TMNT: SOD Ch.43

"Lady Mage!!!!!!!" Someone called out and her eyes flicked to the other side. Lau was suddenly standing over her and in his hand somehow was the very same staff that Karai was now using against Leo. He tapped her with it and sensation suddenly came flooding back into her body. She jolted up and rolled over onto her knees as Lau knelt down and handed the sceptor to her.

"What is this?!" She croaked, just now getting her voice back.

"A way to save us all. You are no good to me dead." He smirked and as quickly as he came, he was suddenly gone in a wisp of mist. 

"Two sceptors!" Celeste gasped as its energy hummed in her hand and she felt all her strength and more returning to her. She stood up and pointed it towards Karai who was raising her Wakizashi to finish Leo off.

Celeste didnt even have to think, she ran towards the two and faster than she had ever moved before with the energy of the staff amplifying her reflexes. She appeared at Leo's side, her battle suit materializing on contact and Karai's blade meeting the crystal end of the sceptor. Celeste had deflected her blade, sending it flying out of karai's hands and causing her to raise her hands up high enough for Celeste to jab the Kryst into her stomach and scream, "Get Away!" 

The ensuing blast of energy knocked Karai back and sent her flying away but she managed to catch herself mid air and land roughly on her feet, her own sceptor still at the ready.

Celeste picked up Leo's head and cradled it against her chest as she held the scepter out in front of them both, ready to defend him again. He blinked his eyes and stared at the Ether Mage but she stopped him from speaking. "Let me save you for once, Hero." She smirked.

"So the 7th mage commissioned two identical staffs....even I could not forsee this." Came Kitsune's voice from Karai's lips. 

"Thats right! So its a matter of skill then since the sceptors are equal in power. Do you want to try your luck Kitsune?" 

"Are you serious? You want to duel with a full fledge kunoitchi and a sorceress in one body? Are you daft?" she retaliated with a blast from her own staff to which Celeste easily sheilded against.

"Not daft, just seriously fed up!" Celeste shouted above to roar of energy colliding with her own. She forced herself to stand up against the wave of power and while holding it back from hurting Leo stepped over him so that she took the front.

Karai/Kitsune growled infrustration and cutting the power from her weapon she once again drew her wakizashi and ran forward intent of driving it through the ether mages heart. 

Celeste barely had time to use her own telekentic magic to push Leo out of the way and towards his brothers before the blade came stabbing forward towards her. She parried out of the way and blocked the oncoming blade with the staffs hilt. It vibrated with the hit and hummed in her hand as if alive to which she had to pause and look down at it for a second as another hit came over her head. She rolled out of the way as the staff came smashing down next to her and hitting the cement which exploded. The shockwave sent her flying back near Leo who was finally coming to his senses.

"Celeste! Dont!" He shouted. 

She looked at him quickly over her shoulder and raised the staff quickly above hear head. "Heal them!" She commanded as the crystal glew and beams of light slithered out from it, quickly touching each turtle and bringing them back from unconsciousness. They all sat up and shook their heads, trying to get a grasp of what was going on and fighting off the oncoming wave of dizziness.

"Watch out!!!" Leo screamed as Karai came careening into Celeste while she was  distracted, shoving her knee into the ether mages chest and kicking her so hard she was sure a rib or two snapped and sending her sliding across the roof though she managed to keep hold of her scepter.

"You cant protect them and fight at the same time! Why do you waste your time with these freaks?! Have you no pride as a mage?!" Karai/kitsune screamed as she swung the staff at her opponent again and the two weapons met with celeste on her back on the ground trying to prevent Kitsune from driving her own through her chest.

Leo and the others tried to rush to her aid but kitsune shouted a command and a barrier erected itself between them, like a invisible glass wall, they smacked into hit and were blocked from further advance.

"Celeste!" Mikey shouted and pounded the barrie with his fists.

"Wait till i get my hands on that bitch! Im gonna wring her scrawny neck!" Raph growled.

"Even more idiotic of you is to fight me without a companion at your side, or did you forget that half your power comes from your innamorato?" Her face got dangerously close to Celeste's. "But then again I dont blame you for not if turtles are the best you can do. Why do you even bother protecting them and living with them if they are not of your pool of power? Does it give you some sort of purpose in life seeing as though you walked away from your previous lover? Or could it be that you pity them?"

Celeste growled and put her strength into the staff trying to push Karai off of her. the Sceptor once again hummed in her hands. Her arms surged with strength and she threw Karai back with a force she couldnt muster with her own magic. She jumped up and stared at the sceptor and suddenly knew what was going on. In it was the memories of the 7th mage and they were trying to speak to her.

"What is it? What are you trying to tell me?" She whisperd to it. She felt it sing in her hands, a high pitched noise that neither human nor anything else could hear but she could and only her.

She looked up at Karai and suddenly knew what she had to do. "I choose to stay with them because I love them." And then she looked at each of the eager green faces on the other side of the barrier watching her with worried eyes.

"And I choose to protect them because I couldnt bear to see any of them get hurt, not because of pity, but because of love. Its not something you could ever understand Kitsune." The minute she said those words a vision took hold of her mind without warning. The death of Wu Ting Xiao.

She knew the end was coming and she sat passively in a tatami room on her knees before the warlord Takeshi Tatsuo, who founded the foot clan, and by his side was The woman with the fox mask, his ever loyal companion. Tatsuo stood up and demanded the staff from Wu but she remained silent and resolute. It was kept in her waist sash were it always was and of course its twin laying in wait back in Beijing within the protection of the forbidden city. Tatsuo had summonded her across the sea and now he drew his sword and stood over her ready to strike. He had set her up and she knew it, she expected it. Even in death, she remained strong, never bowing to the threats of others yet under her breath as his blade fell against her neck she uttered something prophetic. A single word. "Oonen." As her head was cleanly decapitated from her body. 

And Celeste understood everything that was going on and had been going on for the past 300 or so years since the start of the foot clan and why she was now fighting to save the Krysts from this womans hands. It was never about reversing time and rewriting history, it was about bringing that man back to life. Kitsune was the lap dog of a demigod who was trying to find a way back into this world and that demigod was the Samurai Takeshi Tatsuo, the ancestor of Oroku Saki and the enemy of her friends and Splinter. 

Kitsune was just like Lau, a lapdog on a very loose leash but a leash none the less and a very powerful foe, one that was intent on destroying her and everyone she knew. Even if Celeste died here today she knew Kitsune wouldnt stop because eventually Tatsuo would want the turtles dead and he would set her on them as a devine executioner. Celeste would never allowed it to happen no matter what the cost and now she knew she had only one shot.

She glared at the witch before her and prepared her mind for a incantation so arcane that she had forbid Leo to read to outloud to her in her Tome. The oath of Bolvi was not just poetic banter between lovers but a spell powerful enough to weave souls together in sort of metaphysical alliance. It was the missing peice of her own puzzle and one she had avoided up till now but she was ready for it and opened her soul up to its promises and power.

"Kitsune, if I leave you alive I know that your going to take revenge on my friends...because your master deems it and I cant let that happen. So I want you to give your master a message and if I have to engrave it on this woman's body then so be it! I wont let anyone or anything stand in my way!"

The air changed and power stirred. 

"Those turtles belong to me. Every drop of amphibious blood that runs through their veins, every inch of shell on their backs, every piece of skin and bones is protected and cherished by me! For them I will walk through darkness and light. For their souls I shall pledge my love and power. My sword shall be to smite their enemies and my shield to protect their hearts. Let their enemies be mine and there friends be mine. Let their triumphs be mine and their conquests be mine. Let my life and my death be for their glory! For their honor and glory I offer myself to them!" She shouted and held the staff up high. The high pitched singing from the weapon turned into a raging scream as its power was unlocked and the spell completed. The crystal ignited with light as it transformed in the mage's hand from a sceptor to a long guilded sword of jade with runes running down the length of its thin blade.

The energy emanating from it trailed down the arm of its owner and leached into her body, rearranging her damaged battle suit and painting her long brown hair a hue of lavender purple. When the light abruptly ended Celeste was standing in a white and gold suit, similar to her own only adorned with a variety of jems at her hips and arms as well as a guilded pauldron on her left shoulder protecting her heart.

The barrier surrounding them shattered at a flick of her wrist as new energy and power filled her body. She pointed her new blade at her enemy.

"I accept these creatures as my strength and support and now am forever bound to them as their Guardian Mage! And YOU will face my judgement! Prepare yourself yokai!"