The Fifth Corsevemas War
Fight to smile.
Fight to think.
Fight to live.
"Welcome to hell if it punished anyone and everyone just for existing."
-Scarlet DeRouge, CW5
Origins of the War
The 5th Corsevemas War is an extremely long-term event in Arolatera, set in the future from where much of the rest of its story takes place. As the name suggests, this is the fifth major conflict between Arolaterans and the notorious Corsevemas - but this time, the Corsevemas launched with an advantage.
Shortly after the Sabotage Event, an event where Julian exploits the soulbound kamikaze-type corruption and uses it to attempt to assassinate Malia, a now devastated and traumatized Malia ventured away from her friends and family to rethink much of her life. Knowing her, there was realistically not much to think about - very little of her life was properly remembered, especially now that even the most sturdy and whole of her memories had been shattered by the surge of full corruption that she had barely avoided with her life.
As she grew distant from the people she knew, so did her actions. She spent much of her time in illegal underground bars and restaurants with a hood over her head, concealing her family mark so no one would find out who she was. Her only means of identity was in the form of her crazed prophet orb. With it, she peered into the fates of those around her, especially young loves. Whenever she found that fate planned their split, she would walk up to them then and there and tell them to end it - and she did this, hundreds of times in the several months that she spent away from her team.
Some of the people that she told took it far too harshly - some of them were already soulbound, and the sheer emotional weight of her words was mentally killing hundreds at this rate. And this is where the surge of aura dissonance began. Left and right, the stresses of knowing someone whose corruption was overtaking their life grew into sharp thorns coiling around the limbs of those attempting to escape. The whispers of worry for a daughter or a son, for a friend or for family, filled the air of every street and alley. Before long, the severest of these situations gave way to dust of gold and acadialite lining Gletrivan streets, and the infamous Virikai craters beginning to etch their marks into the earth. Small city-specific streams and rivers began to run with acid and the rotted limbs of corrupted Ashvaris, accompanied by the occasional molt of a now mindless Zekaana.
Graveyards began to fill at the rate that one would expect of a sweeping plague, and in a sense, it was. But unlike most plagues that would wear themselves out, this plague had no known cure, and would not stop when it had killed all the bodies of the minds it had grasped. Unsurprisingly, and the suspicion of most whose resilient minds shielded them from fading to dust, there was one group of people who relished in this type of hellscape - the Corsevemas, led by Luscinia Nightingale. And in this dire era of Arolatera, those who relished in aura dissonance thrived and flourished off of it.
Nearly six months had gone by since the sabotage at this point. Overcome by guilt seeing what her words had done, a troubled Malia climbed the same mountain where her saboteur had once died, prior to being revived. She found a remnant of his original resting place - a parchment signed by his parents. Despite her mental state, she plucked it from its casing and read what it said. Though she was in no state to forgive him, she was in a place to at least understand. Out of seemingly nowhere, a memory shot itself through her mind - a vision that she had been granted by fate during an interview when she was in a performing group with her friends.
Suddenly, the most unexplainable fragments of it began to explain themselves. She turned a head to the path from whence she came, the surge of primal adrenaline overtaking her human limits. As she ran, more and more memories replaced themselves in her mind, hitting her as fast as the hail against her face as she ran. She ran against the setting sun, through entire abandoned buildings, directly to the house of her closest friend - Tiffany's home. Worry overtook her when she threw herself through a window and discovered that there was no trace of her friend in the house. She leapt back out, paying no care to the blood that stained her arms from the glass of the window. She ran to her eternal sanctuary - the United World Bar, sighing with a breath of relief when she discovered that her favorite bartender, Kayla, was still there.
With no time to explain, she rushedly asked if Kayla had seen any of her friends. Kayla explained that since Malia's disappearance, all of her friends had seemingly vanished from the city, and that there was no trace of them found by authorities when they were called in. Malia's anxiety skyrocketed as she rushed up and out of the stairs, watching the bustling city that seemed oblivious to her predicament. From the empty pits of the back of her mind, a distinct voice was heard - the voice of Mariana Kaurani, the cousin of the Omniscient Myth, Omela Kaurani.
"You know where to find us, Malia." spoke the hypnotist Virikai. Malia frantically looked around, clutching her head with diamond-glass claws, trying to make sense of anything around her.
"I don't, Mariana. I don't! Where do I find you - where are they, where are my friends?" Malia cried aloud. Acid tears streaked her cracked glass cheeks, the acid blood beneath her hands beginning to tear holes into her skin and burn away her fur.
"You will find them in the same place where you found yourself." Mariana's presence disappeared from Malia's mind, leaving her in a state of paranoid confusion. Mere seconds went by before she realized what Mariana meant. She changed her course to the forest, barreling like a shadow through the trees on a direct path to her old home. Her blurred peripherals saw the unmistakable shape of a shadow-aura bearing Corsevema approaching her. Before she could react by throwing her own glass shards at them, a dome of fire shielded her and burst into a ring that followed her movements, despite how incredibly fast she was moving, even for herself. A familiar face launched from a tree and landed beside Malia, keeping up with the help of her ghosts and her flame.
"Hey Mal." she said, in the same nonchalant manner that Malia had always bore. For the first time since more than half a year prior, Malia smiled. "Finally decided to come back?"
"I thought that much was obvious, Tiff." Malia replied. The two approached a massive mob of Corsevemas straight ahead, and without any hesitation launched themselves through them in a storm of flame and glass before continuing to run.
"I mean, it is. That's why I'm here." Tiffany remarked. She grabbed Malia's arm and propelled the two above the canopy of trees, and the two descended directly in front of Malia's old family home. Just as Mariana had said, all of Malia's old team were there - even her saboteur. The two caught their breath for no more than a second before Malia blindly threw a scroll past Tiffany's shoulder, instantly killing a Corsevema assassin. "You still carry those damn scrolls around?"
"Of course...this time they're a lot more emotionally charged though..." Malia said, flicking one to Tiffany, who caught it in an instant. Unraveling it revealed that it was one of many photocopies of a now ancient picture from their time as a couple doomed never to soulbind. "Every time I use one of them, I know I'm hitting with the force of my own corruption. With all the Corsevemas that have been getting around, I had no other choice. Nothing else I did worked as well as they did."
"I can't say I'm surprised. One, you weaponize absolutely everything, and two, this is linked directly to your own suicide attempt." Tiffany set a perimeter of fire around the house before rejoining Malia where she stood. "It's good to have you back."
"Is it really?" Malia retorted. She was met by a flick to the forehead.
"Yes, now stop trying to change that." the two rushed into the battered-down home and met with the rest of their team. There were some extras - Tonya, Malia's cousin and her wife Omela, who was now Malia's cousin in law, and of course Omela's cousin Mariana, who had led the wolverine home. In silence, the people around her watched as Malia stepped towards Mariana. The Kaurani was nearly double her age, standing at a slightly shorter stature if it weren't for her heels. Malia placed a hand on the shawled shoulder of Mariana, staring into her blue eyes for a moment.
"Thank you." Malia whispered in a tone just hushed enough so that no one else would hear her. Her eyes gestured to Julian before she continued. "I know what you did, and I know what I have to do now."
Mariana gave a few friendly pats to Malia's back before the wolverine stepped away and looked to her friends once more. The one that didn't seem to belong - her soul saboteur, Julian Aslin Calvon, stood quietly in the corner. Acute predatory eyes noticed holes torn in his jacket that revealed the gruesome scar of acid beneath. She made up her mind that she would mend their bond later that day, but first she had to state to her friends just what was going to happen.
"We're staying here for another week before we head back into the city. Kill all Corsevemas who cross the perimeter. If any of them are carrying Luscinia's serum with them, take it so we can bring it back and have a potionmaster try and figure out how to counter it." Malia said to the entire group, finally seeming like her old self. Ursa ran up to her, drawing her attention to the young wolverine before her. She placed a small apple blossom in Malia's hand per request of Omela, who knew it would surge Malia's memories once more by reaching to her trauma. "And...Julian...meet me under the apple tree in ten minutes."