Iwaku: Dark Reign

[Asmodeus]

COURTYARD

The waters receded, cacscading over the edge of the Abyss, and all that remained was a dustbowl city, buildings hollow, statues in the streets. The storm swirled overhead, and behind it every star was growing dark, each furnace petrified, each world entombed.

Between the legs of the lifeless Scorpion, from out the freezing river, she rose again, her hair smoothed flat in weeping serpents.

Her gaze had taken all. It had swept the heavens. It had found each man and woman, each daring king and arrogant loner. And any who thought themselves free from the Cycle, not of this world, a visitor exempt from the rules, a realm free to choose, a hero immune to the machine, had been shown the inescapable certainty of her stillness.

She was the destroyer of worlds, the death of stories, the writer's block and the paralysis of nostalgia... and she would come to all.

Medusa... the Goddess... stepped from the receding waters and resumed her march, entering Nerf Castle to extinguish the last candles of the multiverse.

LEVEL ONE

Raife holstered his twin pistols and unslung his shotgun again. Grant was below him, twisting around the spiral staircase, hidden by railing and gantry as he climbed. More firepower was needed. Pulling open his naval coat, a bandolier of rounds glimmered in the light from the reactor core. Twenty two shotgun pellets, inscribed with the markings of the Major Arcana. Two were already in the barrels. Raife changed one of them over and snapped the shotgun shut again.

Then he leaned over the railing and fired. The round tore through three metal floors below, sending sparks and shot around Grant, staggering him on his ascent.

"Are you really sure you want to kill me, Doctor?" The Power yelled down, shadows and tattoos painting his face in the reactor light. "We're the only ones left now who remember. Your little subplot, your little spin-off. Last of the Legacy. Can you really carry that great a burden?"

He leaned over again and emptied the second barrel. It caught the strut of a stairwell section and with a great squeal of metal it dropped away. A whole five-foot section smashed down into the reactor beam and was vapourized, leaving a space that Grant would have to jump if he were to follow.

"Why bother fighting?" Raife flattened himself to the wall to reload, his heart pumping, sweat beading. "No one remembers what you did. No one cares!" Then he pushed away and sprinted up the next flight of steps.

"You're a side character now. An old man, muttering war stories."

<img src=http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Asmodeus1845/Stories/Big_Bang__s_First_Steps_by_Dy0.png align="left" width="300" height="200" style="padding: 5px;">LEVEL TWO

When two stars collide one should consume the other. One should swell as the other sputters. One should explode as the other collapses.

But now an unstoppable force had met an immovable object. The outline of Medea fell back into the raw magic of the Dreamsphere, glowing as brightly as the manifest Orion, the Proboard between them like some solar flare, like a dark matter shard in their equations. All words were finished. The Dreamsphere slammed into Orion like an atomic juggernaut, with the force of gravity that had once compacted the universe. Star met star, light met light, and in a nuclear embrace they were one.

Only Nerf Castle held them. Its Absolute stone warped and screamed, bleeding light, shuddering like flesh. The two combatants oscillated, fluxing between black hole and nova, between total implosion and cosmic eruption. Every stone twisted. Every foundation rocked.

Nerf Castle itself began to sway.

LEVEL THREE

"You're right. It's about me!"

Using the shattering of Psychosis's sword as distraction, the Dark Porg came down onto his twin, landing from a high arc with his knee extended. Porg felt his back shudder, his spine punished as he was driven bodily into the floor.

"It's my coming-of-age story, little brother." The Dark Power hopped up again, grabbed Porg by arm and leg, and swung him, pendulum-like, across the room into the wall. And as Porg crashed down the Dark Twin kept his arms outstretched. "FOR SEE HOW I'M ALL GROWN-UP!"

He helped Psychosis up with one hand, releasing as soon as she was upright. His eyes did not leave the stunned Porg. "You wasted all that time, Porgy... comparing yourself... positioning yourself... wondering what you meant to him..." He nodded to Psychosis. "...to her... to your fuckwit friends." There was a slight shudder as below them Orion's battle with the Dreamsphere weakened the structure. "All that time, believing yourself outside the Cycle, thinking it made you cool, when you were just as trapped as all the other douchebags."

He twitched his hand, levitating fragments of Psychosis's blade. Four spinning, glinting shards of the sword. They flew to him and came to rest around his knuckles, a hovering claw-hand with which to kill his lesser half.

"I'm what Porg should be! I took a fucking spoon and got on with life. And you..." His fey smile gleamed like the blades. "You're just my dark twin. All my pathetic, mewling, spineless inability to make anyone give a fuck about me."

He flipped upwards, landing with his feet on the ceiling, above Psychosis. Then he circled. One would attack by floor and one by ceiling.

"By the end of tonight, either Jack or Asmo will wield the Sword of Iwaku and kill Medusa. And me and Psy will stand by their side and build a new world. That's all there is to it, Porgie. No last minute heroics for you this time round. All that's left to do is crawl off and die!"

He sprinted across the ceiling, swinging the levitating claw at his twin.

LEVEL FOUR

Chaos and Piro had vanished, their only trace in the Reality Marble mist where streams of red and blue were criss-crossing.

Below this, Kitti lay amid the ruin of the stone throne, her back sore, her cheek bruised from where Ragnarok had struck. And across from her, amongst further rubble, Archy hung in the co-pilot seat of the crumpled helicopter. Wind roared through the breach in the wall and framed a nightmare picture: storm clouds pregnant with trapped souls, a skyline turned to dust and ruin.

"Well..." Archy's voice came in ragged whisper... shreds of sound on a dying breath... "...that guy... sucks..."

Kitti pulled herself up on one of the mangled rotar blades, wincing from the virulent light of Chaos's reality-bending. The whole room seemed to be shifting and resonating. Clutching her injured back, she slumped against the cockpit and looked at Archy. It was an echo of her ordeal in the car, crushed with Zypher, watching her die.

Archy's eyes fluttered narrower. The injuries from the crash had joined with those from the Dark Porg. She was bleeding in a dozen places, bruised and crumpled. "That thing... he did... I saw you... same... when you fought... Purger...."

"Reality Marble." Kitti whispered, too tired to even soothe her dying ally. "His is stronger than mine ever was..."

Only the seatbelt Piro had put across her was stopping Archy from slumping. She reached a trembling hand through the cockpit window, touching Kitti's fingers, squeezing them. "Man... is no stronger.. than woman... I remember that... in the time before... I was once.. a man... an infinite line... the phallus... then I came into a woman... a sphere... I became a woman... like Zypher... like Feral..."

Their eyes met, and Kitti knew then that these were Archy's last moments. The words seemed to echo in the throbbing room. "A line... caught inside a sphere... when viewed correctly... is just... is just... a dot in a circle..."

Her hands lit up, cauing Kitti to release with a start. All at once Archy's magics flowed to her fingertips, and overhead the mist of Chaos's Reality Marble began to swirl. It was being pulled inwards, compacted by the Neko's teleportation mana. Second by second it grew smaller, receding from the walls, the red and blue sheen of the combatants compressed.

"Put your Marble... round his own..." Stone was already forming on Archy's skin, turning it pale and flaking. Her legs were now petrified, her eyes were turning grey. Then they fluttered shut, and her breath gave out. "Each line... becomes a circle..."

<IMG src=http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Asmodeus1845/Stories/METROPOLIS_USA_NTSC-141.jpg align=left style=padding:10px width=60%>SPIRE

My son calls me sociopath. He charges me. He swings the blade.

And I play my last hero's gift.

Drawing my left hand from behind my back, I swing it in front of him as if backhanding some phanton intercessor, and the whips of the Fear Garden lash out. Detective Natalie's final legacy is strapped to my wrist. The best thing I took from her. The tendrils catch Jack Shade full in the face, slicing him open in three great scars, and were his eyes still in him they would have been ripped out. He lands a little beyond me, crashing to his knees, and as he clutches his wounded face there is blackness seeping with the blood.

I give my own gasps as I pull the device off and fling it from the rooftop. Its two supply-prongs rip clear of my flesh. The nightmare poison, its dregs still in the gauntlet, has mixed with my own blood on the climb up here. And now it mixes with his. The blood of Confluence. The blood of Hierarchy. The blood that still remembers a little of the power that made me a god amongst men.

A million tiny Confluence pulses racing through his bloodstream.

We rush back at one another, and he already he feels it. The Sword of Iwaku is heavy, the grip slick with rain, his senses dulled by the storm. He cannot focus on what he wants to cut. He cannot think that quickly. Adrenaline takes over. Sparks of green and gold fly out as we thrust and parry, our blades clashing, driving each other back and forth across the rooftop. No time for words. No more philosophy. Just the Reaper casting dice.

He makes a flourish, hooks Metatron out of my hand. It hurtles upwards and I spread my wings and vault after it. But he's leapt to the turret by the time I descend. I rain blows from above. He seizes my leg, flings me down like a hammer. The roofline cracks. Rolling, I come up, parrying from the knees, then deliver a palm-strike to his solar-plexus. The rainsdrops ripple in mid-air. My son is thrown from the turret and into a great stone gargoyle on the west corner.

But he grips the statue's maw soon enough and flips up as I hurtle towards him. Metatron skewers the gargoyle's chest where he was moments before. He comes up onto its head, makes to strike, but I twist the blade and shatter the statue. He falls with the slide of rock, landing in a roll, hands around one of the larger chunks which he flings back at me. Boulder slams into book. Pain ripples through my embedded pages. I am thrown backwards, past Syracuse's hiding place.

Pinned for a moment, I hurl the rock aside as he looms above me, rolling as the Sword of Iwaku slices clean through the rooftop. I rotate once then hold my breath, lying beneath the knee-deep water that floods the platform. He spins, trying to sense me, turns his back. I come up and drive my sword through his wing. He cries out, then drives the Sword behind him, impaling my leg.

We are both joined, skewered to one another. I release my blade and fall forwards, getting my arms around his neck. My back arches and lifts him off his feet, choking him so he cannot direct the Sword. But as he pulls it free my weight gives out. We topple over the side of the rooftop, crashing down onto a lower turret, cracking buttress and guttering. There is a nearby shriek from Feral, who is still clinging to the outer wall. The Neko ducks and scrambles away as we carve up the architecture.

Jack swings down through a portico window. The glass shatters as he drops into a belltower. Then I am after him, my leg trailing blood. We tackle each other against the instrument, sending out great thunderous tolls that seem to shake the cosmos. He disarms me again, but I have him seized by the shoulders. I fling him against a far pillar, kick Metaton into my hands, fling the blade upwards. It severs the rope of the golden bell and I catch it as it falls. With all twenty tons of metal in my angelic hands I swing it in a decimating arc. The bell crashes through wall and window, skimming Jack Shade's head as he flattens himself to the ground.

The belltower is obliterated and the wind howls anew. Jack Shade flies up like a rocket, but his injured wing undoes him. I pursue, sword in hand, seize his ankle, hoist upwards, and drive every inch of Metatron through his hip. His side is pierced and the tip exits through the ilium bone. He flies a little higher in his agony then folds his wings, dropping like a stone to slam me into the rooftop once more.

The wind is knocked from me. Then he reverses the Sword of Iwaku and drives it back into my arm. The ulna is skewered, the limb pinned to the rooftop. We yell together, each in our own worlds of pain. We are but feet away from where Tegan, veiled in illusion, lies in separate agony.

But my other arm is locked around his throat. The rooftop water runs red with out blood. My lips are at my son's ear. "GIVE ME... THE SWORD... BOY!"

 

[Hecatoncheires]

[size=+1]The stairwell explodes in an upheaval of shotgun pellets and metal shards as Raife fires down at me.

I fling myself against the side and suck in a breath before charging upwards again; he's wielding a double-barrelled shotgun, going by the sound of the shot, so that gives me a few precious seconds to get further up these steps before he fires again. The gap where my foe blew away the steps just seconds before looms menacingly but I don't falter in my pace, launching myself out into the gulf between the steps and the next level.

Landing into a roll, I snap one of my pistols up just in time to see Raife disappearing up the next flight of stairs. I squeeze the trigger to send a bullet hurtling into the wall he was standing in front of just seconds before, to send a message; I'm coming for you, motherfucker, no matter what you throw at me. Down below, there's an angel with a bullet in her shoulder because of you. Outside, a city burns because of what you did.

If you're the captain of this insanity, then I'm sending you down with your ship.

"You can run all you want, Raife!" I below up after him as I mount the steps with my handguns raised aloft, "You're gonna run out of steps eventually!" I keep close to the wall, ready to slam myself into it should I see the barrel of the shotgun pointed down at me; he's got the advantage of height, but he can only fire that thing twice before he has to reload. If I can survive both blasts, I can close the distance before he reloads.

"And you're right; I'm just an old man--" Rounding another turn of the stairwell I jump back just before Raife's shotgun blasts shot down at me, feeling the shot rush past my faces just inches away. I snap out of cover and open fire, but he's already moved again. With a snarl I charge up after him.

"I can't tell you whether or not I'll be able to handle such a burden, either!" He looms above me again, the second barrel discharging as I fling myself to the side. The impact has sent one of the handguns spiralling back down the stairs and leaves my shoulder screaming, not to mention the pieces of the shot digging into my side. But he's out, and this is my chance to close the distance and start fighting him on my terms. Ignoring the searing pain in my side, I haul myself to my feet and rush after him through the portcullis ahead, tucking the remaining pistol into its holster.

Raife's desperately trying to reload the gun as I come crashing through, but gives up and swings the weapon at me when he sees me coming. The momentum of my run won't let me change direction, so I duck under the swing and collide him, wrapping my arms around his chest and hauling him into a tackle. I feel the air rush out of his lungs as we land in a confused heap.

"But let me promise you this, you fuck!" I roar, swinging my fists down onto his face as he desperately tries to defend himself, "You're not gonna be around to find out!"[/size]

 

[Kitti]

Vibrant colors swam through Kitti's vision, the reality marble compressing with Archy's help, and the room wavering as though the very air was trying to shape itself into the form that they desired. Looking down at Archy's battered frame was a poignant reminder of the death that Kitti had just witnessed alongside the road. This was the day of death and in Kitti's mind, there was a question blossoming - could any of those who bent the line into a sphere have any hope of surviving the transformation, or was the alchemy of the cycle claiming their bodies with the transmutation to repair what they had broken? It was a jarring thought, some looming idea of doom for those who sought to free themselves from their origins.

Taking to her feet once more, Kitti let Archy's hand fall to the neko's chest. This, of all things, was her curse. The burden of the relentless, the cross to bear for one who could do nothing but live on even as the lives of others broke beneath her hands. Tapping into the energy that coursed through the room felt as though she had dipped her mind into the waves of thought and come back weak at the knee but exhilarated with power. If she could harness it as Chaos had, perhaps she could rival his power and overtake it with her own and the help of Archy. He had fallen from the grace of the world and she had granted him his dismissal, the last part of the process was officially relieving him of duty.

"Forgive me for not making it clearer, Chaos. You will have no need for your throne any longer."

Lifting into the air on her wings once more, a few stray feathers fell, too heavily coated with blood and ash from the wreckage to cling any longer and they fluttered to the stone below. All the noise became irrelevant as she drowned it from her ears. If she had hope of succeeding, she would need her concentration and could not offer her words any longer for Archy or any of the others. There would be time to mourn later, after the world had been sundered and molded anew or there would be none left to grieve for the body of a shifter.

Hands outstretched and fingers splayed, Kitti ensconced Chaos's reality marble with her own, folding over the dark blue of his with the soft green light her own emitted faintly. The surrounding had been the easy part, the challenge would be in holding her own. With his reality marble trapped, Chaos would find his arsenal diminished greatly. The floor visible beneath Kitti's reality marble reflected a memory of another life, white marble with veins of palest rose gold, a palace where she had walked barefoot with Orochi. In her thoughts, she could almost hear the echo of a child's laughter.
​

 

[Delnoir]

Chaos' attacks and position moved in time with Piro's tricks. The lance was with no doubt dangerous. It was practically kin with Ragnarok for it connections to the cycle. But the combined assault of his blades streaking through the air like missiles proved a very formidable wall between he and Piro. And then came the distortion in his reality marble and a sudden fluctuation in the onslaught of his weapons. Kitti's intervention had given him the opening he needed. The still untouched Ragnarok leapt from it's hilt into Chaos' hand and two swift slashes he slashed Piro across the right shoulder and left thigh before bringing his boot up and kicked him away. Turning to Kitti his stony gaze didn't waver, "You never struck me as someone to leech off another's power like a parasite, Kitti. This is a test of your own strength and I assure you won't be able to turn Paorou's own power against him. But you know all too well my reality bending was always secondary to my swordplay."

Within the blend of the two reality marbles the cycle's energy began to emanate from Chaos' body in a golden glow. Taking his stance his eyes narrowed, "All you've done is end the calm before the storm. Come at me then, girl. Prove you're strong enough to end my torment."

His words carried a sense of finality to them, but Kitti knew as well as he did that he had not invoked his ultimate ability and would not until he had no other alternative. The runes on Ragnarok's blade remained dark, untouched by the cycle. But both knew what it would mean when the blade was ablaze in light. The only question that remained was if a wounded Piro and Kitti could push the guardian that far.

 

[Neko Archy]

[DASH="blue"]I remember how my powers were first explained to me. It was a long time ago, before I first ever came to Iwaku. I don't remember much else from back then...but this part stuck with me.

The power, the ability to world jump, all the raw energy and immortality that came with it...it's not a limited thing. There's not some pool of energy I have that can be used up or stolen away. It's not a constant, either-my power is like a flame. It flickers. Sometimes it runs like a wildfire, so powerful there's practically nothing that can stand in its way. Somtimes it burns small and cold, like the embers left over at a campsite.

It's possible to transfer it, like I just did-hard, and in these circumstances, life threatening, but possible. This is where the fact that it's like a flame comes in handy-It takes a lot to give Kitti that same spark, but not quite everything I have.

So I'm still alive while Kitti lays my hand on my chest and heads off to do her thing. I'm still alive with random pieces of metal jammed through my torso. I'm still alive as that petrification curse starts to take hold of my body, that tiny little ember of power still clinging onto life. I feel...heavy. Kinda sleepy. And as my eyelids droop, I think of just one thing.

Not. Like. This.


Fuck this shit! If I'm going to die, I should die in an awesome way! Bleeding to death and petrifying because of injuries from some random helicopter crash is extremely not awesome! When I die, I want it to be so amazing that people talk about it for years-no, millennia to come! I want my death to carve a spot into the collective memory of mankind so deep that it never heals over! It should involve an explosion so bright, the stars themselves have to shade their eyes! There should be a crowd staring on in awe, and the whole thing should have a hard rock power ballad by Queen playing all the way throughout! THIS HAS NONE OF THOSE THINGS!

There's a piece of windshield shoved into my chest. I rip it out. There's still something weighing me down, but I lift myself up out of the seat anyways. It's my legs, and as I force them to move I can feel them cracking and bleeding. The fire's spreading, forcing out Medusa's curse at every point of my body.

It hurts like a bitch.

Chunks of stone and skin slough off my legs as I start to crawl out of the wreckage. When I meet snake-bitch, we're going to have a little talk, and by talk I mean my fist is going to engage in philisophical discourse with her face.

Chaos still has that Reality Marble up and running, the little pocket universe he carries around with him-but it's fading fast. And Kitti's got all the tools she needs to negate his advantage with it now. I, on the other hand, have a debt to repay with the evil Porg. I give her a wave, and I'm gone.

I reappear in the air above the battle. Jackass Porg's...on the ceiling? There goes plan A. In my brief flight I spot another person circling on the floor though, and she doesn't look so friendly. A few gyrations in the air, some focus and she's on the receiving end of an exploding kick delivered with the full force of my body. The magic (with a little help from physics) does its job, and she goes flying into a wall while I make my landing. And by "landing", I mean I fall flat on my ass.

Okay. Breathe Archy. You just dealt with a horrible curse, tore through dimensions, and one-hit KO'd someone as a form of entrance. What's a good one liner...a solid witticism will make up for that fall right there.

"Uh, so Porg...sorry I'm late. Some stuff happened."
God. Fucking. Damnit.[/DASH]

OOC notes

So yeah, post go! As always, I'll make edits as soon as I can if there's trouble. We should be fine though, and of course Archy's perception of how the fight is going may not be accurate.

 

[Faulkner]

Oh, fuck this shit.

The kick came out of nowhere and it fucking hurt. In my natural form, I am practically confluence incarnate, and getting hit by a kick with the force of an explosion behind it is definitely not something I could normally recover from. Hitting the wall and landing on the floor, at first I'm not even aware of the pain. I can't see, my vision having completely blacked out. I can't even breathe at first; it takes all my effort to remind myself how.

When my vision finally clears, I become aware of two things. One, I have no fucking idea who that cunt that just kicked me even is. Who the fuck does she think she is, crashing in on this fight!?

The other, is that the stupid cunt isn't even looking at me anymore. And being dismissed that easily is what really gets my blood boiling. She just made one big-ass mistake, an if I have my way, it'll be the last one she ever makes.

I may be only human. But unlike others, I have the option to be something else, too.

My amulet flares red. It burns like fire and penetrates my flesh as a deep, guttural growl begins to resonate deep in my chest; my body practically vibrates with it as the energy of the amulet seeps into my very bones, enveloping me until there's nothing left but red, red, red consuming everything in me and devouring me and the consciousness that whispered in my mind boiling to the surface like a wave of all-consuming hunger and greed.

Red. It penetrates me and consumes me and becomes me as I become it. Behind the bitch that had turned her back on the body my skin bubbles and cracks and grows hard and tough, a craggy, dark-red hide that spreads over my entire body. My nails blacken and lengthen into cruel hooked claws; my body swells grows, bones shifting, muscles twisting and building upon themselves, my skull changing and it hurts as my face becomes a snout, lips shriveling until his snaggled, yellow teeth are prominently on display. The tail lashes out behind him-me-us, heavy and thick as a tree trunk, sliding across the stone floor with a hiss that echoes in our breath as we exhale in satisfaction.

Power. This is what it feels like. The utter confidence that radiates from this crocodile-like body, the smug assurance that it doesn't matter what this bitch throws at us, I would not die.

Then our eyes open, bulbous yellow, pupils narrowing to slits as we focus our vision on her, and I give no more warning before lunging, slamming into her with all the force several hundred pounds of monstrous crocodilian demon can muster, slashing at her with black claws as I open our maw and roar.

"You picked the wrong party to crash, bitch," I hiss at her, before whirling around to slam my tail into her and give her a taste of getting tossed across a room like a ragdoll. She wants to fight? I'll give her the fight of her goddamned life.

 

[Neko Archy]

[DASH="blue"]There's a bit of noise behind me, and as I turn around that's all the warning I get before I'm grappling with a crocodile demon-thing, because this plane is completely batshit insane. The damn thing's got claws digging into my arms already, it's a lot larger than me, and far stronger than I'd like. Where the hell did this guy come from, anyways?!

He tail-swats me into a wall, and that's when it hits me-not the wall, realization-it's that woman I just kicked across the room. I mean, who else was in here before? She must just have transformation powers, sort of like mine...but actually useful for more than just messing with people.

Well, whatever the case, she's charging at me now with claws again, and is looking for blood. She's stronger than I am...but I've never fought on muscle alone.

This time I'm ready for her. Her arms are longer, I step just inside them as she lunges forward for a strike. Two hits to just below the shoulder, one on either side...they're strong enough to more than bruise, but as I make contact my power flows through them and the demon's flesh explodes. I bring my hands back together in front of me and slam my open palms into the center of its chest. Again, supernatural power augments physical abilities, and the blast sends the monster flying across the room. Her (or is it a him now? There don't appear to be breasts...) claws scratch my back up a bit as she goes flying, but there's no real power behind them-it's just cosmetic.

This time I don't turn to chat with Porg. There's someone with unknown supernatural abilities trying to kill me, so there's no sense dismissing them early. As I look at her, I can see the blasts didn't do as much damage as I'd hoped-her arms are still hanging on to the rest of her body, even if only just so, and-wait, that one looked more hurt just-aw, shit.

It's not long before she gets up, a wicked smile on her face. Yep, healing powers, and very strong ones at that. She even flexes her arms, showing that they are indeed perfectly fine. To go from having an arm hanging on by a thread to perfect health...This is gonna suck.

I keep my distance, waiting for her to make the next move. It's my raw destructive power versus her high-speed regeneration...

"...Well now...shall we dance?"[/dash]

 

[Porg]

My mind is still reeling with what this other me is saying, and an awful part of me is agreeing with him. I manage to dart to the side at his first swing, the shards of metal glinting menacingly as they slice the air by my shoulder, far too close for comfort. I take the opportunity, palm striking his arm away from me and then his shoulder, using the force to put some extra distance between us.


"You're trying to tell me you don't still care about them!? About everyone we held dear? About Myrn and Obskeree!?" He grunts, launching at me again, I manage to deflect the clawed hand with my elbow but receive a palm strike to my chest for my trouble. I slide back a little, trying to catch my breath as he continues towards me. The claws just catch my cheek as I swing my head to avoid them. My arms swing up and grab his holding him in place. "I refuse to believe that!"


His other hand swings down, his palm resting against my chest as a flurry of flame surrounds his palm. I let go of his arm to dodge but far too late. the magic builds into an explosion and I'm blasted backwards across the room and through one of the stone pillars. The force of the impact somewhat stops the momentum and I fall to the floor in a spray of rubble. The bricks from the pillar seem to stop midair though, the whole arrangement freezing mid-impact, no doubt the effect of the battles above and below us.


"As I said, this is my story" the other me chimes. as I look through the rubble up at him on the ceiling, he's crossed his arms and leaned back, as though resting against some invisible wall. "And it's not about any of the horde of dickheads I used to, or still know!" He's grinning, but I can see he's angry at the thought. I push myself to my feet, wiping away the blood running from my cheek. Before I can straighten myself up fully however a flash of blue catches my attention out of the corner of my eye. For a second I think it's her, Obskeree the blue fairy, and I am filled with relief of seeing her again as well as a painful icy stab of fear of whether I could protect her in this twisted world. But before I can dwell on this the blue shape becomes two and they hit me, biting and gnawing at me. One is on my head, clinging with sharp little claws, the other biting into my shoulder with razor-teeth. I manage to swat them away just as the other me closes in switching t stand on the floor again. I duck behind a floating brick, his punch reducing it do dust, instead of me.


Taking a step back we both look to each other, coiled like springs. I can see properly what the blue shapes are now. No wonder I thought they were Obskeree, they are almost identical, though their skin has an odd crystal quality. "You mean to tell me you don't care about Obskeree when you've gone and found yourself two replicas!? And what about Psychosis!? You're telling me you don't even care about her!?"


He grins before lunging at me, the blades coming down in a cruel swing. I stumble back a little, managing to avoid the swipe, but the upward punch he follows up with makes contact. He stares into my eyes as I crumple over his fist and he whispers to me "I couldn't give less of a shit about them. Tools the lot of them, tools in my story." He punctuates the last word with a punch to my face with the clawed hand.


But it does not contact.


With a painful shout I punch upwards, catching his arm with the blow and sending the shards of sword scattering around as I parry the blow. Energy is flowing around me and I punch forwards, sending him flying backwards with the force of the blow. "You say you've developed, you're just me but further on. But I would never treat people like that, least of all Obskeree." He's already up, the blow doesn't seem to have phased him much at all. We meet amongst the suspended rubble, both parrying blows and dodging them with similar efficiency, though I must admit he has the edge.


"You don't get it do you!?" He retorts as he flings a fireball my way. "You couldn't understand! I've been through my Heroes Arc, I've suffered and I've learnt!" I deflect the fireball with a palmful of soul energy, it blasts some rubble up from the ceiling where is proceeds to hang midair. "We ARE the same, and if you were going to live past tonight you'd have ended up just like me!" We comes at me with another flurry of punches and kicks, I parry one t the left and then block a kick with a knee-strike before backflipping away and palm striking one of the floating bricks at him. He simply bats it away and rushes me with a pair of flaming fists. I quickly backstep away from each strike until I hit a wall. I manage to dive to the side,but the impact of the punch blasts me further. The raw power he possesses is frightening.


"Why did you do it!? why did you turn the Viridian guard to war!? Why did you make the Perlasven!?" I scramble to my feet and occupy myself with kicking pieces of rubble at him, hoping to slow his advance. He bats a couple away before one shatters on his chest and staggers him a little. Then with a growl he holds his hand forwards and just blasts the rubble to dust.


"You would have done the same! I was left with no choice!" He stares at me and grins again, at awful gut-wrenching grin. "Yes, you would have done the same, but this is my story, so it was me that did it." He swings his hand up, as though drawing a blade from an unseen scabbard and in his hand materialises the weapon I know as a soulblade. It is vaguely key-like in shape, though it is twisted and bent and sports a wickedly sharp cutting edge, new additions from when I wielded the weapon.


"No! I wouldn't have! I.. I.." I don't even seem to be able to convince myself at this point. I stand and get into a fighting stance, but the fire I had a minute ago has dissipated and I'm suddenly very aware of just how superior his abilities are. I raise my fists as he runs at me with his SoulBlade.

 

[Jack Shade]

I taste pain with every nerve in my body, wind whistling past my ears in individual notes of sorrow. When I crash into Asmodeus, the remnants of the tower sway at our impact. We are not what we are, flesh, bone, feathers, and ideals...we are the weight of prophecy and the Cycle all churning as one. The stone gaze of Medusa pauses on our skirmish, I can feel her interest on us even as Asmo twists the blade within me and I scream in agony. This is all one great performance, we dance, we sing, we cry, and we pitch ourselves to the whim of an unseen audience. The rain mixes with my blood and now the roof smells like death. I can't concentrate, I can't see, damned if I can win now...busted wing, impaled, I feel my grip loosen on the sword as black spots swim in my minds eye.

I hear darkness comes to those who die of asphyxiation...does that mean I am already dead?

I hear Asmodeus' voice whispering in my ear.

I fade.

"Nobody, I find you guilty of treason and sedition against the rightful King of Iwaku, Gabriel Zero."

Tied in chains, the dark haired young man glared up at the Court Mage, Chopsticks, as he read the verdict. The mage wore a heavy cloak to disguise the early signs of his corruption, twisting tentacles for his adoption of darker arcane masters. The thief forcibly knelt below the throne, his shoulders forced to hang penitent, his arms crossed behind his back. Around him, the Knights of Iwaku assembled...all save Paorou who had been dispatched to command the castle guards. The Rebellion Nobody had raised clamored against the gates and threatened to inundate. Even as their leader awaited execution, the will of the people continued to twist in the outrage he had given them.

Behind Chopsticks, Gabriel clutched his sword with a white-knuckled grip. His eyes were anywhere but on Nobody. Paranoia had wrinkled the face that once led Iwaku from the clutches of a n00b occupied land and Gabriel was already a twisted shadow of his former grandeur.

Nobody smirked and Chopsticks raised an eyebrow, continuing.

"Your punishment is execution by the Banishing Blade. You will be torn from the lands of Iwaku and your soul will find no rest in our kingdom. Your name will be stricken from the history books, your lineage forgotten. Were you not already a bastard, your father would next bare the responsibility of your sin."

Nobody twisted in his shackles, his gaze sought out the knight in gleaming dark-tinged armor, the angel Asmodeus who stood beside Rory. With his helm on, the angel's expression was inscrutable. Did he know? Could he possibly? Would he have cared? Rage as black as pitch bubbled in Nobody's soul, a corrupting hatred for the man who had abandoned his family, who had twisted his wife to such broken ends. With a flash of angelic magic, the shackles fell like clattering snowflakes. Nobody rose from the ground and shoved Chopsticks away from him, dragging the sheathed dagger from his belt and charging at Asmodeus, blade brandished high.

The knight did not react, waited until Nobody had come within his range and drew his blade.

The motion was simple, Metatron carving through the air and impaling Nobody in his hip, shredding through his bone and then retreating, coming in again like a silver stream of wind to pierce his chest as well.

The blade dropped from Nobody's hand, clattering senslessly on the throne room floor.

Hatred remained, blazing in his eyes like twin lanterns. He held the angel's amber gaze with his own and put a bloody hand on the blade as it slid from his body

"All for you," he hissed, "Father."

The light faded from Nobody's eyes but the hate remained, a smoldering ash held even in death as his body fell limply to the floor.

Chopsticks said nothing as Gabriel ranted and raved about conspiracies behind him. He only shook his head, once, and turned away from the knight.

Asmodeus sheathed his sword, and stepped away from the corpse, his expression hidden beneath his helm.

"No."

Something resurges within me, something that feels like hatred but doesn't bite as deep. We stood as equals for once in my life, we fought as equals. My entire history has been lived in the shadow of this chaotic reformer, this bloody revoluntionist. Every step I took was in his direction, every moment in time a silent prayer to his echo. Now as he fight, trying to hard to choke the life out of each other, I can't help but see it as a repetition of times before. Asmodeus always wins, even if I win...in the end it is always his cause, his ambition, his dream.

His story.

I reach up and rocket my fist into his chin, once, twice, a third time. He seems dedicated to killing me, or at least to getting the sword.

So I release it, tearing the blade from his arm and casting it across the rain-swept roof.

The fate of this world rests with the blade and Asmodeus follows the noise of it, twisting the blade in my body even as he slides it away from him, turning to where the Sword of Iwaku had slid, a gleaming punctuation to this dramatic run on sentence. He leaves me in the rain, discarded, abandoned, scrambling for the sword that will right the wrongs and grant him the power to send Medusa back to the void.

But I know now...as I suppose I always did, that the Medusa will always lurk in the shadows of our stories, claiming the lives of those who lose interest or fall through the cracks. And it is only then that we move like puppets to the will of a higher ideal. Even when the story threatens rupture and silence, there is a will that continues to make us dance...some grand Hijacker that spins the story even when there are no more eyes to watch it.

But I am tired of that will.

He leaves the blade in my body, and I pull it from me with something akin to the very essence of agony.


Asmodeus lays his hand on the Sword, the blade flaring bright as it changes its shape for him. This fight is over, and I'm sure he thinks it.

So it comes as a surprise when I separate his hand at the wrist and kick the blade from his grasp.

I hold his blade in my hand, slick with my own blood. I can feel my life draining from my body, soaking the roof tiles, washed away with the rain. I am blind but I can see his expression, dumbfounded rage, the passion of this battle, of his heavy duty weighting down on him. He did not expect me to stand, had felt the Cycle would have done its work. Is he not always chosen by its churning gears? Is he not the wielder of the blade in almost every story?

He is the Hero of this story.

But only because he never lets us die.

"It's over." I say to him, swaying on my feet, "The story needs to end. We've done this a thousand times in a thousand ways and finally on this dying reality, I will finish it."

The will of the Cycle fills me, and I feel the blade clattering in my hands. It wants me to strike him down, and I do not know if I can resist. The Will of this story is stronger than me, entrenched through eons of mythos and legend. I strike Asmodeus down here, I know that. I take the blade and face Medusa. I know that as well.

Jack does not see when Syracuse makes his move. In a flash of energy he is gone from Tegan's side and back, one of the three pens gone from their possession and hidden in the pocket of Jack's coat. For this moment, the Hero needs to have choice, true choice...not the will of the Tyrant. History changes in every story, but few times has it been anticipated. For once, a character will have the choice whether to be the vehicle of plot or something else entirely...and in a way, was this not his struggle from the first?

The blade stills in my hand, a peace fills me that I have never known before, a clarity I have never felt.

Asmodeus looks up at me defiantly. He expects it, He knows it.

So it must come as a surprise when I cast his blade down at his feet.

"I am your son," I say, my voice cutting through the rain to his ears, "But you are not my father."

He stares at me, the comprehension we both know set in steel between us.

I turn from him, presenting my back, and starting for the sword. "And I will not immortalize you any longer."

Syrcause grinned, his hand clentching in a triumphant squeeze on Tegan's shoulder. Finally in every storyline, Jack finally cast aside his greatest anchor and became what he'd always meant to be. He had stepped from the shadow of expectation, from the will of his father, and become the Hero.

The Cycle roiled the sky above them, thwarted from its formulaic expectation.

But Jack did not look to it. He only moved to the sword.


It was time to drive the final period at the end of 'The End'.

 

[Asmodeus]

[solid=grey][IMGa=left]http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Asmodeus1845/Stories/med-2.jpg[/IMGa][B][U]LEVEL ONE[/U][/B]

Aimi's eyes fluttered open

 

[Tegan]

Feral has pissed herself again. But she's got bigger things to worry about.

It's all she can do to cling white knuckle tight to the castle's walls, claw breaking against stone. She grits her teeth as tears are sucked through her clenched eyelids. Nerf Castle breaking away from the earth and concrete and gravity that anchors it. The hulking mass of stone shooting up through the air like a tendril blooming in a hail storm. It makes wind currents sharp as blades. Wind so strong and sharp, it slices what little clothes she has away.
All that mass gaining more and more speed. It's only a matter of seconds before Feral is ripped from her fingernails and sent plummeting. The wind pushes her down as the castle continues to fly up past her. There are no flashes of life before her eyes because she is afraid to open them.

"you you killed her"
"That's right. It was me." The suitcase between them sank further into the plush carpet. Outside, the thunder and rain raged against the windows. Save for the odd flash of lightning, the suite was dark. "The Lady Markov's head. Ready for the Zirkus, as promised." Megane's whispers and hisses are scratched raw, talking through the jagged slash in his throat.
"but I killed you." Feral's voice doesn't sound much better through her hitching sobs. Under her coat, dress and underwear, she can feel the M

The brand the vampires gave her after they ambushed the Legion's safe house. M for Markov. Megane. Murder.
"And they killed the Negative Legion." Everyone but Feral. Altered, butchered into a woman, sold as a neko toy. Hated and loved and used up.
"i couldnt stop them"
"I couldn't stop them." Megane's lips are forever frozen in that awkward smile, his hair always askew, his dark eyes always staring into Feral's from behind his glasses. If she could just make him stop looking at her.
"Feral..." He nudges the suitcase closer to her. Feral bends to pick it up.
"yeah Megane?"
"The password is 'Password.'"

Feral falls through a skylight and into a pool.

"thank christ of fucking fuckface!" the neko spat and sputtered as she swam to the shallow water. It had hurt like a fucking bitch and she had broken glass in her back, but that was a lucky save. Once Feral was able to stand, she took a moment to allow her heart to drop from desperate pumping to normal. She recognized the room she was in. It was where the Four were hanging out when she and Miru got captured. Where that tattooed motherfucker had sent her off to the camps. Where he killed Miru...
Feral looked down at her reflection in the water.

Her breasts, perfectly pert and shaped by months of forced intravenous hormone therapy the areoles tattooed a dusty pink. To make the nipples more pleasing. Her perfect pubis carved out and folded in precise as origami. Toned thighs, arms, ass; not an ounce of flesh wasted. This tight little body sculpted and molded with only the highest profit in mind. It was a caricature of femininity. The kind of woman only a man would become. This pretty dirty thing.
Feral slapped her reflection with her bleeding hand. There were fine clothes draped about everywhere. She could dry herself, cover herself.
Feral strode across the marble floor, leaving bloody water prints behind. She stood before the Shadowed One's empty throne and gazed at the iron claw, grasping at nothing, above it. Feral looked at the crystal lens in her left hand, embedded into the flesh of her palm. Not a blemish across its surface, despite being pressed into the castle stone. The lens Tegan had fought Paorou to make.

The throne seemed incomplete.

All these mothers and whores surrounding her. She's not like them. She's not God's pity fuck or anyone elses. Fuck them. She wants the Medusa to turn them all to stone. She wants the rampaging goddess to win.
Feral affixes the crystal lens into the iron talons then sits upon the throne to wait for the world to end.

 

[Delnoir]

Golden light. A brilliant golden light enveloped Ragnarok. As his reality marble flickered, Iwaku Castle behind him in all it's radiance, Ragnarok roared to life enveloped in an overwhelming amount of the Cycle's energy. So intense it made the cycle's bonds with Piro's lance look like a child's toy. Over the roaring din of the blade Chaos' voice shouted out.

"Do you understand now, Piro!?!? This is the cycle at it's finest!!! Channeled through one of the Absolute weapons!!! The Banishing Blade, the dagger of Homac!!! When I combined my sword with it Ragnarok was the result!!! It is my tie to the Cycle!!! The ability with one stroke, one stab, one idle flesh wound that I can without any chance of failure remove someone from the current Cycle!!!"

In that instant Chaos felt an overwhelming force from the floor above. And in that moment the Cycle that he had been deaf to for so long grinded forward. Just a little. But he heard it's voice again, and he knew what he must do.

"Time's up!!! If you are truly worthy of ascending to the top floor it will be DECIDED RIGHT NOW!!!"

The speed at which Chaos came forth was like none that anyone had ever seen from him. A flurry of slashes, stabs, and thrusts that it took Kitti everything she had just to dodge them. Sensing Piro move in from behind with his lance poised for attack the guardian whirled around and smashed his sword into the lance and ripped it from his hands sending it clattering to the ground. As he prepared to slash Piro he sense Kitti coming in from behind with an attack he couldn't ignore. A sudden burst of traced weaponry fired from the sky to force her back. Looking back to Piro, who had recovered his lance, he began trading blows with Piro. As the sounds of battle rang out, the wind generating from Ragnarok tore through his air, tears fell down his face.

"I...I hear it again! So long it's been silenced to me! All the torment I put myself through. All the doubt, all the self-loathing! And here, at what may very well be the end for us all, it tells me..."

You did the right thing...now fulfill your duty.

Chaos' boot came from the ground and slammed into Piro's face as he once again knocked his lance from his hands, and in the opening that he created he turned and thrust Ragnarok at Kitti's heart. Time seemed to slow down. Tears streaming down his face, a smile radiating salvation grew on his face. A genuine return of the counter guardian, no longer the enemy of Piro, Kitti, or any of his old friends. But this was his task, given to him by the cycle, and as his weapon came for Kitti's chest he closed his eyes.

For he now knew his task was done. And that he was about to be defeated.

 

[Tegan]

"I'm coming to you, friend."

No one is certain just how it is that Hijackers are born, or if they're even born at all before they exist. No one knows just what could bring a half-Hijacker, a being of energy and matter, limited limitlessness, such an impossibility into this universe. Only Ocha can tell us and she's not saying anything.

Hijacking is an act of manipulation, dexterity. An act of rearrangement of time and space. That's what Hijackers are: particles of energy stringed together by sleight of hand. The ability to exist any where, any when, any how that they want. A skilled Hijacker can alter its surroundings, circumstances, events, even the actions of others. There are those that argue that Hijacking isn't so different from Confluence or Reality Bending.
It's been talked about, all in theory, of course, just what would happen if a Hijacker were to enforce its own reality upon a Reality Bender.
None of the projected outcomes were pretty.

There was a pulse through the atmosphere, a prelude to atoms shifting and colliding. The tear in Chaos's aura expanded, but it was not Piro's own aura to seep through the breech.
Their reality marbles lost. It was her sand circle, now. Chaos caught in her omni embrace. She was buying time for Soledad.

It was a good day to die, Ocha thought.

Kitti's blinks and she is standing somewhere else. On the edge of some precipice, in the chaos wasteland at the edge of a burning city. The blind avian Shifter from the Convent is sinking into the red dust at her feet. No, not sinking. Soledad's body is disintegrating into red ochre. The Medusa's claim.

"Do not fear our Mother, Kitti." Her milky eyes stare into oblivion as her voice begins to crumble. "It is nature that every woman has the power to make life and snuff it out." The wolf ending her wounded pup's suffering with her jaws. "From ash springs life. And now you."

"Your strength... in a fallow state all these years, dreaming of the moon above the earth." It had been wrenching within her since that fateful night in the alley. The surge, the burst of life. A power, a fate which she had fought so hard to suppress. The nature of the true Soulmate.

"Use the power Zypher gave you. The power you've always had." The words Zypher had spoken, had been spoken to him by Diana, and to Diana by her predecessor. A lesson. A riddle. "The meaning behind this burst of death. Our Lady's final secret." Kitti kneels, as if sleepwalking, and takes the mirror jutting from the white sand that was Soledad. Kitti blinks again.

Chaos, his eyes wide with shock, the tears still warm on his cheeks. He stares at the frayed bandages impaled on his blade. Kitti stands behind him in the here and the now. Only the hot mortal blood sloshing in their veins and Kitti's realization that only she can save him.

 

[Kitti]

The mirror was smooth beneath Kitti's fingertips, the surface somehow warmer than the innocently sparkling surface should have been. In fact, the disc was almost hot, as if it had been held in the life's blood of the Shifter or had been laid in a fire before Kitti touched it. A fine dusting of vivid gold on the mirror was the last trace of Soledad's own vitality, essence condensed to nothing more substantial than dust on the breeze. Motes of the dust clung to Kitti's fingertips, pressing their unnatural warmth against the grooves of her skin. Though not tangible, the words left behind by Soledad stood out clearer and more vibrant than the ash to which Soledad had disintegrated.

A whisper through the dust and through the mirror, across the time and spanning memories, filled Kitti's ears with echoes of what Soledad told her. It was the same thing that Zypher had uttered in the twisted heap left at the side of the road, it was refrains from a lullaby sung to her in a long-forgotten childhood with the voice of a mother, and it was the feathered kisses of the woman she had loved across her cheeks; the words carried the undercurrents of too many voices to be separated and analyzed, undercurrents soaring and then fading beneath the timbre of another. Bandages and dust, a mirror and a puzzle. These would be the tools of Chaos's defeat, there were gears turning within the machinations already afoot.

With Chaos's attack halted by the intervention of the half-blooded hijack, could one truly call what ran through her veins blood, Chaos stood stunned. There had been no rising crescendo to prepare for Ocha's bold actions, nothing that Chaos could have predicated, and it had out him at a loss by all appearances. He stood rooted in place with eyes fixed on the bandages for what seemed an eternity while Kitti rose to her feet, though it could have only been seconds. The mirror reflected nothing as it was, or exactly as it was in a way that no one could see, but it was not showing the gloomy interior of the room in which they were standing once more as both reality marbles broken and Ocha's own world fallen as she died.

The mirror was instead glowing with its own light, a warm white glow in Kitti's grasp that played off the shadowy facets of her wings. There was a serenity to the light and a peace in spite of the puzzle Soledad had left for her and she pressed the mirror beneath her fingers; it appeared as a moon in the midnight darkness of the stone chamber, illuminating her path. Still moving as though in a dream, Kitti closed the distance between herself and Chaos without a thought. The wounds that had marred her body were faded and her strength returned full force.

The sword in Chao's hand was wrested from him in the span of a second before he could make sense of the events that had unfolded before his eyes. The deed which he had set out to do was finished, though not in any way that he had expected. Kitti was before him now with the sword in hand, her eyes reflecting the ethereal spark of the mirror she still grasped.

"This is over. I will be your Abbadon and your Akatriel."

There was little ceremony and no hesitation to her movements yet it happened fluidly as time seemed to slow. The jagged edge met its mark and slid easily into Chaos's flesh, a hot knife into malleable butter, and his eyes widened with surprise.

"Neither good nor of evil, the destroyer and the force of righteousness. You have followed your fate, led by the chains that bound you to the cycle."

Blood blossomed at the wound, a small trickle at first that became a spring flowing around the shard of mirror embedded in his chest, repelled from the unsullied shard of the mirror used to impale him. Chaos fell to his knees and Kitti sheathed the sword to her side before wrapping her arms around him. With a wrenching motion, she retrieved the mirror's fragment and pulled away from Chaos as the mirror reformed itself whole once more.

"But for your dedication and your loyalty, you will doubtless be forgiven."

Kitti placed her hand on Chaos's cheek, leaving a trail of his own blood after she'd pressed fingers into the wound retrieving the weapon of his demise. Her gaze was not hardened and it contained no hint of anger, rather a clouded mix of emotions of which compassion rose to the forefront. He had been fighting in something, some faith that she could not see, but they were not unalike.

"Perhaps you may even be reincarnated again, one day. Old heroes often are, as are those who opposed them risen again and again to play out the same stories. Aren't you tired of it?"

She did not wait for his answer, her back turned to him already. She was still being urged to progress by a feeling that she could not describe. She paid no attention to the mirror, which in turns melded with her flesh in pure white ribbons of light and became fully solid once more. She would advance, come hell and its princes, until she was slain or Asmodeus's mission complete.
​

 

[Delnoir]

"No," Chaos' voice was weak, but defying all logical reasoning he staggered to his feet. He truly was a reality bender. A fallen hero on the wrong side, reclaiming himself in his final moments, with final words to speak. Such acts were the essence of reality bending, "I will never tire...of protecting this land...and although you might forgive me...I cannot forgive myself...not like this," Chaos placed his hand on the pommel of Ragnarok, wrest from his hands by Kitti, "You speak of reincarnation...but that is a gift I've long since surrendered...that is the curse that came with my blessing. I am consistent in an inconsistent world...every death...every resurrection...every horrible thing I've ever done...I shall remember it now and forever. So while you might forgive me...I cannot forgive myself yet," The blades runes began to glow again as Chaos poured the last of the cycle's power within him into the blade, "So consider this...my first act of redemption...I wish I could say that was enough to use the Banishing Blade...on Paorou, but it's not...all I can do...is bring it to it's empowered combat potential."

Staggering over to the broken remains of his throne he slumped down, clutching his wound, "Be warned Kitti...that sword in your hands only lasts in this world as long as I do...Once I am gone...the blade will vanish with me...Now go...free the cycle...let me bask in it's warmth as I pass...and when you see Paorou..."

A smile crept across Chaos' face. A genuine smile not seen since he decided to aid Paorou.

"Tell him 'Chaos dies free'."

Watching Kitti leave he glanced down at himself. It was taking every bit of reality bending he could muster to keep himself stable in the world. The eyes on his gauntlet wide open and ablaze in light. He had expected the gauntlet to vanish once he was defeated, yet it persisted. Whenever he returned to the cycle anything that hadn't been a part of him wouldn't pass with him. The gauntlet, for whatever reason, was different. A weak laugh escaped his lips as he spoke to no one in particular, "So this...is...what? My reward? For doing what I always have...? Or perhaps...it's repayment...for enduring...this hell..."

Chaos closed his eyes and with the power of the gauntlet a vision of the peak of the tower appeared before his eyes. All he could do now was watch over his friends and endure long enough so that Ragnarok could aid Kitti throughout the battle.

"...Good luck, my friends..."

 

[Porg]

[SPOILI]

[/SPOILI]

The pain is unbearable and my mind and vision cloud. I can barely comprehend the screaming maelstrom beneath me. "Now die with a whimper, Boy!" The other me clenches his fist and his soulblade dematerialises, leaving me to drop. There's a second of relief as the pain subsides before the drop. Time seems to slow as I fall, and I see him towering over me, laughing with that manic look in his eyes. How ironic that I should find my end in the whirlwind of Orion's power, just about my only friend in this bleak world. There is a warmth at my side I assume it is the burning of the stars until a bright white light erupts from my belt. The light dances and in a burst of energy I am thrown clear of the chasm, impacting the wall with my wounded shoulder. I wince and yell out as my feel my vitae splash up the stones and as I rest back against the surface I feel several bricks fall away.


These are however just secondary thoughts as I scrabble to pull at my belt, freeing the little glass knife from it's makeshift sheathe. I look at the fragile thing as it glows. "Lasi…" Hairline cracks begin to form on the surface and the glow fades, the cracks getting bigger and more numerous as the glass shatters and the pieces begin to fade into a mist in my palm.


"Ugh you just won't give up will you!? Stop delaying my moment in the Spotlight!" the other me spits from across the room.


"You don't get it… it's not about the that." I murmur through gritted teeth and choked tears as I see the last fragments of the little knife disintergrate in my hand.


"We are one and the same! you feel the same as me! Want the same as me! But you have to stop chasing these pathetic dreams Little Brother. It's over and you cannot be the hero and you could never be her angel-" the last word is cut short as he sees what is before him. I do not see it, but I know it is there, the cycle's last little joke for one of it's dedicated.

"No. I am not you, not anymore. And that is exactly why.. I am her Angel."


I feel my energy return. The soul energy rising through me to levels I haven't felt for what seems like centuries. And it all seems so clear now. being Obskeree's angel was never about wings, it was never about anything so trivial. It was about being that one person she could rely on, the one that would look after her.


It was about Love.


He comes at me with his soulblade but it meets mine. An ornate quarterstaff, newly formed and shining with energy. I push his blade away and swing my staff around at him, the end forming into a great hammer as it impacts his ribs and sends him soaring across the room. I follow, he rights himself quickly and swings at me. The hammer re-materialises as a pair of tonfa and I deal a vicious one-two strike to his side and face. I'm starting to see, he has all the Soul Arts power in the world, but he does not have the soul, the substance of being to truly harness it. A being made of power but unable to properly use it. I almost pity him. He swings his blade downwards and I hold up an arm, the tonfa becoming a gauntlet to block the strike, a gauntlet forming over my other hand and delivering an uppercut. A low sweep from the quarterstaff knocks him off his feet and a downward strike with the hammer smashes him into the floor.


He delivers a parrying kick and rolls away ending up near the hole in the floor. I follow. He swings at me, but I sidestep it, I am so much faster than him all of a sudden. "Stop this!" I shout over the scream of the exploding stars. his reply is an attempt to run me through, I parry it with the quarterstaff and retort with a single punch, my soulblade reforming as a single huge gauntlet-come-hammer over my fist. The impact sends a shockwave across the room and the other me falls backward.


The Gauntlet dematerialises and I grab him by his collar, stopping his fall. I look at the pitiful creature, everything I was and never wanted to be all at once, and it's my fault. "I'm sorry, I left you here, with none of what make you me, without the love you had to keep you going, and then I went and took that for granted. Sorry."


He laughs, coughing blood as he does. "So this is where you absorb me? Gain your powers back? Become all powerful again?" I look him up and down and tighten my grip on his shirt.


"For once.. I like who I am right now" At this he lashes out intending to kill me or die trying and I panic. I let go of him and realising that I do not want to kill him I reach back out, unable to grab him I do the only thing I can think of. He is my soul after all, and it was not as taxing as doing it to Lasi. I pull back and away from the chasm, the other me fading and reforming into an ornate sword in my hand. I move it up and over my head, the discharge of energy coupled with the havoc the stars are wreaking on the universe causes a tear to form where the blade moves.


I find myself looking at a road out of Iwaku. I can make out an idyllic meadow and a cottage on the other side. I raise my hand, lost in the thought of escaping this world before my thoughts clear and I let the portal flicker shut. The soul of not-Porg stands embedded in the flagstones like some kind of gaudy ornamentation. I pul it out and slip it into my belt.


I will not run, not this time.

 

[Cosmic Orion]

This is it.

Nothing could have prepared me for the feeling of an impending conclusion. For a while I thought the battle between Medea and I would continue on for eternity. All around us I could feel our powers ripping everything else apart. Unrelenting forces pull me towards a singular destiny that I know must be carried out. Is this what it feels like to be compelled by the cycle? A riptide of fate that cannot be resisted? Or is it just the gravity from our cosmic battle? Even the board in my hand shakes with raw power. Right now I have to end the sphere babe's life. Hesitation in this moment would just let the fight start all over again and last for another small eternity while existence itself shudders around us.

Bare feet smacking against what remains of the floor, I cannot miss a single step or Woodrat's sacrifice will mean nothing. Cosmic energy crackles in my wake while the distance closes between us. Fragments fall away as my momentum pushes back all barriers keeping our level stable. No time to look through the cracks at those levels above or below. Their battles are not mine to fight. . . interfering would be the worst action. Yet in this moment of destiny the cycle has overlooked the fact I am free from my role as Guardian. Do I take this moment to forge another role for myself among the stars? Right now I could become any number of things. Nothing is stopping me aside from the conscience I have grown during my time here in the Dark Reign. Still I must complete this one task before anything else. Choice now only exists in how and where I deliver the killing blow to the sphere babe.

For so long I denied to myself the cycle even existed. . . I did not want to believe in such a thing. Dude, I could honestly care less about the damn thing or the plans it has had in motion for who knows how long. I just wanted to surf the waves. . . to feel a hot sun beating down on my skin while it warmed the sand beneath my feet. Simple pleasures I realized long ago, on this dark shitball of a place, do not exist. A reality I could not bear to the point of shutting my eyes and turning into some muscle for hire. Living in the Dark Reign has twisted me from what I once was a long time ago. It took the return of that Winged dude and all the gnarly jivel that followed up until now to open my eyes again. So I guess if I see him again, even if he is the koot-kot everyone says he is. . . I owe him some sort of thanks.

At long last I am within striking distance, swinging the Pro-board in an arc that splits the sphere babe from hip to shoulder. Right through her center of gravity that acts as a core. The weakness of every star that only another would recognize. In her last moments I hear whispers belonging to countless dreams now escaping from the sphere. Not just her own. . . but those from all of those who existed here. So many of them that trying to listen almost leaves me deaf. Every dream of the Dark Reign that was bright and hopeful. . . even those nightmarish and dark all in one place. When so many died so fast their dreams must have all come here seeking protection. Could this have driven her to such crazed madness in the end? Beyond a doubt it must have been one hell of a burden to carry all this time. Now they floated here on the cusp of an ever growing abyss with nothing to protect them from complete oblivion.

This could be my last chance to do something.

Guess deep down I cannot help the urge to act a Guardian to something.

Without another moment of contemplation, I focus on attuning the frequency of my soul to that of the dreams all around me. Absorbing every single one of them into myself is the only option. Now I am blind to everything but completing this final task no matter the cost. Doubt has no room in this endeavor. Fear is a choice I refuse to make. I must believe in myself wholeheartedly to succeed. All that matters is to save them from total destruction. The price for failing is one that must not be paid. Even the most horrifying nightmares must go on to keep the balance intact. Atoms that hold my cosmic form together strain to keep me intact as I surf something even the Proboard cannot touch. Tears that I cannot even feel the sting of stream down my face as both hands clamp down on weapon of raw power in my hand.

No way I am giving in!

My body can take this.

My soul can bear it.

"I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must. I can. I will. I must! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I must! I can! I will! I MUST! I CAN! I WILL! I MUST! I CAN! AND! I! WILL!"

It was done.

Now my heart beat with the dreams and nightmares of the Dark Reign.

At that moment I felt the presence of that stone chick in the level below bringing her bad vibes into the tower that was already crumbling pieces of stone. I could try fighting her alone but I learned last time that was a bad idea. On top of it all I now carried something more precious than my own life and I would protect it to my dying breath. Right now I could take my chances fleeing this place. . . but abandoning others is not in my nature. . . not who I am. So instead I will make a stand with whoever I end up finding left alive. Which means I need to start rounding up any survivors scattered across the tower.

Death of stories, when we next meet, you will face the power of what gives a story birth.

You will face the power of dreams.

 

[Hecatoncheires]

[size=+1]My hands are sticky with our collective blood, the left side of my face a shredded mess where the penultimate shell met its mark. The world spins and contorts as my one good eye attempts to focus through the agony, and I can see Raife lifting the shotgun loaded with the final shell that glints with the symbols of The Fool.

And in amongst them, the words 'Rosa-May'. My mind flickers with images of a child, dark-haired like her father.

The little girl Raife forged into a weapon.

"And thus... the Legacy is ended..." he snarls as he pulls the trigger.

With a booming roar of pain and sheer determination I fling myself out of the path of the weapon's spray, only my left arm getting caught in the blast. The land knocks the wind out of me and I lie there, desperately sucking in air as Raife snarls with rage. Now we're both down to fists and harsh language... but he still has the shotgun; as I stagger to my feet and parry away a kick he swings the weapon up in a vicious arc, smashing it into the side of my head.

Crying out, I'm down again and Raife's raining kicks into my chest. There's a sickening crunch as several ribs go, and I can hear my opponent rambling above it all. "Accept your fate and die with some dignity! You lost! It's over! The Cycle shall be born again, no more legacies and no more bitter old men who don't know when they are beaten!"

I'm broken, bloodied and bruised, held together through sheer grit alone. Raife's holding all the cards.

Save one. The ace Aimi slipped up my sleeve when he wasn't looking.

She gave me her sight, and so I know what's rising from beneath to devour us all. I can see the ceiling giving way under the force of the battle above, the stone floor we fight upon beginning to peel away as Medusa's taint spreads through the reactor room. Raife's boots are flaking away, starting to merge with the stone of the floor.

We are both men living on borrowed time now. He just does not know it.

This is a battle of endurance. A contest of wills, decided by who breaks last.

And Raife cannot break me. He never could.

The roar that escapes my mouth is guttural, the roar of an enraged animal. My body screams in agony, but I force it up regardless, launching myself at Raife and swinging a punch at his chest. His arm manages to catch it, but he's still holding the shotgun with the other; open to exploitation, to attack. My head snaps forwards and crashes into his, driving him back with a spray of blood and a howl of pain as the bridge of his nose is crushed.

I press the attack now, crashing into him in a desperate attempt to knock him off his feet. His boots tear away parts of the floor as we fall, and overhead light begins to burst through from the floor above, back-lighting our struggle. I can feel my body beginning to buckle and it's all I can do to stay conscious, but with titanic effort I manage to land atop my enemy.

Now time to give out now. This is do or die.

Howling from equal parts hatred and equal parts agony, I raise my one good arm and drive it down upon Raife's face. And again. And again. And again. He's struggling, trying to throw me off, but I batter aside his attempts and continue my onslaught. I can hear him above my cries, desperately trying to stammer out words in between the punches. More prophecies of the new world and denouncements of the pointlessness of my actions, no doubt.

Were I a hero, I'd listen to his final words. Were I a hero, I'd have a flowery little fucking speech of my own, something about honour or integrity or triumphing against the odds.

But there are no heroes in this fight. Just two old killers from a previous age, settling ancient scores.

Gripping his face, I wrench his head up until it's inches from my own. I barely look human any more; bloodshot right eye shifted silver, the left half of my face a bloody and shredded mess. He's little more than a swollen mess of pulp and shattered teeth, his facial tattoos hidden under all the blood, yet the bastard still tries to whisper his last words.

[size=+5]"FUCK! YOU!!"[/size] I scream into his face.

Then I smash his head down into the dying stone.

Raife breaks, the parts of his head shifted by Medusa shattering into powder, the parts still flesh exploding into crimson gore that spatters my face and mixes in with the rest of the blood that adorns me. I kneel triumphantly over the body, sucking in breath after breath, my vision beginning to fail again.

It's over.

I came here with the intention of murdering this man.

And murder him I did. As Iwaku dies, I have made sure that one of the architects of it's demise meets the fate he deserves.

The agony washes over me now, the broken ribs and the torn face almost too much to stay conscious in the face of. There is no way Aimi survived the arrival of Medusa, and this realisation makes me what to finally give up. But I fight through the pain, through the dizziness, through the grief, rolling off the corpse of Raife and staggering to my feet. I have made it this far again, to the final act of this last story. There are no gates to Sanctuary to greet me this time, though, only more stairs upwards to where this insanity shall reach it's conclusion.

I will see it to it's bitter end.

Raife's shotgun lies discarded nearby to where I'm slumped, and I tear it away from the floor before the two merge. Solid and heavy, long enough to help a broken old man hobble onwards; it'll do for a makeshift walking stick. One final time, I look back at the beaten and broken corpse of my enemy.

For all his talk, he failed to break me. Just as before.

Steeling my shoulders to the task ahead, I begin my final ascent.[/size]

 

[Faulkner]

"Oh, yes. Let's."

I'm barely even aware of the other fight on this level anymore. My focus--and that of Hyatsu's voracious appetite--is all on her. As I feel the last of my damaged flesh knit together and heal, my massive lipless maw opens with in a yellow, snaggle-toothed smile, and yet again, I lunge, moving far faster on four legs than such a huge, lumbering beast would ever be thought to.

I don't rely on my claws. She's too small and nimble. I aim to hit her with something harder to avoid--our massive bulk, rushing at her like a freight train, jaws wide open. She dodges, but my tail whips at her yet again, too fast for her to change direction. Yet again she gets sent flying. This time, I don't give her a chance to get back up, turning as fast as my momentum will allow and charging yet again while she's knocked down.

I won't let up. I'll smash her into the stone walls of this tower, and then rip apart her broken body and devour her.

 

[Asmodeus]

In the space beyond science, in the space between people, one thing is certain: that an energy exists between souls. On the blood-lake rooftop of the Tower, as Jack picked up the Sword, as Asmodeus tore the book from his chest, they each heard it clear as a death-scream.

They heard the smirk.

And as inevitable as the turning Cycle that had torn them four-ages over, they each knew the words that were coming.

"Just as planned."

The Mad King Paorou-Sama stood above them in the sky, floating at the threshold of the rift storms, where clouds had burst with blood. And brighter than the gore of angels gleamed his crimson cape. His sword was broken, its shards snapped off in Tegan's flesh, yet still he wielded it like a conductor's baton. "Remember, this is my rat trap. A perfect constructed dystopia, its conditions tuned by the trial and error of a thousand timeline alterations."

He spoke as the cornered king, as the ruler hung upon a thread. A million realities had fallen to Medusa and every incarnation of the Mythos had imploded. Yet still in his smirk was elation. "You still don't understand Reality-Bending, do you? For all the Third and Second Age you fought so hard to find your motivation. And now what? Now you come to the Tower because you feel you should? Because it seems right that you should face me? Such fickle apocalyptic whims! Is it not apparent now that what brings you here is nothing but my puppetry? My bending of your realities?"

Paorou sat back upon a seat of blood and rift-light, chin resting on one fist. Like a scientist observing his experiment. "I hoped it wouldn't to come to this, of course. But it seems you needed ever-higher stakes. The Tower had to collapse. You had to know that Medusa had destroyed all other dimensions, that your friends were dying and the Four Powers defeatable. Such fussy characters. High maintenance, you could say."

There was a cry below. Jack Shade spun, the Sword of Iwaku in his hands. Asmodeus had run at him with the out-held book. The blade pierced the spine, punching through till it stopped within the bloody chasm of Asmodeus's chest, where only light celestial met it. Son and father were entangled; the Sword could pierce no further. The last page, the Saviour's Page, fluttered back and forth between them.

And overhead the Mad King continued as if nothing had occurred. "No matter. You are all so close now. The trap is almost sprung." His hand twitched and the broken sword began to lift towards his face. The metal shifted outline. "Tonight we defeat the Death of Stories." The morphing hilt extended to a smooth and slender half-circle, manifesting gold. With a smile the Mad King placed the visor across his crimson eyes.

"Tonight, we destroy Medusa."

In the ever-contracting living spaces of the masses,
the realization of man as individual becomes
inseparable from the violent reaffirmation of the
difference between male and female principles.​

[Mark Seltzer]​

But one step paused, in honour of her servant Aimi. But now the Goddess resumed. Through the dust of Noobs extinguished, past the bones of Trismegistus. With icy lattice of slaughtered Skhone and Bread Cult turned to mold. A cloak of fallout ash from the Teknikkan's demise. With the echo howl of Ego-Zombie and the dark of Inquisition.

All things were her now. Medusa was Goddess, the Sacred Feminine. The primordial from which all might usher. The black and womb-like space, the vacuum and the other. The destroyer maiden in her ever-descent. Unreadable as stories choked.

She spiralled up through the reactor shaft, her ascent most-aided by the dozen snakes that bit and coiled on every hold. And like a deathbed eye the reactor flickered and shorted, discharging wayward pulses, till like the hissing of the serpents great cracks were heard in the walls.

The glyphs once covering the chambers of Nerf were weathered into nothing. The pillars were severed. The foundations were as powder.

In a great howl of destruction the lower levels tore away.

And Medusa's foot came down...

...upon Raife's body, shattering what was left of the powder and gore. The Lord of Confluence was swept into dust, and Medusa passed beneath the corroding portcullis.

Grant was ahead of her, hobbling with the shotgun, turning corners and crossing chambers with wheezing breath. He dared not look back. She followed with a choral hiss of snakes to hound his breath. Tunnels crumpled like tin-cans, flagstones fell, windows shattered. But still the old man ran.

At the stairway she almost had him. Her hand reached out, raw-bitten fingernails skimming the edges of his coat. He cried out, lunged upwards, used his other hand on the railing to pull. And even when the stairwell warped and shattered he kept on going. Like a twisted bone the iron stairway remained as the walls fell away, and rift-wind battered the old man's body. Then tongues of lightning removed what Medusa had weakened. Steps fell out behind him. Railings dropped.

Medusa placed one foot upon the stairwell, and with a ripple the metal became nothing.

Grant leapt upwards, and grabbed...

<img src=http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Asmodeus1845/Stories/cradle_of_the_cosmic_light_by_TheFi.jpg align="left" width="265" style="padding: 10px;">
...Orion's hand. From the light and zero-g debris that had consumed the second level, the Cosmic Surfer had emerged. The Proboard was stretched beneath his feet, a great ramp into the warring heavens. He pulled Grant up onto it, then spun with him, pushing the man ahead.

They scaled the board, bracing as the star-ruins around them contracted all at once towards Medusa. The wreckage of the Dreamsphere's passing, once a black hole litter, now came again into a single form. Chunks were pulled towards Medusa before dropping into dust and fire.

And as she stepped up on them, the lower level fell away.

Orion put his hand on Grant's back to keep him upright. The Proboard moved to bridge every gap, aiding the slow and painful climb.

Their way was lit by Dreamsphere flares and the ribbon pulses of Woodrat's passing.

The Dreamsphere was devoured in Medusa's sight. The stones began to fall. With only the Proboard as their floor the two heroes lunged up through the light and grabbed...

<IMG src=http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l85/P-O-R-G/finalfightPorg_zpsc3f5ff49.jpg align=left style=padding:10px width=50%>
...the edge of the hole where Porg stood. The world above was bloodied and dented by the dual of the twins. Porg turned as he heard them, sheathed his sword, then knelt to give a hand to Grant. The old man was pulled up by the boy, and Orion came thereafter.

But no reunion ensued. The floor was buckling. Holes opened up like quicksand as Medusa climbed and there was soon a howl across the chamber. The ground gave out beneath Archy and the greater weight of the Psychosis demon. They vanished in the collapse, before a pulse of light returned the Neko. Archy dropped beside them with a teleporter's grace. She was lucky. And she intended to keep it that way. Granting no time for Porg to realise the loss of Psychosis, she bade him lend his shoulder to Grant before yelling at them all to move.

The four ran across the disintegrating floor, barely making the stairwell before the ground collapsed to show the swirling maelstrom of Medusa dust. Like the goddess of the grave she was rising, and yet none of the foursome looked her way. In their minds imagination painted her: a serpent rising from the deep, a hell-jaw gaping, their every childhood nightmare and godless horror extending as one relentless claw to drag them back into oblivion.

Porg kicked a door down, pulled Grant through, then...

...collided with Piro. The androgynous herald had been waiting. He held the door for Archy and Orion, before pulling it shut, a corroding and wilting barrier against the Medusa. He could not be heard above the crash of the third level falling away, but his gestures spoke volumes. With frantic pointing Piro led the stumbling survivors to the throne room.

Kitti was there, taking Ragnarok from defeated Chaos. A shard of mirror slipped beneath her skin as she turned and smiled to them.

They moved as one. The walls of the Shadowed One's chamber peeled like tortured skin. There was a nod from Chaos as they passed, a grim farewell as his face became like alabaster. He alone beheld what chased them. His armour fell away, and his body slid with the throne as the floor tipped.

There was a collision, something striking behind them. They heard a whisper of Chaos, a hiss of Medusa, before the floors separated. Kitti's wings spread; Archy and Orion's magic flared. They carried Porg and Grant into the air as air was all permitted them. Behind them a window shattered. Chaos had used his very corpse to knock Medusa wide. They tumbled together back into the destruction. It would buy the others seconds, moments.... enough...

The six survivors, airborne, smashed up through the weakening ceiling, and...

<IMG src=http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l81/Asmodeus1845/Stories/METROPOLIS_USA_NTSC-141.jpg align=left style=padding:10px width=60%>
...Feral yelped as six bodies erupted from the seer's pool of the penthouse. The Neko scrambled upwards, wrapping herself around the back of the Mad King's throne before peering out with half-crazed eyes.

Kitti, Porg, Orion, Grant, Piro and Archy pulled themselves over the lip of the pool then dropped down on the penthouse floor as water drained through the hole behind them. They were exhausted, bloodied and aglow with their respective magics.

The whole Tower... or what was left of it... was pirouetting slowly in the void. The fourth level had dropped away and now the last compartment in which the penthouse lay was being compacted.

Medusa was recovering from Chaos's distraction. She was rising again. They felt it as the water froze and the penthouse windows cracked.

But there was... for but a few seconds... a silence... in which the six survivors stared at Feral.

And the catgirl pointed a finger, slowly, upwards.

"The cunts are on the roof!"

"Perlasven," the Mad King uttered, with face upturned to bleeding clouds. The ichor of souls rained down on him, from all he had doomed to purgatory in this rat-trap. Below the visor, a face that twitched and tweaked, as if hearing every scream, a choral tumult as garbled and meaningless as bread-time prayers. Yet in that Insanity one unmistakeable... one absolute belief in the power of stories... birthing denial of all alternatives. "A perfect play of roles."

The layers of the spire were peeling back, withering in blood as Medusa's chokehold claimed the Abyss. The gears of the Cycle were jammed, and it made the wreckage shudder. Jack and Asmodeus stumbled, the book suspended on the Sword of Iwaku, their hands gripped in gore.

Then a heavenly androgyne came between them. Piro pinned the Saviour's Page against the shaft of Jack Shade's sword, his lance holding the leather cover back. His eyes were aglow... the eyes of the Hero who was beside him. Piro's eyelids blinked the rain from Jack Shade's eyes, and with them he began the News-Letting.

"Here is written the Saviour's Page, and the Epilogue of Iwaku. I speak as The Herald, that first of Archetypes. Upon my tongue the story's forge and the cradle of the stakes. Let my call to action be the birthing of our hope..."

His face seemed to flicker. In the rooftop lake came mistaken reflections. King Gabriel and Woodrat; Acquariana and Lamord; The lance which Piro held seemed to unfurl like a heraldic banner, illuminating each word he read aloud.

"...For when we falter in our first denial, thus comes The Mentor. A survivor savaged on a Hero's path, in a time before this time. Yet now grown old and doubting, he will ever grant us gifts..."

A hand gripped Asmodeus's shoulder, keeping him upright. Grant was behind him, a shotgun like a shepherd's crook, and together they braced against the weight of the Sword. Now doctor and angel were bloodied alike, and the glow of one's chest caught silver in the other's beard. They had stood like this once before, with Grant's shotgun wrapped around Asmodeus's throat, choking and restraining. Yet now the scene had found reflection.

Just as the water around Grant's feet. For in it were flashes of Coffeecake and the Necromaniac Grumpy.

"...And to his errands on the quest The Ally comes, a proxy of our purer traits. Where growth restricts his loyalty stay the path, till side-by-side our battles won..."

Porg was to the other side, opposite Piro yet standing at a distance. There was a soul-blade in his hands, bright with echoes of his twin. He stood guard and cleaved apart the wayward rocks that tumbled across the rooftop. Every stone that might crush the others, every fire that flared up, every lightning strike and rift storm collision that threatened the circle was swiped away by his parries.

And with each step he sent ripples through the blood lake, painting shapes of Miru and the Warmaster.

"...Yet never must we grow so stern and lose The Trickster from our path. For in her aspect comes our pride undone, and we are shown our follies through and through..."

Like a jester in the royal wings, the neko Archy sat upon the rooftop's edge. Perhaps she rested; perhaps reloaded. Perhaps she had simply absolved herself of urgency. Such things could not be certain in the Trickster's realm. One arm was up, shielding her eyes from Medusa, and it put her face in half-mask.

And as she sat she was mirrored down below. In the crumpling penthouse nestled beneath the rooftop, Feral yowled and clung to the throne. A force was pulling her upward - the raw force of Perlasven demanding the discrepancy be resolved. Either she or Archy must fade, so that one Trickster might remain. Neko was pitched against Neko, their two souls jammed at one another like ill-fitting jigsaw pieces. Feral dug her claws in and bore the ache in her heart. She would not let the story mould her... not yet... not just yet.

And between this resolving equation flashed Sakura and Megane, Chopsticks and Soulless - fools and innocents laughing in the blood pool.

"...For on this path will be such obstacles. In time will come The Guardian, that creature of the threshold and obstruction. Unstoppable as surf; immoveable as star-matter..."

Orion stood ahead of them, radiant in light. His Proboard was up, like a Spartan shield, and he braced his shoulder to it. For like red seas parted the tide of Medusa was held at bay. The creature was beyond it with snakes and scaled claws scratching at the Proboard. She had reached the rooftop, but could get no further. With flares of cosmic brilliance Orion held her back, and bought every second with the furnace of his power.

"...Yet should the trials be passed rewards come true. The Soulmate finds us, serpent in the grass, with shift of shapes to harness all we have neglected..."

Kitti came opposite Piro, her hands on Jack Shade and Asmodeus. A soft caress, a stern appeal. She had dropped the Ragnarok blade, her gift from Chaos, and spoke to her fellow angels of other options, of ways beyond violence and beyond the stalemate of their embattled paths. Perhaps she had loved them each, however briefly, however foolishly or fake. Yet now to Jack Shade and Asmodeus she afforded equal grace, and beneath her skin the light of Ocha's Mirror beamed.

Yet she was not the only woman holding shards.

Across the rooftop, at the shadowed edge where light was fading, Tegan screamed. The shards of Paorou's sword were animated, pulling upwards with a unified force. She felt the nauseating grip of the Cycle again. It was the feeling she had battled, that monthly agony of ignoring the fates assailed upon her. But Paorou as the architect had stuck his final lesson in her flesh: that even in martyrdom you are the puppet of others. Every shard of his blade pulled her upwards, towards Asmodeus and Jack Shade, across the bloody pool where images of Julez and Queen Anne danced, where Simica and Ozyrel seemed to beckon her to her destiny as either Kitti's replacement or predecessor... the Soulmate incarn-

- WHUMP!

Tegan fell back down as Syracuse pinned her. The Professor's bandaged hands restrained her shoulders and he shielded her gaze from the circle of allies and the monster that besieged them. The eyes of the two Revisionists were locked on one another.

"It's the Tryant!" Syracuse yelled to Tegan above the whirling chaos of Orion's presence. "They're becoming its avatars! Hold on!"

The Hijacker held her tight. And above Piro, as he read to the mid-point of the page, Paorou-Sama reclined upon his bloody sky throne and laughed with the thunder.

"...Now as one, our aspects balanced, we come to face The Shadow. For should we falter to his dark inversions, the path becomes abyss."

Five Archetypes had arrived. Three more stood uncertain. Asmodeus or Jack? Feral or Archy? Kitti or Tegan? With these resolved the deck would be complete, the Tyrant would be formed, and the cycles of the mythic would turn again to crush Medusa. God would triumph over Goddess, order over chaos, story over absence.

As it had done since Time began.

The Cycle would remain unquestioned.

"DON'T LOOK AT MEDUSA!" Asmodeus yelled above the roar of the cosmic storm. He was braced against the impaled book, Grumpy's hand on his shoulder, Kitti's hand around his wrist. The light in his chest-chasm glowed as bright as Orion's shield. "CLOSE YOUR EYES!"

The Saviour's Page had been read. And Iwaku cried out for another story.