"Well, would you look at that?"
Dean pointed off to a distant mountain as he and Joan made their way up the hill towards the cathedral. There, just to the right of a tall mountain, the snow clouds had parted, revealing clear blue skies. While the monastery yet remained in the shade, the snowy mountain in the distance glowed in the sun. This was the first time he'd seen blue skies since before Marianne had captured him. Despite everything that had happened, or maybe because of it, Dean felt an almost overwhelming joy at the sight, and he felt tears roll down his cheeks. With that, he felt a slight trickle of purpose return to him. Yes, Joan was still alive. He could still protect her.
Joan made a circle shape with her fingers in the sign of prayer and closed her eyes for a moment. Even in situations like this, she couldn't help but offer a prayer to her Goddess.
"Maybe now we'll finally have a chance to get off this damned mountain." Dean said.
Despite his renewed hope, everything he had lost weighed heavily on him, and it was difficult to imbue any cheer into his voice, which sounded flat, even to his own ears.
"I think," Joan began. "Yes, I think that would be good. The Goddess is telling us that it's alright for us to leave."
Dean looked into the girl's eyes. They seemed as calm and self-assured as ever, but he couldn't discount the possibility that what had just happened had taken its toll on her. He needed to get her off the mountain as soon as possible for her own good. As to what she had meant by the Goddess' work. Well, he didn't feel like asking. He wasn't exactly in the mood for conversation. However, there was one thing he desperately wanted to ask the girl.
"Why isn't Cait with you? Is she still being held by Tatiana?"
He wanted to know if she was still alive more than anything else.
Joan remained silent for a moment.
"The Goddess doesn't like Cait too much. I got her to stop hurting her, but she didn't let her wander off on her own like she did me."
"I see," Dean said, ending the conversation there.
At least there was a chance she was alive. He briefly considered spending time looking for her but knew that it would be better to take his chance to get down off the mountain with Joan and ensure her safety. He could always come back to search for Cait with the help of some soldiers.
"Dean, over there!" Joan said, pointing beyond a few trees and gravestones which lay between the great library and the cathedral.
Following her gaze, he could see a group of ghouls shambling around the grounds. Some had noticed them and were coming for them.
Dean was impressed by Joan's senses. He was so focused on reaching his goal that he had failed to notice them.
"Stay behind me," he warned.
Joan obediently did as she was told, and Dean began firing shards of ice at the monsters. His initial shots hitting the gravestones and trees.
"It's a big sin, desecrating the resting places of the dead, you know," Joan said in a severe tone.
"Well, make yourself useful and apologise to the Goddess on my behalf then!" Dean replied irritably.
To his surprise, Joan seemed to do just that, and once again began to pray. In a different time, he would have burst out laughing at the absurdity of the situation.
His shots slowed the ghouls' advance, as some of them were struck by ice shards and forced to stop in their tracks. He even managed to strike one in the head, putting it down permanently. Just as he was starting to feel confident in himself, though, Joan shouted once again.
"Dean, from down the hill."
Dean spun in the direction they had come from and let out a curse severe enough to earn him a scathing look from Joan. Out of a somewhat distant forest, on the other side of the library, came a host of shambling creatures. Ghouls for the most part, but some goatmen and wood wraiths, too.
"Well, this is just great. Don't suppose you can ask the Goddess to smite them all down for me?"
Joan shook her head.
"Her only job is to look after our souls when we die. Why should she concern herself with us while we're still alive?"
The Goddess was even lazier than he was, by the sounds of it.
"Dammit, girl, do you really want to die so badly?"
"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Haven't you ever listened to me?"
Dean let out another curse.
"Dean, you really should-"
Joan was cutoff as Dean grabbed her arm and yanked her as he fled from the scene.
"You're not dying, not on my watch. I can save at least one person. I can," Dean said, ignoring her squawks of protest.
Yes, he wasn't good enough to save whole groups of people. But surely he wasn't so worthless that he couldn't protect the life of one little girl. If he couldn't even do this, then he simply didn't deserve to live.
To his dismay, he discovered two goatmen hammering on the cathedral doors when they reached the top of the hill. Luckily, they hadn't noticed them nor the swarm of monsters coming up behind them. Dean wondered why they were so fixated on the doors, but didn't hesitate to fire ice shards almost point-blank into the back of their heads. With barely enough time to spare, Dean reached the doors. He had to struggle to get the corpses out of the way, but once he had, he pushed Joan inside and followed soon after, slamming the doors shut behind him. A few seconds later, he heard their pursuers banging on the door from the other side.
"That won't hold them for long." Dean muttered.
"Don't worry, if we die in here, then our souls will surely be well taken care of," Joan replied, her tone worryingly excited and smug.
"I'm going to have to find you some friends when we get out of here, aren't I?" Dean replied flatly, eliciting a confused look from Joan.
"Best to get a move on. We should head towards the catacombs. I met other survivors-"
Dean stopped talking as his eyes reached the altar at the far end of the cathedral. Someone was there, head bowed in prayer. He had red hair and his shoulders slumped slightly. He was kneeling down and someone lay in front of him as if sleeping on the altar.
Dean readied his weapon.
"Matin?" He asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Matin?" He asked again, putting some force into his voice this time.
Having heard the second time, Matin raised his head and looked back towards Dean and Joan. His face seemed oddly calm and composed, and he spoke in a quiet, controlled tone that Dean had never heard from him before.
"Oh Dean. I'm so happy you've survived." Matin said, his voice shaking. He got to his feet and turned to face them.
His haggard form looked almost haunting, framed by the grandness of the plant-covered altar behind him. The enormous fir tree swayed slightly in the breeze that swept in from the open roof.
"Don't move!" Dean shouted.
He held the lythment tightly in his hands. Could he really point such a weapon at his dearest friend with the intent to kill? No, such questions no longer mattered. He was no longer who he used to be, and Matin sure as hell wasn't the same friend who attended the academy with him. Too much had changed by this point.
Matin barely reacted to the threat. His smile fell a little but remained on his face while his hollow-looking eyes lowered towards the floor.
"I see, so it's about that," he whispered quietly before raising his gaze and glaring at Dean.
"What happens to me at night? You know about it, don't you? Mother knew as well, but she won't be answering my questions anymore."
Matin's tone grew tighter and almost broke down into sobs as he looked back at the body behind him. It was Marianne, just as Dean feared. So she was dead then. Did Matin kill her? Dean couldn't bring himself to trust his friend's words anymore. Did he really have no idea about what was going on? Could he be innocent?
Dean closed his eyes for a moment. He had known Matin almost his entire life and could claim to know the man better than he knew himself. It didn't take long for Dean to decide to trust his friend. After all, he didn't have much else to lose. If Matin did change, he could shoot him down before he reached them fairly easily. Best to give him the benefit of the doubt for now.
It was all a lie to convince himself, of course. Dean simply couldn't kill his friend as he stood there defenselessly.
"I've seen it," Dean agreed. "Something that claims to speak for you and can use your face. Ugly with sharp teeth and claws. It killed Layota and who knows how many others."
Matin nodded as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. Why was he so calm? This was the man who nearly cried because he ran out of ink during an exam.
"I think I killed Rose, too." Matin said. His smile was still plastered onto his face, but Dean thought he saw tears beginning to form. "I had a dream where I… and then when I woke up she…"
Matin kept cutting off and, for a moment, he stopped completely and took a deep breath.
"The worst part is, is that afterwords I always feel more at peace as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders."
That did match up with what the creature had claimed about Matin's mental state and how he dealt with it. Matin had always had a lot on his shoulders, and Dean always suspected one person to be the source of all of it. That Person now lay dead on the altar..
"Did you kill her too?" Dean asked, nodding towards Marianne.
Matin winced slightly as if just being reminded of what was behind him.
"No, she died from an infected wound she got while protecting me." He whispered.
Dean looked down at Marianne. She was in a completely different state when compared to Layota or some of the other victims. Matin's monster was prone to tearing people apart, whereas Marianne looked relatively unmarked aside from a patch of blood on her abdomen. Despite everything, Dean felt a pang of grief for her death. He knew just as well as Matin that Marianne hadn't always been cruel and that she had always put her son first, even if she was misguided.
"I see, and how are you holding up?"
Despite her harsh and overbearing nature. Matin had always loved his mother dearly. Dean couldn't imagine him taking it well. The question was a difficult one to answer, as Matin bit his lip and thought about it.
"I feel light and empty." Matin said with a laugh. "Everyone's dead, Dean. And I killed them. I may not have killed mother, but she also died because of me. It's insane, isn't it? I really think it would be better if just died."
Dean understood that feeling really well. He wondered if his eyes looked as hollow as Matin's did. Perhaps now that they'd lost everything, death would be a blessing. Joan certainly seemed to think so. Yet, despite everything, Dean couldn't let go of life so easily. Not after coming this far.
"Matin. The three of us can still make it out of here. The snow. It's stopped. I won't blame you for what happened, so just come with us, yeah?" Dean said, stretching out his hand."
Matin took one look at it and shook his head.
"Go with you? No, I can't… I should just stay here, with mother." Matin said, looking back towards his mother and smiling.
Dean felt a surge of anger erupt from within. The experiences of the last few days had left him with little in the way of patience or empathy.
"No, I'm taking you with me. And I'm not asking for permission," he said, readying his lythment.
He thanked his luck that it was an ice-based weapon that could incapacitate someone while leaving them relatively unharmed. His friend might have to deal with a bit of frostbite, though.
"So you're telling me where to go and what to do? I guess that's to be expected," Matin laughed. "After all, you don't trust me to make my own decisions, just like Mother," he finished in a whisper that Dean failed to hear.
His laugh echoed throughout the cathedral before quickly being cut short.
"Why are you always making me do things your way?" Matin demanded, swinging his right arm out violently, his hands closed in a fist.
Dean felt his teeth grind together.
"I've done no such thing! I just want you to live your life without that mother of yours dictating everything!"
"So you'd just take her place then?" Matin asked. "What if I wanted to do exactly what she told me? What then?"
The two men continued to argue while Joan stood there, seemingly unruffled by the exchange. If anything, she seemed rather bored and was looking down at her feet.
"I'm not going with you," Matin said finally, looking back towards his mother.
Dean took a step forward. He would freeze Matin in place and then knock him out. It'd be risky, but if it was the only way, then so be it. He knew a place where sleighs were stored, so it wouldn't be any issue dragging Matin down the mountain.
"Don't come closer!" Matin screamed, his voice becoming distorted as his face started to warp.
Dean cursed as he watched Matin transform into that creature for the first time. Not waiting for the transformation to finish, he shot an ice shard right towards it, piercing its shoulder.
"Should have killed you long ago!" The creature snarled as it ran behind a pillar.
"Joan, stay back!" Dean shouted.
"Fine, but you'll probably want to hurry up. That door behind us isn't going to last too long."
Dean cursed as he looked back at the cathedral doors behind him. They were beginning to shake from the repeated strikes of the monsters outside. Normally, he'd wait for the creature to come to him, but this time he needed to go on the offensive. And so, he charged towards the pillar the creature had taken cover .
When he rounded it, he immediately fired his weapon but found nothing there. He had only a moment to be surprised as something tackled him from above, his lythment falling from his hands.
Of course it could climb, he thought to himself in anger. He really should have been more careful.
The creature's disgusting drool fell on his face as it looked down at him, and an awful smell of rotten meat reached his nose as he felt the creature's breath. It might have been smiling, but he wasn't really paying attention. It was all he could do to keep its jaws from his neck.
"Now, master, be free," the creature snarled.
"Free to kill himself, you worthless heap of dung!" Dean shouted back.
Dean yanked one of his arms free and punched the creature in the face. Surprisingly, some of its sharp teeth fell out. Sadly, its grip on him didn't weaken in the slightest.
"Weak, for the man master idolised so much," the creature taunted.
"Idolised?" Dean asked, his grip weakening for a moment.
That slight lapse in strength was enough. The creature smacked his arm away and opened its mouth wide to end Dean's life. Dean could see the inside of the creature's mouth. Its multiple rows of teeth were the last thing he would see. A split second later, the creature was thrown off his body, the hideous image of the inside of its mouth vanishing before it could clamp down on Dean's neck. Dean quickly got to his feet.
Looking around, he saw the creature pinned to the wall with three ice shards piercing its limbs and Joan, standing not too far away, his lythment now in her hands.
"You saved me?" He panted.
Joan nodded.
"Thought you said death was a good thing?" He laughed weakly.
Joan shrugged.
"You said that you didn't want to die. Besides, if you died now, you wouldn't be born into a good life. Your soul is too impure. I need to help you fix yourself up before you go dying!"
Dean shook his head. Exact motives aside, she had saved his life. He looked back at the creature, which was now incapacitated.
"Looks like it's my win," Dean said, standing over it.
"Master… never be free now. Never happy," it said in an almost mournful tone.
"Well, I'll make sure he is happy and free. You can just leave it to me."
The creature laughed.
"You will fail."
Slowly, it transformed back into Matin, the ice shards falling out as it did so. When the process had finished, Matin looked up at him with red, tearful eyes.
"Do I really have to go with you?" He asked through ragged breaths.
"Yes, you do," Dean replied simply.
Matin closed his eyes tightly and cried. Dean sat down next to him.
He looked over at Joan. She seemed more interested in Marianne than Matin. There was still light in her eyes as she began uttering prayers for the deceased. Dean wondered absently if it was thanks to her beliefs that she could remain unchanged after so many terrible things had happened. On one hand, Dean felt repulsed that a young girl could experience such things and not feel distraught. However, he knew this was better than the alternative for her. What she had experienced would have been enough to ruin the lives of many who had less fortitude.
"Do we really have time to be doing this?" Dean asked, casting his gaze back towards the doors. The monsters were still striking the door, attempting to get in.
Joan bit her lip.
"She needs this if she's going to have any chance of a better life."
"Mind if I join in?" Dean asked as he finally put his weapon away completely, getting up to join her.
Perhaps by joining her, he could speed up the process somewhat.
Joan nodded.
"It doesn't look like any of the brothers or sisters are around, so we should try to make sure her soul finds happiness," she said.
Matin looked at them both with confusion as he and Joan knelt down before his mother. Dean hadn't done this in a while and looked to Joan for guidance. As usual, there was no sadness or any emotion for that matter. She just went through the motions, well-practiced and precise. He still wasn't sure he believed in everything the church preached, but he supposed it couldn't hurt. As cruel and unstable as she was, Marianne deserved at least a brief prayer.
Once he was done, he left Joan's side and returned to Matin, pulling him to his feet.
"You're not going to kill me?" Matin asked,
"No. I'm going to make you keep living, whether you like it or not."
He hoped now that Marianne was dead, Matin could start living his life normally. It may have been foolish and dangerous to let him live with that monster within him, but he simply did not want to kill his best friend. Enough had been lost over the last few days. He spoke a big game about protecting others and doing what needed to be done, but in the end, he had failed. He refused to let Matin or Joan die too.
"It's difficult, you know, to live happily." Dean said. "But I'm going to make sure you keep on living until you find that happiness and can die with a smile. Everyone deserves that much."
Matin glanced at him from the side.
"Do you really think we can live happily after everything that's happened?"
Dean shrugged.
"Not sure, but I'm gonna try."
If he was being honest with himself, he wasn't even certain if he could find his own happiness after all this, let alone Matin's. Memories of the entire ordeal assaulted his mind relentlessly. He could still see the bodies of all the children whenever he closed his eyes, and he knew those images would haunt him for the rest of his days.
The knocking on the cathedral door hadn't stopped at all during their discussion. They both looked towards the doorway with concern on their faces.
"I think they're attracted to something in here," Matin said.
"What do you mean?"
Matin bit his lip as he thought about what he was going to say next.
"Isn't it strange that these monsters appeared out of nowhere just as I started losing control? Also, wherever I go, they seem to follow me."
Matin drifted off for a moment. His eyes resting on Joan as she went through her prayers.
"Are you sure about not wanting to kill me?"
Dean looked at his friend. His hands were shaking as one hand gripped his forearm. Knowing that stress seemed to cause his transformations, Dean quickly tried to calm him.
"Forget about that. It's not that I want to kill you, it's that I can't. Anyway, I'm not sure I buy this whole monsters gathering around you thing. This hasn't happened before, right?"
Dean was assuming this wasn't the first time Matin had transformed. In fact, he was now sure the same creature had caused the other incidents of violence around Matin. He couldn't help but think back to the day he first met Matin and those street urchins that had disappeared soon after. He'd always assumed Marianne was responsible, but now he knew better.
"Well, that's true, but then what else could it be?" Matin asked.
Dean didn't have to think about it very long. It was clear that there was more going on here than simply Matin's monster running wild. The creature was fearsome to be sure, but he had handled it by himself with only a little trouble. It did little to explain how the entirety of Mount Moore, the central seat of the church, could have completely fallen into ruin.
He had assumed Marianne had played a part, but there was still too much he didn't know. The first being what Oscar was up to in the Catacombs. If anything was going to serve as a monster magnet, then that'd be it. A huge magical rip in reality whose purpose was unknown, and the emperor himself avoiding his responsibilities to study it. Then there was that strange woman, Tatiana, who attacked Cait, Joan, and him when they were searching the cathedral.
No, there was a lot more going on here.
"I think I know someone who might shed some light on all this for us. Also, their hiding place just so happens to be a convenient stop on my planned escape route."
Matin tilted his head in confusion, but before he could ask a question, Joan appeared in front of them.
"Done with your little ritual?" Dean asked.
Joan scowled at him.
"They were prayers for the departed, idiot," Joan snapped.
Dean waved an apology, causing Joan to sigh in exasperation.
"I've done all I can, though I doubt it'll be enough to save your mother from penance in the next life. She lived much too excessively."
All of that was delivered with her usual deadpan tone. Dean tried to tell her subtly that she was being insensitive, but she either failed to notice or didn't care. Thankfully, despite everything that happened. Matin maintained his mature politeness.
"Thank you for doing all that for Mother, Joan," he said with a bright smile.
Joan made a 'hmph' sound and looked away, clearly embarrassed by the praise. Dean wondered how often she was praised like that, since most kept their distance from her. Maybe it really was fine to trust in Matin's mental fortitude.
Just then, a loud crashing sound could be heard as one of the stained glass windows smashed open. All three of them looked at the ground where a large stone rested. Then, a gray, rotten hand grasped the broken glass above, uncaring as its hand was slit open. Slowly, it tore at the remaining glass, creating a hole to crawl through.
"Guess that's reason enough for us to get going. You good to run, Matin?"
"Yeah, I think I can," Matin said.
"To the Catacombs!" Dean shouted.
Matin nodded.
"With all those different exits, it's our best chance," Matin agreed.
Without asking for permission, Dean grabbed Joan and lifted her into his arms.
"Hey, what are you doing? Unhand me!"
Dean grimaced as Joan clawed at his face. Honestly, couldn't she grasp the severity of the situation a bit more?
"You're too slow on your own, so shut up and stay still!"
That was enough to silence her complaints. His tone may have been a bit too harsh, but he didn't have time to worry about that now.
Together, the three ran towards the stairs which led down to the catacombs just as the first ghoul poked its ugly head through the shattered window.