AVENGER, Part Five
Reality was dead. Big Mamma was murdered not at the hand of Zaha Torte, but by her loyal servant, Gateau Mocha. Mocha had been planning the assassination, it seemed, for only a short while before it ultimately happened.
Shortly after the five Sorcerer Hunters escaped death at the hands of Zaha Torte, and the Destruction God was finally sealed again, it seems that Mocha began to devise his plan. Through a correspondence with Torte, he decided, for God only knows what reason, to bring the Stellar Church tumbling down. Mocha had always been against sorcerers, violently opposed to them, in fact. They had killed or kidnapped those he loved. And yet something brought him to the point where all he wanted to do was crush the Church.
The other Hunters didn’t notice until it was too late, and Carrot Glace lay dead on the ground and Mocha had escaped to parts unknown.
After his brother’s death, Marron had gone to the Stellar Church to address Big Mamma about the death. What he fond there was a sight he would never forget.
The deity’s throat had been slit, and the huge woman lay sprawled on the floor, dead. The Haz Knights lay scattered on the floor like corn-husk dolls, all dead, too, although the cause of their deaths was not discernible. Perhaps Torte had used some magic to rob them of their lives. Marron would shed no tears for neither Big Mamma nor Mille Feiulle, his murdered Haz Knight friend.
Dota, the winged girl who had kept Big Mamma company, lay over the deity’s body. Only this one was not dead. She wept bitterly, loudly, dryly over her Mother’s body. Her back was covered in blood, which seeped from the two wounds on her back where her wings has once been.
“... Dota...”
The girl ceased her weeping, and looked up. He couldn’t help but gasp. Her face was slashed and mutilated in every sort of unthinkable way. Blood was caked in every crevice of her face. One of her eyes was not visible for all the blood.
“Is it that bad?” she asked quietly.
“Dota, what has happened here?” he asked.
She broke out into sobs, which were followed by no tears, as she had expended all her saltwater already. “Gateau and Zaha came. They killed Mille and the others, and then they went after Mamma. She tried to fight them, but she ... she couldn’t.”
“Mamma couldn’t fight them...? Why not?”
She shook her horrible head. “I don’t know,” she wailed. “They deflected every blow she put at them. And then - oh!” She let out a grievous sob. “And then - and then Gateau slit her throat, clean, just like that.”
“Bastard,” he breathed violently.
The girl was sobbing harshly, and he took her by the shoulder. “Dota, you must wrap yourself in a heavy cloak, and go into the city, and search out Tira and Chocolate.”
“... You mean... You mean they’re alive?”
“Yes,” said he. “You must find them, and they will try their best to heal you.”
The next time he saw the girl was when he walked into the flat Tira and Chocolate had shared at the time. Dota was sitting in a rocking chair, dressed all in grey, her face towards the fire. The glided silently forwards and back, humming gently. The sisters stood in the doorway. ‘We tried our best,’ they had told him before he entered the room.
“Dota...” he said quietly.
She turned around. Her face mass a was of ridged scars, crevices, deep white valleys and mottled riverbed. Her lip was split, and overlarge, and her nose was crooked and strange-looking.
“I know,” she said, smiling horribly in an inhuman contortion of her already weird features. “I know.”
“Oh, Dota,” he said quietly, “I’m so sorry.”
She looked up at him sadly. “Me, too.” She paused, and looked him over for a minute. “It should have been me dead, and Mamma scarred like this. If it had been, things would be better.”
“Only marginally,” he said quietly. “Mortal existence would still be hell, Dota, and there is nothing we could have done to change it.”
He opened his eyes, finally finding the strength to do it, and got out of bed. Dressing quickly, he walked into the kitchen of her flat. Both sisters looked at him as though he was a spectre.
“I’m not dead yet,” he said shortly.
“Are you OK?” asked Tira.
“No,” he said truthfully.
She let out a sad sigh. “What happened?” she asked, staring at the scrubbed wooden table.
“A nightmare.”
“Did you see Carrot?” asked Chocolate hopefully.
“No. I never do.”
“Neither of us do, either,” said Tira.
“What do you think it means?”
“Nothing,” said Marron curtly. “We don’t see him in our waking hours, and our dreams are no different.”
“I suppose.” Chocolate looked so sad. Her figure has filled out a little since she had quite working, but she remained good-looking despite the weariness and melancholy in her face. She had cut her hair some time ago, blunt, and it hung around her shoulders in a plain way. Her blue eyes had extreme lines of fatigue around their corners, and her mouth sagged a little. No more were her thigh-high leggings and short skirts. She wore a simple long-sleeved shift and muted red wool skirt, with an apron and boots. Chocolate had two small children from two separate marriages, but she now lived alone with those two children.
Her sister had remained slender and well-formed over the few years. She kept her curly pink hair back like always, although the pretty wooden tie was gone, traded in for a more practical red ribbon. Just like her sister, she wore a blouse, and red woolen skirt, and apron, discarding her huge red cloak. The round, reflective glasses were gone, so that her expressive pink eyes could peek out from beneath her full bangs.
“Are staying long?” asked Chocolate after a moment, changing the subject.
“Does he ever?” replied Tira.
“Soon,” was his only answer to that question. He never told her when he was leaving. One morning, he would just get up and leave town, simple as that. If he told her, she might make a scene, or try and get him to stay. Besides, she didn’t really care whether he told her or not, because he was just a superfluous way to pass the nighttime hours.
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