(Resumed) Solstice

In an instant, magick cloyed the atmosphere.

The villagers of Charade Gin, workers, laborers, and merchants all inhaled in unison. The air chilled, tinged with malice.

An entertainer in the town square dropped the balls they were juggling, turning their drama-masked face toward the northern gate.

Two bodies launched from the gates, mutilated entrails decaying in the open. Spears clattered to the ground, syncopating against the screams.

"Pierce! Jamal!"

"Get the children out of here!"

"Sound the alarum! Summon the magi!"

"What the Hells even killed them?!"

"Stop dawdling! GO!!"

The crowd dispersed in all directions, with two merchants and the entertainer rushing north, though it all came to a halt from the clamour of those in the front. Well, more yelping than anything - They did not have the time; They were bisected, run through, and decapitated that quickly, and all without a single trace of a cause.

A humanoid strode forth from the north, clad utterly in white. Boots pressed into the ground with strength, flowing into ornate dress pants and a robe fashioned much like a tuxedo with jet-black trim. A helm shielded the face completely with the shape of a kite shield, with two cutouts for the eyes, staring into the void.

Behind them stood four figures in dark black shrouds bearing contrasting white trims.

"And who in the Hells are you fucks?" the entertainer calls out in a feminine voice.

"I am called Aegis," a masculine voice distorted, with a spectral echo to his tone. Its white-clad speaker gestured in a stage bow.

"Yeah, you fucking killed our guards; I'm not dealing with your bullshit today!" With a flourish, cyan lightning arced through the entertainer's hands and forked at the offending masked man, vanishing about halfway through.

"It is rude to attack a fellow blessed one unprovoked." The masked man held his arms up in a shrug. "Another outburst like that, and we will be forced to destroy your buildings."

Further away from the conflict stood two tween boys and an older teen facing north, shivering next to the central fountain.

"I can get in a good earthquake," said the dark-skinned merchant to the entertainer's right with conviction.

"No need Justin," the entertainer replied, in tune with the beat of multiple guards charging in, spears readied.

"...Won't...work..." one of the tween boys stuttered.

"Yeah, how the fuck would you know that, Em?" the other tween asked with a glare.

"There they are!" one of the guards shouted.

"And pray," said Aegis, holding up one hand, "What do you senseless dreamers think you can do with a pointy stick?"

"For Pierce and Jamal!" the guards yelled.

"Don't do it!" The entertainer shouted. "There's nothing you can-"

Aegis closed his hand, and the torsos of every last guard in the charging formation warped and tore open from the side, blood gushing out of both sides of every single one of them.

"Spectral... transparent..." Em stuttered.

"Alright, that's it!" the entertainer shouted. Flames gathered around her body as a spell circle illuminated beneath Justin, the dark-skinned merchant, amber light shaped into runic symbols, concentric circles, and polygons.

"You wish to fight? We raze your home." 

At Aegis' command, fire erupted from the hands of his two frontline supporters to crash into nearby houses. With a crash of his foot, a rupture in the ground darting at him ended its advance. 

The entertainer released a double-helix stream of pyretic energy off to an angle to grab Aegis' henchmen, followed by the adjacent light-skinned merchant conjuring a cerulean circle of lights and runes, not unlike the amber one before.

A battle of magi had begun.

The tween child, Emmett, froze, his irises radiating soft cyan light. 

Aegis' third ally took to the sky to rain down blades of wind while the fourth stood by, wreathed in a soft white aura. 

Aegis himself had barely moved at all, gesturing into the air. 

Spells approaching him and his stopped halfway through, and civilians left, right, and centre found themselves dead where they stood, their bodies torn without cause apparent.

"Alright, that's it, I'm going to fight!" the other tween child declared, reaching into the sky.

"No, Patrick!" Emmett grabbed Patrick's hands and pulled them down. "Don't you see?!"

"See what, you coward?!" Patrick yelled.

"The white-robed man, his magick!" Emmett yelled back. "Don't you see it?! It's mostly transparent, but you can see the outlines as it dissolves the other Magick! For instance, the spikes that impaled the-"

An older teen accompanying the two children kicked Emmett in the balls and tackled him to the ground, raising his fist high. "You think now's the time to make funny jokes about seeing the fucking invisible, you prick?!"

"Bryce, please-" Patrick pled, cut off by a swing of Bryce's stone-coated fist straight for the helpless Emmett's throat. 

With stillness Aegis regarded the boy named Bryce, watching his vital organs thrust out of his torso onto his would-be victim. "I make an effort to keep the blessed of this village alive," Aegis said, "Misguided as they are, we Emissaries of Total Salvation, in honor of the Eldest Crusades before us, have standards. We do not kill magi acting in defense of home. You, however, have betrayed your comrade, making you more sinful than those rejected by the Havens."

Patrick screamed in as fell rage as he could, charging forth with seized fire and throwing a bolt of it at Aegis's kite-shield face. It dissipated, of course, a few inches away from Aegis' face. "Fuck!" 

Aegis blinked out of perception, reappearing in front of Patrick with a knockout punch to the jaw.

"You- That was- They're children!!" the entertainer glares up at Aegis, her tan visage and fierce brown eyes visible to all, what with her mask broken in two on the ground around her.

"Those children are blessed, like you and me," Aegis replies, "They will persevere; otherwise, they wouldn't be worthy of the Heavens' blessings."

"Hardly a fucking blessing when you kill everyone they ever knew in cold blood!"

"We have saved them. Do you honestly think the dreamers would foster any real relationship with them?"

"Our village loved all its members!"

"Your village used you as tools. If you'd said no even once, you'd have been burned alive."

The four black-cloaked figures returned to the fountain-laden square in various states of exhaustion.

"We did it, Chairman," one of them said, "We have extinguished the flames of the Dreamers."

"Did you preserve the families of the blessed?" Aegis asked.

"N-no, we didn't," another answered, "We didn't want to chance someone lying."

"You damned fools." Aegis sighed, planting one of his palms on his kite-shielded helmet. "Without a stable family, young Magi will not rise to their full potential, which will cost us in the long run when the Nightmares roll in."

"We're sorry!" the first black cloak said.

"Please don't kill us!" the second cried out.

"Relax. You will atone for your misdeeds, but you will still be in service," Aegis replied. "Have any last spells for us, Miss Jacqueline? Or shall we make our parting and opening speech?"

"Just... get it over with," Jacqueline spat out.

"We are, as you may have heard, the Emissaries of Total Salvation," Aegis said, "And I am Aegis, heir to the Chairman of the venerable Eldest Crusades. We seek to save the world from the dreaming sinners and the false gods they pledge their service to."

"Dreamers... do not... follow... devils..." Jacqueline protested.

"Oh trust me, they do, Miss Jacqueline, whether they know it or not," said Aegis. "Dreamers represent an existential threat to us, and thus we take the old banner. We will amass a battalion and purge the world of any chance for the false gods to return."

"You're sick."

"I am doing what must be done. I hate it too, but it's some or all of us in the end." Aegis shook his head. "This is where I ask you to join us or die when next we meet, but my followers were too zealous and left the blessed children of Charade Gin without their parents."

"Yeah, not joining you." Jacqueline flipped Aegis off. "I'd sooner die."

"The single best thing you can do for everyone is raise the children as your own, along with your surviving magi." Aegis turned his back and strolled toward the east exit. "If anyone asks what happened, tell them the Emissaries are here to save the world, and we will exterminate any and all threats to that end."

With that, the band of five killers departed.