villager charged at them. Grace stabbed it without even looking, her eyes fixed on Diana’s face.

“You ran, didn’t you?” Grace said, the pieces finally clicking together. “When you faced a Primal before. That’s what you’ve been hiding.”

Diana’s face contorted with rage and shame.

“Shut UP!” She swung her sword wildly, taking down two approaching villagers with more fury than skill. “You don’t know anything! You don’t know what it’s like to watch your entire squad get torn apart while you just… while you…”

“While you survived!”

“I DIDN’T DESERVE TO!” Diana roared. “They all died, and I ran! Like a coward! And now it’s happening again, and I can’t… I can’t…”

The fallen angel’s laughter cut through their argument.

“Oh, this is better than I could have hoped. The brave warrior angel, reduced to a sobbing mess. How pathetic.”

Grace whirled around, aiming her rapier at the fallen angel again.

“You don’t get to talk to her like that!”

The fallen angel’s smirk faltered slightly.

“Big words from such a small angel.”

“Big enough to end you,” Grace replied, and lunged.

Putting all of Seraph’s lessons at the forefront of her mind, Grace ran forward. Her rapier moved faster than she thought possible, slicing through the air. The fallen angel barely dodged, her gray wings flaring wide. Grace pressed forward, not giving her a chance to recover, each thrust of her slender blade forcing the angel back another step.

For the first time, Grace saw fear in those corrupted eyes.

The fallen angel leapt backward, nearly tripping over a corrupted villager in her haste to pull away.

“What? Afraid I’ll hit you?” Grace asked, panting. “Well, you should be!”

Behind her, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Diana following, taking down any villagers that tried to interfere.

They had the fallen angel on the defensive now. She was backing up toward the center of the nest, where those cocoons hung from twisted branches. Grace could sense victory approaching, could feel the fallen angel’s growing panic.

The fallen angel’s back hit one of the larger cocoons. She glanced behind her, then back at Grace, desperate calculation in her eyes.

“You think you can win?” she hissed. “This is just the beginning. There are more of us than you can imagine.”

Grace and Diana stepped forward, intending to end this little skirmish.

But, before either of them could move, a scream tore through the air. Not the fallen angel’s, but Mara’s. Grace whipped around to see the healer angel on her knees, the Primal Demon looming over her. Blood soaked the front of Mara’s robes, her mace lying broken beside her.

“MARA!” Grace screamed.

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