I wasn't at risk of getting cut with Spirit's blade, then hit by his manipulative powers.
"I never wanted to be a Reaper!" Spirit snarled. "I never asked for this! All I wanted was to die, as I was meant to die! She wouldn't let me move on. I begged her. For millennia, I begged her, but she wouldn't listen."
"So what? You're punishing us all because Death didn't let you die?!" Taeral retorted. They'd both paused for a short moment, while Taeral got his breath back and Spirit quickly surveyed the battlefield and smirked. The odds had yet to flip in our favor, but, if we kept going, we still had a chance at fighting the specters off completely. We, the living, did the fighting, while the Reapers came through and reaped the crap out of these violent and bloodthirsty spirits.
"You're merely collateral damage," Spirit replied. "If you want anyone to blame, look to Death. This is on her. It's all on her."
"Coward," I blurted, drawing his attention. "You can't even take responsibility for your actions."
He grinned, but there was darkness in those galaxy eyes, the kind that predicted terrible things to come. "I suppose you're still wondering where your ghoul friends went, little Miss Know-It-All?"
Around me, the fighting continued. Vicious and ruthless, bloody and painful. Scythes glimmered in the light. Specters snarled and clawed and bit through everything they could get their hands on. The living struggled to keep up and not get torn to shreds. There wasn't enough time to do anything more, as the planet's hum became louder, the glow intensifying from within and threatening to blind us completely.
"I've got wards all over the place," the Spirit Bender added, his chest swelling with pride. "You thought I didn't know about the ghouls? I have eyes everywhere, you worthless creature. My magic sprawls across dimensions. Little bits and pieces left in my wake. Alarms. Whispers. Dead eyes that I can see through. I was ready before you even showed up!"
Dread clutched my throat, its grip tightening as I realized our ghoul allies would not be able to help us this time around. We were still fighting a losing battle, despite our emotional jumps from the pits of misery. Over and over, we'd climbed out of that darkness, clinging to a single thread of hope, only to get kicked back down. This time, it was the Spirit Bender's turn to crush our resistance.
But was this our end? Our true end?
Or did the rope go on for a little while longer?
Part of me was virtually incapable of letting go. As long as I still had breath left in me, I could do something. The Spirit Bender vanished for a split second, and I knew he was coming for me, so I teleported myself beside Taeral, instead.
Spirit reappeared where I'd stood, his scythe glimmering, thirsty for my life. Gripping my sword, I pointed its sharp end at him, while Taeral smirked. The Time Master was missing for a reason. I knew that now.
"We're not done here," I said, as the battle raged on. "We're not the kind to just give up so easily, especially when our foe turns out to be just a toddler Reaper throwing a tantrum."
The Spirit Bender turned to face us, his expression skewed by anger.
"Then you shall die here, while the entire universe burns," he replied.
For some reason, I found it hard to believe him. Even with one foot already in the hole, none of us could give up. Maybe that would eventually save us.
Taeral
The Spirit Bender's motives didn't make any sense. Perhaps to him they did, but to every other living being in the world, they did not justify this level of hatred and damage against people who had done nothing to him.
I caught glimpses of Death beneath the ice. There was no way of getting any closer to her, though. I'd tried, more than once, and Spirit had pushed back every time. The worst part was that I had to be careful about his scythe. One cut was all it took for me to become his slave, much like the thousands of spirits he'd hoarded here, on Aledras. We all knew that a First Tenner’s powers could affect the spirits and bodies of the living, too, and not just those of the dead—and our experiences with Soul, Widow, and Phantom had more than proven it. This was one of the reasons why they were so important to Death in the first place.
Not all of the spirits