Chapter 102: Wrapping Up
{I was listening to One Direction thanks to my coworkers speaker all day, and now I can still here it, so forgive me if my head is a little mushy. THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE THINGS WE DOOO, THEY DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE I LOOOOVE YOOOOOU. Side note, I thought about killing Alduin off-screen but decided that would do him a bit dirty.}
Yuri and the two old men, now fully clothed, warped above the moon where a deep and purple fog hung fatally over a bowl-like valley named the Shadowed Vale. On one side of this foggy barrier, two giant cowled statues guarded the entry quietly as they had already done for the last eternity, welcoming in the newly honored dead. Typically, these lands were not covered in fog and only ornamented by the streams which flow into the 'bowl' over the side and the giant whale skeleton whose head welcomes the dead and whose tail is the bridge that leads into the Hall of Valor. This final walk could have been scenic and somewhat inviting had Alduin not hung a mist of confusion over the Shadowed Vale and routinely devoured all who attempted to cross. No Stormcloak in the last year or so found the death they thought they were getting, and the Civil War fed the man who would enslave mankind once more.
{Concept Artwork Here}
That was until the Dragonborn and a Sword Singer were dropped off at Skuldafn, a mountainside fort which was guarded by over a dozen freshly packed dragon souls and scores of undead target practices with one having a Dragon Priest Mask, and told to reach their way to the top to face Alduin. Yuri was a sucker for the classics, he wasn't gonna take them there himself when he can watch such pristine gameplay.
"VAAH LEYOM SIVIIR!" (Sky, Clear it Shall)
A gallant woman in armor bound with the flesh, scales, and bones of Alduin's defeated subordinates and enchanted by Yuri's own hands shouted with all her might. Nothing seemed to have escaped her mouth when she did, but the effects quickly made themselves evident. The purple haze that clung to the earth shook and started fleeing in terror from her point near the Hall of Valor and continued a domino effect until the very last wisp had evaporated. Alduin, who was flying low in the haze, was suddenly revealed with a shock.
The bystander dragonmen had become the commentators.
"Oh, the Dragonborn has gotten quite powerful. She feels... centered. Your training can't do all that, can it?" Paarthunax commented.
Yuri merely smiled. This was her hour, their hour. He didn't want to take credit even if being fulfilled by a relationship had a good role in reinforcing her foundation.
Tsun, an 8 foot tall Nord man with a bare barrel chest and burgundy dreads was watching the show with rapt attention. Those girls certainly weren't dead, and one of them started a fight with the fog before even approaching him. Could this be the doom-driven hero of Dragon blood? He must inform the old heroes who had defeated Alduin before, so they may help her. Tsun crossed the whalebone bridge with his own burly level of speed.
Alduin was denying the plausibility that his shout had been cleared with a single puff of that once unimpressive Dragonborn. He rose above the clearing in full view with a single flap of his wings and shouted again.
"VEN MUL RIIK"
A mist that poisoned the mind and soul plumed from his mouth, but the will of Alera hung in the air and stifled it. Slowly it tried to expand, but Alduin was reminded of his wasteful actions when an arrow slipped into his senses and arrived in his face. In a shower of flaming sparks, Alduin was bitten in the side of his face with the exploding arrow and he stopped his attempt to glare at the archer.
Toni had already put away Auriel's bow and brought out two sinister red swords with swirling circuitry, a new addition of Yuri's. Alduin looked sternly at her before reeling in a breath of flame. The sky lit in a yellow-orange flare and a pillar flowered from his mouth. The entire backside of the Shadowed Vale was singed, but his targets had disappeared.
He tried to whirl around in time, but his back was stabbed twice-fold as red energy erupted from his wounds and he roared abruptly into the sky. Before he could blast her off telekinetically, he saw the real threat approach front.
In a blue and gold scaled visage that looked an awful lot like another dragon, Alera had arrived before him and was carving a split in the sky with her descending sword arm. He met sword for shout and tried to stop it but she merely cleaved through it and tanked his flaming breath. Alera's broadsword had arrived and with a heretical force and cutting power, cleaved his head in half down the middle and ripped his body from Toni's swords as he was sent spiraling downward.
Alduin unfurled his wings once more and caught himself before crashing, the wound in his head visibly closing at a rate that denied it ever existed.
"Tenacious bastard, isn't he. Will that shout work?" Toni asked calmly. Ally narrowed her eyes into a burning blue glare.
"Of course it will. I'll put him on the ground and we'll keep him there for good."
"Haha, I like this side of you, girly! I got your back, let's see how much meat the lizard has." Toni's eyes turned a sinister shade of red to match her swords.
Alduin glared above as two falling stars approached him with two crossed blades he didn't recognize the make of and a shield he wished he didn't recognize in the hands of his foe. His neck reeled and a roar of biblical proportions shook from his mouth and battered the ears of the girls. Inadvertently, they lost their flight balance and their wings scrunched together. Alduin rose and attempted to bite the Dragonborn in half with more speed than they assumed he had. He neared to a mere five feet away before they both refocused and twirled out of the way dexterously, scraping their edges across Alduin's body and following him up afterward.
The dogfight continued as the girls were taking pieces of him little by little which Alduin patiently regenerated as he missed his smaller targets over and over. Ally lured him up to as high as the sky seemingly allowed before she smirked in a little sign of victory. Alduin frowned his boney brows and remembered why she was so confident. He tried shouting to interrupt her, but he was too late.
"JOOR ZAH FRUL!"
A purple sentence of damnation fell from her lips and broke through the skies, arriving to Alduin's massive frame and bathing him in mortal contemplation. His wings stuttered like a butterfly in a fatal web and he plummeted as Alera and Tonilia followed him shortly. Ally flapped her wings and lunged with a direct stab to his chest, accelerating their fall while Tonilia was happy to appear behind Ally and work on his stomach.
Alduin quickly forced them off with a spatial blast that exited his body, but the girls were delighted that his wounds weren't healing nearly as well now. Alduin flipped over to prepare for his landing, but the girls capitalized. Toni curled up into a ball uprightly while Ally pressed her boots to Toni's and they both extended at the same time. Ally shouted Wuld Nah Kest! and she flashed like the wind with the added momentum. With a giant BOOM she plunged into his backside and he spread his limbs out from the momentum. Alduin broke the ground with his bare chest and Ally jumped off right after the landing.
Alduin roared in anger and shook the sky once more as he rose from his prone position, but his back was met with a repeating barrage of agonizing red blades that were slowly cleaving into him. Toni's circuited swords had allowed her malicious sword intent to break out in incredible force and gashes appeared on Alduin's durable hide while Ally circled and went for the head.
Alduin felt this and whipped his spined and deadly tail to Ally even as he was being maimed, but without looking Ally swung her shield to collide with it straight on and reflected his tail harmlessly off it. Her shield started to ring a dull tone.
Alduin whipped his head around to his right to bite her instead of suffering a flank attack but Ally raised her four-foot broadsword at the same time and collided with his spiny snout vertically, blocking his mouth and cutting a great big gash in his mouth.
Alduin showed the agility of a cat when he bounded out of the area to avoid more of Toni's flying slashes and face Ally head on. He tried shouting at Toni to put her down, but Ally arrived at him with speed that hurt his eyes to try and track.
'How?! How did this mortal get so strong in such a short amount of time?! There has only been one person to ever threaten my physically-' Alduin frowned and looked up at the sky to find he was being observed. How did he not sense them before this?
He didn't know who those older mortals were, but he recognized Yuri instantly, understanding the man had a vested interest in the Dragonborn and had already sowed enmity with him. He was the reason this Dragonborn was so well equipped, and it angered him that he didn't deign himself necessary to defeat him.
'I will kill this Dragonborn and make him challenge me himself.'
But Alduin was sidelong struck in his giant target for a snout by the shield once more before Ally went in for a lunge to his open neck with a burning blue sword. Alduin spun with the strike instead and whipped his tail around to use it but Ally used her sword to challenge it. Alduin sensed danger but Ally pressed forward against the tail and sealed his mistake, severing it and cauterizing the nub in blue flames. Alduin groaned and was unbalanced by the sensitive and vital tail being removed, Toni, who had already came down to play, teleported in for a double-bladed strike and opened two long red gashes in his retreating side that cut into the rib bones.
Alduin couldn't suppress the space here because it wasn't his, even if the god had been missing for a while.
Alduin burst forth with shouts of incredible destruction but he had even less of a chance of hitting them on the ground without his tail. He tried to take flight once more but was Rent, once more. Slowly he was maimed as he rotated and thrashed about to hit his foes, but couldn't succeed. This wasn't the glorious defeat he was suffering like he did at the hands of Yuri. He was being chewed up and slowly eaten, cut for portioning, and savored alive. Blasts of telekinetic power only garnered him a few small seconds of respite while the wounds continued.
An arm was severed and burnt, blasts of Dragonrend made him dizzy and the wounds were piling up with him becoming less attached to the pain as his senses became blurrier by the minute. This was preposterous! This was his real form! How were these humans so much as scratching him?!
As Alduin got slower, Toni twisted in a twirling dance of red ribbons across Alduin's body and landed on a finisher near his back flank.
'Raging River - Ripple Blade'
Toni was a drop of water in a still pond and her blades were the ripple she created, twisting in a near-instantaneous circle. The two edges crossed within millimeters of each other and guillotined his back leg straight off, making him lean and finally snap back out of it.
"HOW DARE YOOOUUU!"
The sky cracked and thunder shook the aurora overhead, cutting off the pretty lights and birthing meteors of terrible mass. Through a second wind, he regenerated everything and shook off the waning effect of the latest effect of Dragonrend as he quickly pressed them off and bounded out of the way.
In a rapid stream, he fired Soul Tear, Vital Drain, and more offensive shouts in controlled bursts instead of committing fully to one. To his further surprise, they met his weaker shouts blade and shout for each. Toni cut through with a simply thicker spiritual intent in her blades and severed them, while Ally fired bombs of bright light which burst in his shouts on contact and scattered them. Menacingly they approached and dodged the meteors that came overhead without letting them distract them.
"I think it's time to finish this, Ally," Toni intoned above all the noise.
"I think so too, Toni," She agreed.
Alduin didn't want to take flight and risk Dragonrend which would only make him more vulnerable. He was on tenterhooks, deciding to blast a wave of lightning toward Ally who blocked it once again before she teleported at the same time as Toni.
If Alduin had hair his would stand up, because they were both ready at either side of him to bring down their swords on his neck from above to cleave his wide head wholly off. Blades burning with energies of blue and red that completely bathed and eclipsed their actual swords were madly being fashioned into a purple guillotine.
With the last maddening amount of will and adrenaline he had, Alduin pressed against the falling action and stopped the swords in midair before they reached him. Alduin tried to back out of the way of the blades he held but Alera shouted: "RAAS!!!" and he halted in the middle of his stride to his own emotional agony. Toni raised her free sword and swung flying slashes toward the side of his head that threatened to open a gash while Ally breathed blue and vicious flames toward the other side of his head. Second by second, Alduin weakened until an imminent collapse. It was not known if he died from the final cleave that freed his head or if his death is what allowed it, but with a great big thump, it fell to the floor.
The girls panted and smiled victoriously at each other. He was a simple creature without many tricks despite being stronger in Thu'um and physique, which ultimately led to an easier downfall for them than Miraak had for them, especially since they had grown stronger since then.
"I was not expecting such a lackluster death from him of all people." Murmured Paarthunax.
"I could've done it too. Perhaps I should have eaten him myself!" Drem boasted, though at his best they were equal.
Yuri took to slow clapping, which the old men followed and the girls curtsied for their audience, which now included Tsun and a dumbstruck trio of 'heroes' mentioning how they didn't know Alduin was that strong. Yuri hypothesized that Alduin underestimated them and got caught in a trap as they fell rather easily to him.
Alduin's corpse shook for a moment and his flesh started to flee his body in ethereal bands of orange and blue light. Yuri flexed his grip and caught Alduin's soul in an inescapable vice as it pooled into a two-colored marble.
Elsewhere, a Golden Dragon watched the show pleasantly up until he expected Alduin's soul to arrive, only for that damned Null who had revealed himself as the perpetrator of some New Age to hold onto it without any shame!
Curiously, as Alduin's soul fled further and further into the pool it became smaller, not bigger as Yuri concentrated it further and further into a white orb of light.
"What the hell does that outsider think he's doing?!" Akatosh was fixing to get up and send an avatar of his just to warn against taking a piece of AKA, but two golden eyes flashed at him through space and time and stared him down.
Yuri had seemingly begun looking up and East to the distant space while he was making this Alduin pill, glaring so sternly that the air around him had solidified and the two other dragons in the vicinity backed up several paces.
"It's like he's trying to get me wet!" Toni whined while Ally elbowed her in the ribs.
In the distance, Akatosh sat his ass back down and realized he had been overestimating himself and underestimating how much Yuri had gained in the Aurbis or what he brought from outside it. He now knew there was a reason he was no longer hiding from the other Aedra and Daedra. It was too late.
A hand gently patted his shoulder and Akatosh looked up to see a grandfatherly figure to him shake his two-faced head back and forth in pity for him.
"There won't be a need for a new Kalpa anymore, Son. Let the failed World-Eater go."
Akatosh shook his head and closed his eyes.
Yuri nodded his head approvingly and finished making his pill, motioning for the girls to come to him.
"Yuri, I don't need it..." Ally said.
"And I definitely don't." Yuri took a look at his status and smirked.
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Status: Yuri Nightingale
Titles: Akashic Archivist, Ignorant Man
Race: Arcane Spirit
Power: 250
Speed: 250
Perception: 1,200
Mana: 3,650
Stamina: 3,000
Record Points: 84,320
Skills: Record Domain, Arcane Mana Manipulation, Minor Elemental Manipulation, Shroud of the Hunter, Lightbringer, Shadowkeeper, Doormaster, Accelerated Processing, Accelerated Adaptation, Adept of Fate.
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His physical traits hadn't gone up much, but everything else sure damn did. He didn't need this soul, he could throttle Alduin even without his authority in this Record.
Yuri flashed to Ally and lifted her delicate yet powerful chin with his fingers and opened her mouth with his thumb on her bottom lip. She pouted playfully and then received the marble willingly as Yuri popped it in while Toni was itching to get a piece of whatever might start next if the pattern continued.
"You stand to gain the most, especially with your physique. The rest of them would have a bad time trying to swallow it. Digest it slowly, you earned it." Yuri backed off and addressed both of them.
"Great jobs, my loves!"
{Next Chapter: Saying Goodbye}
Weekly Power Status
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