Blessed by Night

Chapter 146  First Embrace

Malachi was suddenly assailed with a terrible headache that made him feel like his head was going to split open. Flashes occurred in his mind, and he saw Anna being struck in the head by a falling beam and collapsing onto the ground. The last thing she saw before she passed out was two men floating in the sky above the open ceiling, wearing the same white robes that Arias and his followers could be seen wearing. "Enzo... change of plans." Malachi muttered. The guild master suppressed a shiver when he felt Malachi\'s tone and demeanor do a complete one eighty. Three pairs of huge black wings burst out of his back and Enzo was nearly blown away by the gust of wind they produced just from being unfurled. Malachi reached up towards his face and removed his mask before dropping it onto the ground. He inhaled the cool night air as his swirling purple eyes changed to a sadistic and murderous red. "I think... I\'m gonna lose control just a little bit. So your new job is to make sure none of our people get hit when that happens, alright?" Before Enzo could ask what was going on, he heard the familiar rumbling of thunder from overhead. Out of nowhere, dense black storm clouds began to cover the sky, bringing with them a brutal downpour and a storm of black lightning the likes of which left huge craters in the ground. If Enzo didn\'t protect the blessed they\'d come with, they were all going to end up as collateral damage. But for the life of him, he couldn\'t understand why Malachi was suddenly behaving so recklessly. However, before he could ask him, he had already disappeared from where he stood a mere moment ago. The vampire Nadine looked at the storm coming overhead and clicked her teeth in annoyance. She tried to raise her arm and protect herself from any wayward lightning but.. she couldn\'t move her arms. As a matter of fact, she couldn\'t move her entire body. It was like she was being held in place by some invisible force that had no intentions of relinquishing her from it\'s grasp, leaving her with no choice but to take this lightning bolt head on. BOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!!!!!

When the smoke cleared, Nadine was relatively fine save for a few scorch marks, but the lavish dark dress she wore was damaged in several places, exposing patches of her flawless skin. "This is... unreal.." She muttered. A gust of wind blew her hair into her face, and she found Malachi flying towards her while wearing a vengeful look. "Seems we\'re outta time to play. So you and every other monster in this gate need to die quick."

As Nadine looked into the face of the man who was about to deliver her a swift and cruel death, an emotion she never expected started to bubble within her stomach. \'Ah... I love him~!\' -

"Anna!"

"Anna, are you okay!?"

"She\'s not waking up!!"

After the girls saw Anna hit the ground, they immediately forgot all about the danger of falling debris and rushed to her side. Upon assessing her injuries, they found a rather large gash in her forehead that was leaking a concerning amount of blood. While it was healing, it was very slow, and Anna had yet to regain consciousness. However, things weren\'t as bad as they seemed. Anna\'s blessing made it so that her body was almost as durable as Mal\'s without any additional training. If one of the other girls had been hit by a steel girder like she had, their entire head likely would have been crushed. After they saw that Anna would be fine, Aisha and Aubrey looked into the sky for the culprits while Sei and Serana remained by her side waiting for her to wake up. High up above, they found two men in white robes floating side by side, with one raining down what appeared to be chunks of earth onto the building. Aisha pulled out a staggeringly large golden bow from her storage ring and immediately took aim at the two attackers. As she pulled back the bowstring, two arrows made of blue magic notched themselves of their own volition. "Babe, little help?"

"Sure!"

Once Aisha let the bowstring go, Aubrey further enhanced their speed and velocity by using her power over wind. Even though this attack was coming from a measly bow and arrow, an explosion like that of a cannonball occurred as the projectiles sailed towards their targets. One of the men in the air seemed to sense the coming attack and held out his hand to stop it. A shield made from earth protected the two men from the blast, and caused no more damage than a small explosion. The two of them descended towards the ground their arms folded behind their back and bodies that were entirely devoid of worry. They landed on top of a mountain of rubble, and inspected all five of the women present with curious eyes. "Odd... I thought the guilds would all be empty in light of everything that is going on." One said. "I believe the rest are, brother. The guilds are supposed to be closed today in honor of those that ventured into the gate." Added the other. "So then what? Are these ladies rule breakers?"

"More likely they are people who don\'t know how to sit idle."

"Ah, I see."

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TWO AND WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING THE GUILD?!" The two strangers stared down at a clearly irate Aisha without an ounce of fear in their bodies. "She\'s loud."

"Well wouldn\'t you be if someone suddenly dropped a building on you for no reason?"

"Hm... I suppose that does make sense."

"Right, so answer her question, Brother Griffin."

The man described as Griffin was the same one who had been using the earth attacks before and was responsible for the total destruction of Immortal Moon. "Right then, listen up, loud girl. My brother Cassius and I are here representing The Ten Sentinels of The New Day. As for why we destroyed this base..."

"It\'s because guilds as a whole are no longer needed. These places whose sole purpose serves to protect and coddle the humans have no place in the new world. We don\'t want to have monuments dedicated to any Uncle Toms now, do we?" Cassius finished. Griffin looked at his brother oddly through his mask and gave him a small nudge. "Why did you ask me to explain if you were just going to steal my spotlight?"

"Sorry brother, but you were taking too long. The ladies might get bored and fall asleep before you could finish."

"You take that back!"

It seemed like the two brother\'s were going to start fighting amongst themselves when Sei and Serana let out twin cries of surprise. "Oh thank goodness, you\'re awake!"

"I was so scared!"

Near the girls, Anna was sitting up on the ground and wiping away the blood that had run down the left side of her face. "I need all of you to tell me something right now..."

Right before the eyes of everyone present, Anna\'s hair and eyes were dyed an intense and bloody red. Her tattoos normally glowed a bright purple color, but for some reason they too changed to match her hair and eyes. For some reason, the power coursing through these markings of hers seemed to be a great deal more powerful than normal. "Who the fuck... dropped a fucking building... on my motherfucking face...?"

All of the girls here knew that Anna was significantly sweeter than her outside appearance would suggest. And after spending enough time with her, they all came to see her as a super cute teddy bear who made you want to give them endless hugs. But as of right now, that teddy bear was nowhere in sight. For the first time, Anna actually seemed like a roguish delinquent who would beat you up outside of a bad neighborhood and take all your money. The girls couldn\'t do anything but silently point at the two men standing around in strange robes. "Snitches..." "I know, right?" Anna started walking on shaky legs with her fists clenched tight enough to crush bone. "Okay.... which one of you wants to die first?"

This time, the two brothers pointed at each other as if they were offering each other up on a silver platter. "Actually, don\'t worry about it ... CAUSE BOTH OF YOU SONS OF BITCHES ARE GOING TO GO TOGETHER!!!"

Anna parted her full pink lips and a huge beam of destructive red energy shot out of her mouth. BOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

Cassius and Griffin took the blast head on and flew through the air like kites with their strings cut. The two of them were sent crashing through a collapsed wall over fifty yards away, and Anna doubled over as she tried to catch her breath. "I\'m... not done with you bitches either... Just wait till I catch my breath... I\'m gonna beat you till you shit yourselves...!"

Her threat would have sounded significantly more frightening had she not been struggling to stay on her feet at the moment. "ANNALISE!"

Looking up in the sky, the girls found a woman in a pantsuit with huge white wings descending onto the battlefield. The sight of so much of her daughter\'s blood being spilled admittedly caused Joanne to panic, and faster than Anna\'s eyes could follow she was on the ground in front of her. "M-My girl, are you okay? What happened to you..?"

Joanne seemingly forgot all about the fact that she and her daughter weren\'t exactly the closest and threw her arms around her for a protective hug. Unsure of what to do, Anna froze up like a deer in headlights and simply let this relative stranger hug her. It only dawned on Joanne a few moments later that this gesture may have been unwanted and she started to pull away regretfully. Anna\'s hands soon found their way around her mother\'s back and she pulled her into her embrace. "It was just some stuff... but I\'m alright now...mom." Is it too early to start watching Halloween movies or is my girl tripping? n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om