Into the Abyss

[Daegan]

Just as Daegan’s form was fading into view in Tarthia, an agonizing scream ripped from his throat and his body vanished again. It was just as he feared; as soon as he entered the blasted lands of the Land of Eternal Night he encountered a pocket of darkness in the Shadow Realm. The pain was excruciating, something that he hadn’t experienced since his early days as a youth. He writhed violently within the enclosing cocoon of blackness, gripping his Arcs tightly in an effort to create some sort of light.

Like a lion attacking, a roar ripped from Daegan as he forced his will through the Arcs. Tiny bolts of green and aqua light started to break through the closing sphere and with one final push it shattered completely. Thousands of shards of darkness fell to the hazy ground within the Realm as Daegan breathed deeply, dropping down to one knee. He closed his eyes, sweat pouring down his forehead as the stress of fighting the darkness began to weigh upon him.

“I swear on everything left in the multiverse, Sage of Darkness… your crazed streak of terror is about to end.”

Slowly, the Sage rose to his feet, once more gripping the Arcs of Death and Shadow tightly. Like before in the Tower of Shadows, the ghastly fires erupted around his body as he faded from the Shadow Realm, once more appearing in the center of the ruined city of Tarthia. He frowned deeply, looking around at the twisted remains of the former undead, the shattered ruins of the city itself. He could feel the darkness around him, like it was tugging on the very strings of his heart.

Warily he moved through the land, silently like some sort of assassin. He was careful in calling to the shadows, not wanting to be ripped back into some hellish pit of darkness. His hair was damp and his hearts were beating rapidly. The Sage wasn’t afraid, per say, but he knew the terror that Sitherack had become. Already he possessed three Arcs and as each second passed he could be inches from attaining others.

Soon, the Sage came across what appeared to be a large pile of twisted bodies and limbs. Daegan’s expression shifted to one of grave seriousness, taking in the scene that lay before him. Fallen followers of darkness, collapsed as far as he could see. Mangled and twisted they fell after being released from the Arc of Death.

He sighed deeply and closed his eyes, moving towards what seemed like the center of the destruction. Daegan’s muscles tensed as he began to force his element outwards, mixing it with the energies of the Arc of Death. Tendrils of shadows crept outwards from his body, tiny green fire dancing along them. His breathing became steady as the shadows extended outwards, eventually overtaking the fallen bodies completely. Daegan was creating a barrier of sorts, a barrier that he could collapse and rip into the Shadow Realm if anything began to go awry.

It was time for the rebirth of the Sedi.

[Lomes Artelias]

She listened as she rested, not fully awake but in a state of semi consciousness while absorbing the power from Daegan's antechamber. The men in the other room were hatching a cunning plan, one she would be an intricate part of and her mind absorbed all the details without need of effort on her part. Her natural intuitive senses only amplified by the power granted her from the Arc of Dreams. She felt a surge in the Shadow Realm as Daegan passed from Cyrida to Tarthia. There was a sort of snag in the inertia of the ripple as he passed through a pocket of Sitherack's Darkness, but he seemed to arrive otherwise unharmed.

Her eyes opened as she pulled herself out of the semi dream state. She was almost fully restored in energy, but it was going to take a lot of effort to perform this task. Then again at this point in her life she was used to nearly impossible tasks that drained her to the point of death and left her little time to recover before the next task. Someday she resolved to herself to have a word with Lasius about this line of work, there had to be some easier way to go about it.

Getting to her feet she folded Daegan's shirt and set it on the velvet chair gently before spreading her arms and closing her eyes. As she did the Shadows rushed around her form, clinging to her closely, like a thin almost translucent dress, the seethed around her constantly mingling with the Aether that was visible in the small cracks in her form. The Aether stained the shadows in a way lending them an an almost violet hue causing them to sharply contrast with the pale green shimmer of her eyes.

She glanced down at the Arcs of Life and Dreams on her hand and smiled softly. The Shadows didn't touch that hand, in fact they left that entire arm Bare, somehow anticipating her wishes to have unrestricted access to the Arcs. She curled her fingers into a fist, soft golden light spreading up her arm to the Elbow as the Arc of Life filled her body with the life force of Immortals. The Shadows rushed around her as she exploded into the shadow realm and rushed towards Tarthia.

She hit a patch of Darkness that was beginning to grow there as she approached the Shadow's reflection of the Realm of Eternal Night, Negligently she embraced the Darkness element within her and passed through it easily. She erupted into the real word, in the middle of Tarthia, surrounded by the twisted corpses of the former undead. The shadows forming the dress around her shrunk back from her legs slightly at the carnage, almost as though they were offended by it. Personally she didn't blame them, there was most certainly a lot of work to do.

Her eyes spotted Daegan just seconds after she emerged into the real world, and she smiled at the sight of him creeping around. As her eyes caught his she held her forefinger of the hand embraced by the Arc of Life to her lips in a “shushing” motion and grinned deviously. She hopped into the air crossing her legs, and levitating there in the middle of the field of corpses. The golden light surrounded her in a kind of halo or aura as she channeled the Life energy and she closed her eyes. At first it seemed like nothing was happening, but slowly one could see the wounds on the undead closing, as their bodies began to slowly heal themselves. All of them at once.

The work was tough and it wasn't long before sweat streamed down her face like tears but she didn't falter. There were a lot of undead, and they had a lot of wounds. Healing their physical bodies was just the first step. She would then need to harvest their fouls and attempt to infuse them into the bodies, and as a mercy use the Arc of Dreams to induce some form of mass Amnesia, otherwise the horror these people had endured would most likely drive most of them insane.

Needless to say this was going to take some time.

[Lasius]

As Daegan vanished he smirked. This was really exciting in its own way, he had of course saved the Sedi countless times in his life, but never quite in this way, and well any chance to engage his brother in combat was always something to liven up an otherwise dull day. He tightened his grip on the Arc of Magic as possible diversions that would grab Sitherack's attention went through his head. It was going to be difficult, especially given the fact that his brother had the means to crush him like an insect if he made a wrong step in any of this.

“Well no point in being subtle after all whats the point in a diversion if its not obnoxious.” He chuckled under his breath and turned his attention to Malkate who lay resting naked on the bed as she had for quite some time now. He raised his hand in her direction and she flickered and vanished in a brief flicker of lightning re appearing safely behind the Light Ward he had set in his chambers in Sethia.

“Time to do something about these clothes. Sure They might be fine sleep-wear but I hardly thing Sitherack will take me seriously if I show up in a nighty.” The Arc of Magic flickered softly as he conjured battle armor around himself. Normal Sethian black leather warded with extremely potent defensive spells and amplification runes. Finally dressed he embraced the Lightning Magic that roared through his soul and vanished in a flicker, a deep peal of thunder echoing through Cyrida to announce his departure.

Snow swirled around him as he appeared in a flash of Lightning atop one of the tallest mountains in the small chain to the east of Tarthia within the Land of Eternal Night. Darkness stretched in all directions like some form of hideous cancer across the sky. There was no clouds, not stars, this was not Night but an abomination. It caused rage in him, in the Sage of Light that inhabited his soul.

“I should have done this a long time ago.” He spread his arms wide, and wind rushed past him clouds gathered and Lightning Split the skies and crashed into the ground in front of him. In that brief split second of Light he threw the Arc of Magic into the sky. A multi colored detonation of Light caused him to shield his eyes. At first nothing happened, the Darkness closed back in and the Arc of Magic fell from the sky, it stuck in the ground directly in front of him, the same spot the Lightning had impacted.

Then slowly but with gathering speed the Darkness began to dissolve. A sound like a screaming banshee preceded it as it spread outward like acid eating away at the night sky. Light poured through, blue sky was visible wherever the Darkness was eaten away. It would take an hour or more to eat away all the Darkness but the damage was definitely noticeable and irreversible. There was an Anti Magic field in the skies over Tarthia now, nothing could imprint anything of a magical nature there without using the Arc of Magic to remove the field.

“That should do it. Hmm, looks like its going to be a clear and sunny day.” He knelt and retrieved the Arc of Magic from the ground in front of him

[Daegan]

His eyes narrowed as he felt the sudden rush of energy, the seething of the shadows that was not part of his command. Instinctively his head snapped to the source of the disturbance, the eerie Necromantic fire flaring around his body. Aqua and a sickly green color danced in unison as his fiery eyes came to the figure of Lomes. His eyebrow shot into the air and a coy smile wrapped over his face as he watched her lithe frame move, smirking as the shadows danced around her.

Daegan didn’t know much about the Avian, and it crossed his mind several times to part the shadows at just the right spots to see her bare flesh once again. But, as if being smacked by some unseen hand of reality, Daegan’s attention returned to the task at hand. He merely nodded to Lomes with her gesture, and turned back to where he was standing previously, once more forcing his energy through the Arcs at his command.

The Sage continued to force the shadows outwards, the murky disk under the fallen Sedi stretching until it reached the last few scattered bodies. Daegan closed his eyes as his grip around the Arc of Shadows tightened, tendrils of shadows breaking away from the massive pool of those that had gathered around the Sedi. Gingerly they brought those Sedi laying on the outskirts of Tarthia forward, adding them to the pile of carnage so that Lomes’ work would be a bit more efficient. No use in having her waste all of her energy, especially if Sitherack showed up.

Weaving the shadows up and around those Sedi that began to come back to life, the translucent substance would start to cling to them much like the flowing dress Lomes fashioned about herself. His eyes remained clamped shut, his mind deep in concentration in forcing the shadows to do his will. To avoid the infernal darkness that plagued his Realm.

As the two worked, Daegan’s concentration was suddenly shattered as a pillar of sunlight struck him directly in the eye. First his eyebrow rose questioningly into the air and slowly his eyes slid open as he spun around in an attacking motion, swinging the Arc of Death in a sort of tornado whirl. To his surprise, the Sage of Darkness wasn’t the source of the light and instead, Daegan’s head snapped upwards.

“Oh he’s going to be pissed.”

Laughter erupted from his throat as Daegan watched the Eternal Night slowly break apart. More beams of light flashed down to the twisted landscape as time progressed, the shadows swarming over those Sedi that had been reborn. As the Darkness began to fade, Daegan once more closed his eyes, forcing the shadows that clung to the now living Sedi to transport them to Sethia where Lasius waited. One by one they would begin to simply pop out of view in Tarthia, reappearing seconds later in the courtyard of the High Keep in Sethia.

[Sitherack's Soul]

Sitherack emerged from the Obsidian Lightning bolt just behind Lasius as he was rising to his feet after retrieving the Arc of Magic, he immediately dove into the man loosing all sense of tactics in an animal like fury, propelling them both off the cliff, the heat around Sitherack's body burst Lasius' armor into flames, and scalded his flesh beneath, blistering him severely. As they fell from the mountain Sitherack repeated smashed his armored fist into Lasius' face burning away the skin, his eyes and causing massive bleeding.

Lasius screamed at the initial impact, the sound echoing through the mountains, as the rushing air around him from falling vainly tried to suffocate the flames fed by the Arc of Fire. The impacts from Sitherack's blows were devastating he lost his sight after the second hit, and by the fourth he had such bad nerve damage he couldn't even feel the pain in his face anymore, which wasn't such a bad side effect. He tightened his grip on the Arc of magic. He didn't need to locate Sitherack because he could feel the man grappling on him. The Arc flared and as they fell, and a portal opened below them, above the the lake south of Sethia a second portal opened, in fact it opened directly above the Crucifier.

Sitherack and Lasius looked like a massive ball of flame when they emerged from the portal and smashed into the deck of the Crucifier. They broke through every deck level and then melted through the bottom plate and plunged into the cold dark sea below. The wood of the existing decks would likely ignite and begin to rapidly consume the whole ship where it wasn't being flooded by the massive hole right through the center of it.

The impact separated the two from each other, snuffing out the burning Lasius like a candle, however the water around Sitherack flashed to steam constantly causing a steam geyser to rush around his form, likely fountaining upward and through the hole in the deck of the Crucifier. Las held his breath, still having the function of four lungs so he could stay under the water for about 10-15 minutes fairly comfortably. The problem was he was blind and separated from Sitherack now so he was flailing helplessly in the water as buoyancy slowly caused him to rise to the surface.

It was hard to see past the steam but he could make out the dark silhouette of Lasius' rising form not to far from him. He smiled in the Darkness of his Armor. The man was flailing like a fly in a spider web, bringing them into the water was a bad move, it may have put out the fire, but fire was far from the only thing at his disposal. Overhead above the surface the sky rapidly clouded over, and obsidian lightning bolts began to rain down like a monsoon, impacting the water, and inevitably the ship above in hundreds of thousands of places, literally thousands of bolts per second. Lasius, while he was immune to Lightning, he was not immune to the infused darkness spread along the electrical currents.

As the obsidian bolts began to fall He closed his eyes searching for a lava vein beneath the floor of the lake. There was one that was relatively close to the crust, and he fed it through the Arc of fire until it burst through the crust in massive quantities and began to spread out along the floor of the lake causing the water temperature to rise rapidly and it soon began to boil.

Lasius writhed in agony twitching uncontrollably under the influence of the Dark Lightning, feeling for once what countless opponents had felt when facing him and not liking it one bit, the water boiling also added to his pain causing his already blackened and blistered skin to flare with new agony. He tried several time to escape through use of the Arc of Magic but he couldn't maintain concentration long enough, so he was forced to resort to his natural elements, and pulled Lightning into himself using it to teleport out of the now infernal lake.

As Lasius began to vanish in a flicker of lightning Sitherack at last pulled a weapon, drawing the Arc of Lightning from its sheathe he flickered at the Same time as Lasius. They appeared together on the shoreline closest to the Crucifier with Sitherack holding Lasius by the throat, his skin peeling away and blistering from the renewed heat. “Where do you think you're going, I never said I was done with you, brother.” He hauled Lasius into the air and slammed him down into the ground hard enough to break several of his ribs and snap his left spinal chord paralyzing his left side. Blood erupted from his mouth, and he gurgled as he began to drown in his own blood.

“Can't let you die yet Lassie,” Sitherack growled as he flipped him over onto his stomach hitting him repeatedly in the lower back savagely forcing blood from his lungs and snapping his other spinal chord in the process completely paralyzing him. don't you worry brother mine I have lots more pain planned for you.”

[The Captain]

“Not exactly what I was hoping for!”

The Captain’s head shot skyward as the portal with Lasius and Sitherack forms opened. As the top most sails of the Crucifier began to catch fire, his orders were being shouted throughout the decks. It was time for response, not thought.

“KEEP TO THE CODE!”

Sedi across the top two decks scattered towards either end of the massive warship as the word spread down. By the time the first deck was breached, only the few Sedi remaining on the lower decks were oblivious to the world, and thus the hurtling ball of fiery carnage that was barreling towards them. Splinters of charred wood and white hot ash impacted directly those that did not have the chance or the warning to move away. Tiny pieces of wood reinforced in plate shredded through bodies of those not lucky enough to embrace there element in time, forcing the primal energies outwards in a last ditch effort for survival.

Fire Sedi burned away the splinters while Earth Sedi merged with the old, hard wood of the ship. Darkness and Shadow Sedi flickered from existence into the dark recesses of the ship while Life and Death Sedi proceeded accordingly, focusing on either element to virtually negate physical injury. Lightning Sedi desperately tried to call outwards to darkening skies, but found no friend rushing down to their aide. Instead they were met with the corrupt lightning, smashing into the bodies of the pirates with fierce velocity killing almost all of them upon impact. The sudden rush of the dark energy surged through the “pure” bodies, shutting down electrical synapses within seconds.

By the time the geyser started to form and spew upwards, half of the crew aboard the Crucifier had perished. Life Sedi were too busy focusing on keeping themselves alive and Death Sedi were too busy feigning from the end that those who were mortally injured stood no hope. Chaos erupted as the pillar of steam billowed from the center of the ship, the apparent code becoming means for nothing other than self-survival. It was every man for himself, and a general knowledge of some sort of desire to gather upon the shore was all that could be obtained from the shouting as Sedi fought fiercely for life.

The Captain clutched the Arc of Water tightly as the super heated steam rushed skyward. He could vaguely make out the figures battling on the shore, and soon the hellish reality set in upon his mind. Sitherack had become some demigod and was about to slaughter the Lightning Childe. The memories of Tre Betal were all too fresh in his mind as he gripped the Arc of Water tightly with both hands, turning to face the geyser. Gritting his teeth the pirate rushed forward forcing his own element through the Arc and as he leapt into the air to be completely immersed in the rushing water, his form seemed to vanish completely.

The scalding sensation was almost unbearable as the Captain forced himself into the churning seas below the Crucifier. Immediately the waves picked up, rushing towards the shore as the lightning surged above, an apparent side effect from the intense storm above. The super heated water began to splash viscously upon the shore mere seconds before a massive wave surged forward, smashing into the darkly armored Sitherack with the force of a hurricane. The fury of the tides controlled by the Arc of Water was crushing, as if being dropped into a slab of stone from thirty stories above.

Providing the impact was solid enough and Sitherack was caught off guard, the water would continue to surge forward, creating a flowing barrier between the Sage of Darkness and the Sage of Light. The Captain’s form was deposited in a sort of protective position over Lasius, hands on either side of the man’s waist supporting himself on the ground. The howling sound of the water was intense, and the pirate shouted down at the Lightning Childe.

“Southern Coast! Southern Coast!”

[Sitherack's Soul]

Sitherack was knocked over Lasius and into the dirt skidding almost 50 feet from the impact of the focused wave the sand around him melted and solidified into glass that he had to break free of before getting to his feet. He would have been knocked further if the vast majority of it had not vaporized on contact with his Armor. Regardless he has lost his grip on Lasius and took almost a full minute to regain his senses, by the time he did there was a massive water barrier between him and his brother. This didn't concern him so much as he dove through it without hesitation The heat around his armor intensifying to three times its former output, the water never reaching him and vaporizing into air before it came within 10 feet.

Lasius could still hear, and the rushing water was a blessing, even boiling hot from the lake was a cool sensation to him after the direct contact of Sitherack, thankfully the multiple attacks had completely overloaded and destroyed most of the pain centers in his brain otherwise he would be dead from the shear agony of his condition, but the Captain was giving him what he needed, Time, blessed Time. He heard the shouting of the Captain's words and he tried to comply. He couldn't feel his hands but he prayed he had not lost his death grip on the Arc of Magic, he forced what little concentration and rationale through the weapon as he had left, and pulled a portal open directly beneath them, he knew he couldn't move so he let gravity do the rest, it would open just about a 3 feet above the sandy beaches of the Southern coast. They would fall onto it but the impact wouldn't be too terrible, and the portal would snap shut the millisecond they cleared it not giving Sitherack the chance to follow.

Sitherack burst through the Wall of water just as the Portal snapped shut and howled with fury. He sank to his knees and slammed his fists into the ground, cracking the glass of the recently melted shore sand repeatedly, so damn close to extracting ultimate revenge on his brother and foiled by a stinking sea rat. He silently added the pirate to his list of people who were going to die horrible and painful deaths.

[Malkate Rose Sedi]

After the darkness consumed her sleep was a timeless dark void of nothingness. The arc of dreams no longer plagued her as it was no longer upon her person, and her body was unaware of the world outside. Her body regenerated, filling into itself the energy used and spent so heedlessly before. Where once an unfathomable tap lay she’d shut off the valve to the well so her body was it’s only source now. That deep red fire that burned and fed itself flickered in her mind’s eye as she slept, and an image began to form in her brain. A woman who was tall and lithe like fire; with hair the color of flame and eyes the shade of smoldering embers, deceptively cool. She was dressed in an elegant black gown a silky thing that hugged her comfortably but not too tightly. A slit revealed too much leg for it to be something publicly worn, but Malkate recognized easily a version of her that was long since buried aside when she’d met Sever – that aged content woman who wasn’t facing the Apocalypse every five hours.

The fire flickered as a soft lit background and Malkate blinked at herself, as the unfolding image of an unfamiliar time period took place around her. A soft rug, a smooth chair that looked like someone really knew the leathers they were working with – the fire that was her inner core captured in that softly burning fireplace. Within Malkate, a conversation began even as the outside world turned and changed, and she was unaware of her apparent lack of clothing or the loss of the Arc upon her person – her body would be steady and warm as if in sleep but even the slightest twitch was gone – for she was as if in a coma. Her body was living – but her soul was occupied. Deep in that place within her she took a seat, staring at the facet of her own self, unable to fathom this time why it was taking place. So instead she measured herself – that calm face that was unobtrusive yet held within it so many stories in those eyes. Long fingers stapled themselves around a thin knee that lay across strong thighs, and the words began.

“You cannot run forever from yourself. You’ve been doing it for too long. You will exhaust your power because you forever seek to change what cannot be changed; instead of embracing it you’ve run from it. True power comes not from simple objects but from the core of everything, in direct existence. Think back to your training, girl, back to those naive days of mage hood. Learning the basic spells you had to master first yourself. Before your masters even taught the first spell they taught you how to learn from the land, from the soul, the body.

You’ve let emotions rule your decisions, your actions. You’ve become a fool to your own memories, and have lost sight on the fact that you still exist. Possibly through means you find evil – but remember the Magus; evil and good are but a balance of light and dark in a misconstrued perception. Nothing is truly evil, nor is anything truly good. Within every creature there exists that balance of both the black and white chi, a balance that can be maintained and fixed with the right amount of hands.

However, as mere mortal creatures we forget these things, and we were created to never understand balance and necessity over emotional rule – simple that somewhere even in the darkest of beings there exists that ruling of something that can counterbalance into a lighter emotion if approached right. You lived your life before in bliss and light and your counter balance happened – and you embraced too much of the dark to let your light renew itself; in essence, you’ve lost yourself along the way. It’s not hopeless, you are far from some simple child; but you need to remember your old teachings and trainings – you need to create your own inner balances. Put to rest your inner demons and let go of misery – and you will find your true power.”

“I don’t understand, you are me.. then how..”

“I am a possibility of what you could become given the right balance of power and that you stop surrounding yourself with those content to do nothing more than try and destroy everything if they don’t get their way. Though you are attracted to power, we are. It’s in our nature; as once fragile and careless beings we seek shelter in something that could possibly protect us; thus your initial attraction. Strength and power, and for us it appears, an unhealthy level of pigheadedness. Fret not, I am you and you are me, and I am simply your thoughts manifested into what you wish to see here.”

“Why all of this now? Where have these confrontations been when I was in those darker places before?”

”Because you needed those darker places, as I have said before. Pay attention child or you will have learned nothing from what I have said. Necessity and what we think we want are two different things. You are close to perfect balance if you discard the silly things that have gotten in your way here, and you can attain it. Solitude is one manner, but do not think I am suggesting you throw away everything in your life. I’m simply suggesting here that you find a true path and stop hesitating and take it.”

The apparition of Malkate moved its hand, and the inner fire burned brighter, flickering as ashes that were falling began to swirl and curve into the appearance of a mirror. Through the mirror images flashed – Malachite, Wynne as Malkate held her, Daegan and his fury as well as Malkate’s unheard promise to him, and Lasius. The last image both stirred fury in her and a kind of uncharacteristic disgust – the face of Sitherack. The Sedian people she once vowed to kill on whims of hate and ignorance, to the renewed determination to keep them alive and find a way to save that same people. Times changed and it would seem she was not exactly invisible to the changing tides as she had previously thought.

“I finally understand.”

The image of the apparition of Malkate flickered, and a frown appeared on her face.

“I have more to tell you but this must be cut short. Lasius is dying.”

Malkate blinked and half leapt up as the mirror churned and images of Sitherack and Lasius battle raged, or more to the actual point; the brutal beating of Lasius. She turned to look at herself but the mist was evaporating and she was waking up at an alarming rate. Her fingers moved, and even as she flicked them Malachite was summoned to where he was straight to the side of the Lightning Childe through the fae cat she forced her magic into the animal’s body at an almost painful rate. The large feline would let out an almost pathetic whimper as his body was forced into a crouching position. His paw would move to rest on Lasius hand that gripped the Arc, and just as Malkate would have healed Lasius her energy would begin to feed into his body, starting with the most massive damage at the bones and working its way out. Fully rested, it was a trivial thing for her to do this, and Chai had his own forms of magic so the amount was painful as it was forced, not the actual amount of energy.

A massive amount of wind exploded in Lasius’ chambers in Sethia as she appeared to where Sitherack was, her form floating completely nude in air. In that darkness a light burned inside of her, starting at her heart it beat in a fire rhythm out through her body. That burning light and fire that existed within her was pulsing now outside of her skin that seemed translucent as if someone had placed a beacon of light within her. Air currents whipped at massive speeds around her, keeping her form buoyant amongst the skyline Her hair was a dancing flame behind her, and she looked down, faintly surprised that she appeared so high up in that flash of red light, but anger burned at her very core. A very pure anger, and as she thought of her lessons earlier she embraced that emotion, she fed it into her person and cleared her mind so only the emotion in a way controlled the actions. A kind of peace with the actual emotion, as if it were in her true nature to always be thus.

Powers of the Nectrite, of the Slayers pulsed through that red fire, a liquid, inky black substance that was too burned out by the power of that red fire to really be seen in that. Her form was nude, but it was little but a silhouette against that darkness and light. Her eyes burned as she glared down at the form of Sitherack, and her voice was a howling rage that was the thunder before the lightning.

“Sitherack al’Sedi I will kill you! You’ve gone too far.”

Her voice was a dark, crawling thing. The feel of raw energy against bare flesh, the crackling of lightning. It wasn’t show, it wasn’t as if she were purposely manifesting the glow of her body, it was that semblance of raw power that was filling her with the rage, with the powers of the Magus. Her fingers reached out, curling through the winds and at the base of the Earth where the man stood the currents would change. Rapidly they increased, spinning in an almost vortex like pattern. Anything that would near him might feel like crashing into a brick wall, the air was almost a solid creature as it sucked the oxygen out from around Sitherack; her goal was to cool those flames and in a way, take the air from his lungs. A soft, almost animalistic growl erupted from her lips, slurring the words into that almost same fashion.

“I will stretch your skin as a hide to a hunter!”

[The Captain]

The rushing of the water ceased suddenly as the Captain found himself splayed over the mutilated form of Lasius on the southern coast of the continent. He breathed a short sigh of relief and before he could speak that infernal Fae cat appeared from nothingness and began, to force energy into the Lightning Childe.

“I’ll deal with you later, you hell cat. Leaving my ship in the middle of some wretched land-locked sea… how did you expect us to get out of there?!”

He trailed off, muttering obscenities under his breath as he stood slowly. He glanced up towards the sky and frowned, the massive dark storm clouds still visible even at this distance. The power that Sitherack had attained was horrifying at best and to have that mongrel traipsing across all of Terra Centilina bent on revenge was a thought that made ice creep up the pirate’s spines.

“As for that Jitatin kreld-eater, damn him straight to the Depths. I swear to the Abyss I’ll have his head on my bowhead before this is all said and done. He sunk my battleship!”

More inaudible curses strained from the Captain’s lips as he fumbled around the shore line, slowly coming to terms with where they were and how they were going to get to safety. Malachite may have intense powers, but only the Arc of Life would be able to fully restore Lasius, and in order to find that both the pirate and the Lightning Childe needed to regain much needed energy and vitality. The boiling water of the sea Sitherack and Lasius crashed into seared the pirate’s flesh, once more dowsing him in the agonizing feeling of second degree burns across his body.

Of course, he wasn’t nearly as bad off as Lasius was, the sudden flash heating only burning his body as he took form from the massive tidal wave that smashed into Sitherack. Still, the pirate ignored the pain and instead extended the base of the Arc of Water to Lasius.

“I know you aren’t exactly feeling perfect, but listen to me close lad. Take hold of the trident and don’t let go until I say so. We’re going to my island and what Life Sedi that are left there will tend to you. Whatever you do, DON’T let go. You’ll be banished to the Locker for sure otherwise.”

He then turned to look at the Fae cat. He was, indeed, livid at the loss of his battle ship, and even more upset that Malachite had left it there in the first place. However, this bizarre, plane hopping beast wasn’t something or someone the Captain wanted to anger, so he tried his best to muster at least a somewhat civil tone.

“Cat, you know where to go if you so chose to follow. Once the Life Sedi attend to our friend here, I’d imagine we’ll be going right back to the bloody source so that bastard of Darkness can be dealt with full-blown. After THAT, I’ll have my words with you…”

Gingerly the Captain extended the Arc down towards the Lightning Childe, and bent down, gingerly wrapping the Sage’s free hand around the cool shaft. The pirate sighed deeply and once more reminded Lasius to hold onto both Arcs as tightly as he could muster and in the next moment the two vanished completely, splashing into the cool southern seas.

It wasn’t long before they had crossed the narrow stretch of water from Terra Centilina into the pirate’s island, the forms of the Captain and Lasius splashing onto the coast. The pirate shook his head several times to get the damp hair from out of his eyes before scooping up Lasius and hefting the wounded man over his shoulder.

“Easy does it lad. We’ll have you right as the rising sun in no time.”

Steadily the Captain began to maneuver through the forest, his keen ears and eyes taking in the subtle movements and sounds that echoed therein. He kept a firm grip on the Arc of Water, held opposite the shoulder Lasius was hoisted over. The men that guarded the forests were fierce and almost wild, and the pirate knew it was only a matter of time before he encountered one.

No sooner had that thought crossed his mind; a flash of steel rang out from the shadows between two trees. The Captain’s eyes narrowed and in a flurry he spun slightly, catching the blade between two of the tines of the trident, effectively snapping the blade in half before he came back around, cracking the assailant hard in the jaw. The Shadow Sedi dropped and the Captain merely looked down coldly at him.

“That’s what you get for attacking your Captain, you Jitatin fool. Take us to the City, or you’ll feel something even worse.”

As the pirate spoke, he leveled the Arc of Water at the Shadow Sedi’s neck, and watched the fear build in the Sedi’s eyes. There was only a simple nod of recognition before the Shadow Sedi forced his element outwards, engulfing the trio in a web of the murky substance to be taken to the Captain’s quarters within the secluded pirate city.

It was a feeling the pirate never could get used too, the constant switching of energy made his stomach wretch. But, after all, he spent his life on the seas and managed to keep what food in his gut he had down. Instead he stumbled and half dropped the Sage of Light down onto the lush bed that resided in the center of the Captain’s quarters. He then turned to face the Shadow Sedi and was thought better than once more striking the now quivering Sedi.

“Go find every Life Sedi left on this rock and tell them to make haste to my quarters. The Lightning Childe needs our help.”

[Sitherack's Soul]

The impact of the Air suddenly rushing around his body was unexpected, following with it the words drifting down to him by the hovering glowing burning silhouette of Malkate and he was actually mildly impressed. The Air vortex sucked away the oxygen around his body removing the primary source of fuel for the flames burning around him, and they were snuffed out in a heartbeat, leaving only the shimmering residue of heat billowing off his armor making his form distorted to the visual eye.

Getting to his feet was difficult enough, but he managed it, gazing up at the form of Malkate, his two faintly luminescent eyes taking her form in speculatively. The lack of oxygen didn't bother him as it would have less than a few days ago, now his blood and lungs were replaced with a magical form of darkness fed directly from the Arc, breathing was unnecessary. The brief thought crossed his mind that this conflict served little purpose when his real target was getting away, but then the realization dawned on him. Killing Malkate would bring his brother far more pain than the beating he had already given him could ever possibly have.

It didn't require more time than for the thought to register than his form blinked out of sight. He reappeared clear on the other side of the lake in a brief flash of light. It was bright enough to barely be seen by Malkate on the other side but he didn't leave her any time to react. Embracing powers from the Arc's of Light and Lightning he moved as fast as he could. Air rippling around him from heat distortion and had crossed the lake in less than a seconds time. To Malkate's eyes he would appear suddenly, buffeted by a massive sonic boom with his darkness armored fist coming right at her face, momentum lent from the speed he was moving at would likely take her head off her shoulders if it was not blocked or shielded in some way. If contact was made with the flesh or he came within an inch of it the heat would scald the skin to the point of blistering.

The blink and the sonic boom was enough warning, that her own form blinked out in a bright flash of red light, quickly appearing near the lake yet still within the air; her brief surprise at his ability to even stand in the air void enough to warn her that Sitherack was not as she’d remembered. It didn’t matter at this point, the thought was a brief; flickering thing. Anger was something that overtook her brain, and necessity of the kill took away most of her other processes of thought. Simplicity in reaction, strategy and reaction time. She could easily appear halfway across the continent but strike and withdraw used to be an ancient thought.

The red fire flickered within her as she reappeared, as if it lost some glow and small spots of black appeared, hardly visible to the naked eye unless one looked closely. She felt the indignant nature start to fill her veins more with that killing passion, that side of her she’d locked away come roaring back into her brain, into her nature. Images of Lasius bloody, broken body came flaring in her minds eye and with the thought she tilted her head back down to the earth, to the water, and she looked back at Sitherack again with those firey red orbs, no mercy shining in the depths. She was the perfect mirror of her former self this time – a body that was trained for physical combat where before magic was her only ally.

Weaving an existence barrier cage like she used to trap the Sedian Creature would be difficult, but it would provide an ample defense against the man whom moved as fast as she remembered Lasius being. A snarl erupted from her throat as she actually started to weave the barrier around her own person, her hands moving fast. Let him come at her, she’d trap him in the same existence barrier as that damnable creature so his body would be trapped within, and an easy target to extinguish therein.

Stopping the kind of motion he was moving at was not something that could just be done, it required outside intervention, the split second he noticed her form had vanished he altered the form of his attack, Dark tendrils snaked outward from his form with astonishing speed, slamming into the ground and solidifying pulling him to a halt exactly where her form had been a mere second ago. They surrounded his form, moving slithering and writhing as though they were living things of their own agenda with only the barest response to their masters whim.

He watched her hands moving her could feel the disturbance in the Air around her and recognized it as similar abilities to the Existence Sedi he had fought next to in the war of the gods, the thought made him growl deep in his throat. Those creatures were extinct as far as his knowledge and the world was better for it. He would do this wretched world one more service before he consumed it in the Void for all eternity. The Arc of Lightning flashed with obsidian energy and clouds boiled out of thin air in a complete and contained sphere. Like some sort of demented inverted plasma ball Lightning began to strike at her from all directions at once, bolts of obsidian energy lashing at her constantly as he held the Arc in front of him in her direction forcing the clouds to put out more and more of the deadly corrupted bolts.

At the same time he tightened his grip on the Corrupted Arc of Light, the dull purple glow growing brighter steadily as the onslaught of Lightning continued. The dim but still luminescent white orbs of his eyes never wavering from the violent sphere of clouds surrounding the Mage in the Air across from him. His voice echoed out to her through the constant crashes of thunder.

“Don't worry I'll take whats left of you back to my brother for a final insult before his death.”

Malkate’s laughter was a harsh bray of sound, a nasty thing that was it’s own condescending note. The cage she’d been building arced as she pulled on the worlds and created a kind of dimensional shield around herself. It would work to trap her but she understood how to move through it, as she re-weaved the existence as fast as she could. A smirk crossed her lips as she started to weave the ability to move within it, so that the planes were actually grounded on her. It was the idea of wearing a kind of armor, but the armor was circular around her body, shimmering slightly as the bolts crashed against it. Her mouth curled in an almost sneer as she looked at Darken, red eyes glistening with a dark mirth.

“You speak arrogantly for some fool of a creature who can’t even fight his own battles. You weren’t strong enough to protect your own people, you won’t be strong enough to battle me now – even with the corrupted arcs. Even as we fight you use the power of the brother you say you hate, yet ironically it’s his abilities that you have to try and darken and use now yourself. You are a joke, and you beat on a man who was weakened like some bully to a child. You are half the man Lasius will ever be, and you are below me.”

Elsewhere, Malachite appeared with Lasius as the Captain transferred him, showing little response besides a cattish grin at the man. He would talk with the Captain when he could, but for now he had a duty to do for his mistress. He leaned down, pressed his wet nose against Lasius’ cheek in a kind of apology even as his mouth closed around the Arc of Magik. The power surged through him, and he cut his tongue against the blade. Using his own blend of Fae magic and his tie to his mistress, he sent the blade directly to her wherever she would be so that she would be able to use this item she’d had before. Meanwhile, he lay down next to the Fallen Sedi, his violet eyes narrowed as he watched out for anyone whom might harm the man.

He could feel the impact of the Lightning against the barrier inside his mind, the Arc of Lightning telling him everything he needed to know about what was going on behind the clouds though his eyes couldn't see past them. Her words angered him immensely but he decided he would respond with actions instead of more words, after all everyone knew which spoke more loudly. The Onslaught of Lightning didn't cease even though it was ineffective against the shield for now. Instead it doubled in intensity, he knew each strike sapped a tiny portion of her strength in her ability to maintain her barrier, time was on his side with the inexhaustible power of the Arc. With the increased intensity of the barrage from the Arc of lightning the Arc of Light grew brighter. Its shimmering producing a crackling aura around him now, causing the darkness to writhe more anxiously almost in fear of the power of a weapon that though corrupted was still the essence of all that was the opposite of Darkness as a whole.

The Tendrils of Darkness snaked outward in response to silent commands of his encircling the clouds and solidifying. Anything that wanted to pass through had to break the Darkness, the idea was to keep her inside, or make her try to pass through that darkness and thus put her in his grasp, but it effectively kept anything else out as well. The sphere around her was now a perfect obsidian ball that ate the light outside like some kind of Dark sun. the clouds lined the inside of it and continued their furious barrage against her, as he prepared the Arc of Light still gathering energy for a death strike unlike anything that had been delivered on this plane before.

(continued in next post)

[Sitherack's Soul]

Malkate felt the tugging sensation that let her know that something was trying to reach her – but it wouldn’t even honed onto her reach through the existence barrier around her. The idea of leaving it as she watched the lightning strike over and over again was enough to persuade her not to. However persistent his attacks he forgot one important thing about her – that she was not some fool. The old Malkate would run away, retire, give up thinking this man was too strong for her. All she could think of was the simplicity that he’s putting all his eggs in one basket. Her eyes closed again, and she started… shifting the barrier. Not visibly, it still kept out the lightning bolts that bashed against it, only the light was shifting at the color it had been before started fading to a darker black. As the veins in the thing shifted, the image of Malkate would flicker, and then nothing would happen.

A scowl appeared on her lips, as if something had failed, and she closed her eyes again within the barrier and started mouthing what seemingly became a kind of spell weaving. Magic was gathering inside the sphere, a massive amount of it though it wasn’t visible, it was like the feeling of pressure maintaining inside of it. The Malkate curled up within it, in an almost fetal positioning, the flesh of her skin darkening as it started turning black. Her knees pulled impossibly close to her chest, her head ducked down until her long red hair that was rapidly fading into that same Blackness covered her entire face. She seemed as a child in a cacoon as the pressure built. Small cracks started showing in the flesh as if she were fading and cracking, dark lines of black oozed down the sides of her body.

Blood dripped down from her body , landing in a solid puddle at the bottom of her shield collecting until it was faintly the size of a small rain puddle. That’s when the shield seemingly flickered, not disappearing as a hole the size of a quarter opened and the blood drained out. Even as the lightning struck her, she didn’t scream out, even as the frail flesh hit the lightning – the shield didn’t falter; oddly, as it blazed with a sudden black color. The shield closed as the blood pooled freely down now, even as the body tried to regenerate the damage. A small dagger shaped Arc appeared now in her hand, her fingers clutching it to her breast as the energy continued to build inside the existence sphere even as the energies inside seemingly started to try and heal the injury even enough to stop the blood flow.

Darken suppressed utter glee at the turn of events, he had felt a change in the nature of the shield encasing her, felt a single bolt hit home, the blood collecting in the bottom of his sphere of darkness was the source of his excitement, it was however dampened by the renewed strength of the shield around Malkate. She must have obtained an amplifier, potentially even the Arc of Magic itself, but in the end it would not matter, he would crush her now and take Magic for himself adding even more strength to his cause.

The Darkness reacted immediately to the impact of Malkate's blood upon it. It rippled through out the sphere, and was absorbed by it. The sphere crackled with new energy fed to it directly by the Arc of Darkness and siphoned from the Dark Well in the Temple many miles to the north. A small globular portion of the Darkness broke away from the sphere, not enough to make a hole but enough to shrink its size inward by a few inches compressing the clouds slightly closer to Malkate. The small globular portion of Darkness smashed into Sitherack, gaining him some small measure of the powers wielded by Malkate, a tiny amount, just enough to resist her attacks more effectively, the rest was still in the sphere which began to coalesce together, compressing itself into a humanoid form.

Within a second there was no longer a trapping sphere of Darkness around Malkate. The Clouds were still there striking her shield as furiously as ever with the obsidian bolts of lightning, but the sphere that trapped her was gone. Instead was a small breach in the clouds appeared and a figure floated through. Cloaked in utter darkness it was impossible to make out distinct features, but burning red orbs of eyes glared through the Existence barrier at Malkate and she would know immediately with a chilling certainty that they were her own eyes. Features that could be made out confirmed this fact, burning red hair fell about the other Malkate's shoulders and back, the glowing red shimmering Aura was there as well. She rose her finger to her lips in an eerie shushing motion and smiled viciously at her. Outside the barrier of clouds Sitherack's scorning laughter could be heard clearly.

He still held the Arc of Light tightly, now feeding it energy he had stolen from Malkate's blood, magus energy corrupted by darkness and fully under his own control it began to arc dangerous and barely containable crackles of power that ripped apart the ground and sea below and left dangerous rifts in the sky around them.

[Lomes Artelias]

Sedi were getting to their feet by the hundreds now, well over half the population of the disaster at Tarthia had been risen back to life, and transported without incident to Sethia where they watched with horror the battle unfolding just to the south of them in full visibility of the inhabitants of the city. Most of those recently resurrected sought shelter in the now over flowing Sethian Keep, many more in other fortified sections of the city. Lomes had not moved from her apparent meditative state, the work was hard but the Arc of Life simultaneously restored her body's energy even as it did her bidding. Without its assistance she would have long since passed out from the strain.

The Arc of Dreams shimmered in constant use as it wiped clean the memories of every Sedi resurrected, getting rid of the horrors they had experienced the last few months while leaving their identities and personalities intact. It was an intricate weave of magic that was washing over the devastated crater that used to be the city of Tarthia, and any Life or Dream Sedi could feel the energy like a beacon from half way across the continent.

The Massive exchange of energies in the conflict to the southeast was not lost to Lomes, she could feel them even through her fierce concentration. It would seem Lasius had succeeded in drawing his brothers attention away from Tarthia only to bring him close to Sethia. The impending possibility of THAT disaster made her redouble her efforts. The result of speeding the process up increased the number of casualties drastically, and reduced the number of Sedi that were successfully being resurrected, but she was aware if the battle got too out of control all she had worked to bring back could potentially perish anyway.

She was unaware of the Fate of Lasius or that it was Malkate actually fighting Sitherack at this point, since Lasius had been wielding the Arc of Magic in the first place there was no signature to the energy to give her any clue that the opponents had changed. Her eyes searched out Daegan, busy in his own work of ferrying the risen Sedi back to Sethia she thought briefly of sending him to Sethia to join in the fight, but quickly dismissed the idea from her mind. Her wounds from the shattering of the multi elemental barrier around this world were still present she couldn't call forth as much energy as she once could, and with cracks in her body exposing the Aether beneath it was entirely possible for Sitherack to use Darkness to corrupt the Rod of Souls inside her should he think to do so.

Such a thing could not be allowed to happen and with her attention focused entirely on the resurrection of the Sedian populous she would be hard pressed to defend herself if he decided to abruptly switch targets. As it was she would finish her work soon enough given a little luck her and Daegan could then proceed to Sethia and set about preparing a suitable defense for the city an its new inhabitants then set about hunting down Sitherack and removing the threat he represented at least until the Darkness chose a new Sage.

[Lasius]

The pain was unbearable, only sheer force of will kept him conscious, as the few remaining Life Sedi that the Captain had at his disposal arrived and began their work on him he focused his thoughts on aiding the healing energies moving through his body in an attempt to regenerate his form faster. He was in no way deterred by the savagery of the beating he had taken from Sitherack, if anything it had deepened his resolve that something had to be done about the man. Sharp twinges of agony caused groans and occasional screams as the work the Sedi did regenerated nerves that restored feeling to parts of his body so gravely injured that the agony brought him to new heights of pain, but he forced himself to remain conscious through it all, knowing that if he slipped off into the void it would be impossible to wake him till he was nearly recovered.

His gray eyes regarded the Life Sedi working on him after they had been healed and he could see at all, with an uncanny awareness, indeed a seemingly insane kind of amusement resided behind the agony he was experiencing. The level of power Sitherack had ascended too was unbelievable, and the elements he has consumed in doing so made his defeat all the more unlikely. It was more than Lasius could stand finally, and between the screams and groans laughter bubbled to the surface. The Irony of it all, how often he had wished for a challenge when he was a God, something, anything to test his strength the Sedian Soul inside dying for want of a challenge to his nature. Well he had his challenge now.

Already his mind was studying the encounter with Sitherack, playing back every painful blow analyzing his strengths his weaknesses as precious few as they were, formulating new strategies on how to combat his abilities. One thing just wouldn't add up in his mind however, surely Sitherack could have found him by now. The man was obsessed with extracting his revenge, he couldn't honestly think of any reason for him to have stopped looking for him. Someone must have stopped him, but who that could have been... Daegan and Lomes were occupied, the Sedi who had had the Arc of Fire and Earth, might have stopped back for revenge it was obvious that Sitherack possessed Fire now. He still couldn't put his finger on it but something was bothering him about the whole situation.

As sudden as a flash of Lightning it dawned on him. That Fae Cat, the one that had administered healing to him on the southern shore. That was Malkate's cat. He had transported Malkate to Sethia before leaving Cyrida, the idea was to keep her safe, after all Sethia was about to be under protection from Himself Lomes and Daegan, it was about to be the safest place on the planet, but it wasn't yet. If she had awoken, somehow sensed Sitherack's presence and gone to engage him. It made sense as to why Sitherack would not have followed, the only thing that could hurt Lasius worse than the actual beating he had been taking.

“Malkate!”

He had sensation back in his body, the Life Sedi had finished administering healing to his spines, and being no longer paralyzed with the sudden realization of Malkate in such peril as she was brought him sitting straight upright. He could see again they had finished his eyes, and what a pitiful sight he was, most of the skin that was healed was blackened still and blistered, cracked in most places and leaking blood and pus from his sudden movement.

At this point pain was beyond description, dizziness and nausea hit him like a brick wall. The room spun, but he still climbed off the table pushing aside the surprised Life Sedi. Blood leaked from everywhere on him, he was a complete wreck, but he was a moving wreck now, kind of. He slammed into a wall, leaned heavily against it, and angled his body towards the Captain. He couldn't see straight but he could speak, to a point

“go... Sethia, take all... safer soon.”

He summoned the very last of his powers, rather the power of the Sage of Light within his soul, he had nothing left to give and vanished in a flash of light reappearing almost instantaneously, standing in front of Daegan in Tarthia. He didn't remain standing long, his legs gave out and he sank to his knees, blood soaking through the blackened and burned away patches of his armor, his skin looking like he had been rotisserie, he gave one short scream from the anguish, then promptly fell forward onto his face groaning but still somehow conscious.

[Malkate Rose Sedi]

Malkate’s body barely uncurled, barely from it’s fetal position where blood leaked from her. The wound was closed on her foot but even as the new Dark Malkate appeared her lips curled into a triumphant smile, it would appear that he played right into her hand. The Clone was a trick she hadn’t expected, but his harsh laughter showed her he thought he won – even as he stole away essence from her she had an ace up her sleeve he wouldn’t be expecting. Not from her, not now anyways. Red eyes opened in the sphere as the pressure increased, and Malkate turned her attention outwards to the Darkness. She mouthed something, but no words seemingly escaped the existence barrier.

The Earth was screaming at her, screaming it’s pain as this man tore nonchalantly through nature destroying everything around him. It fed that anger – fed that inner insanity of hers that kept her going. There was a problem however, with the fact that part of her essence had been it would appear, enslaved to this Darkness. This was a problem she’d calculate later, however the preparations were complete and one of her cards needed to be played. Sitherack with his bauble of Darkness and his belief that he had somehow trapped her amused her to no end – she, a Destroyer of Worlds. He knew nothing, he was a peon, a pawn, a creature of amusement. He might be a Sage, but she was still a Nectrite.

Power suddenly exploded from the earth, feeding through the same essence of Darkness that sent him in the air, like a thousand workers the energy erupted from the land and formed a barrier that would not just contain Sitherack and the Dark Clone, it actually worked and connected itself to the barrier already around Malkate, like an animal to a cage. It would keep him from leaving, keep things from entering, the beginning of the barrier started at the tendrils and worked up a bit to close the shield around him even as the inky Malkate finished appearing. The cocooned Malkate suddenly let out a harsh laugh as her skin that was turning black suddenly started to crack more, like a kind of earth-y mold. If the barrier, almost impossibly fast as it was forming, managed to close around him, she had set up the trap perfectly.

The luminescent orbs of his eyes narrowed slightly as the Existence shell flashed into being around him. He knew it for what it was immediately a cage, she had caged him like some kind of animal, the small amount of power that he had absorbed from her let him recognize it, he also recognized how to alter it manipulate it and yes even move through it. The problem was he didn't possess enough of her power to do any of the three... yet. Most of that power lay within the Dark form of the alternate Malkate, who smiled almost shyly at her double as she unleashed the Existence barrier. This Malkate knew all about her powers, they were hers as well. For Sitherack's part he was thoroughly impressed, it seemed that she was more than just a rag doll after all, and challenges were oh so rare to him these days he just couldn't bring himself to end it yet.

He held back the power of the Arc of Light that had been building steadily since the first creation of the cloud sphere around Malkate's form initially. It wasn't easy to say the least, power rippled forth almost unheeding to his commands from the blade, it arced wildly and savagely in all directions randomly, lashing across the inside of the Existence barrier, it wouldn't cause much damage to the barrier itself but the land and items inside it was a different story, it ravaged the earth, the portion of the Sea enclosed in the barrier and ripped holes in the air that were filled with rapidly echoing sonic booms.

His attention still remained focused on the sphere of clouds where Obsidian bolts continued their furious barrage of Malkate's Shield. There was no end to that attack that was just one more thing to keep her occupied. Outside her shield but inside the cloud barrier her double brought her arms together, hands only a hair apart, and a small ball of light began to grow there, as she slowly pulled her hands apart so did the ball grow in size. Her eyes were focused, her demeanor that of concentration, though her stance gave no clue as to whether her actions were defensive or offensive.

It didn’t matter to Malkate for the time had come. The power that was inside her small cage was pulling away from the power now outside of it. The barrier that kept them out and her in was falling weaker and even now as he smirked and the Dark Malkate shyly batted her eyelashes at Malkate annoyance never showed on her face, only a sly kind of smug look that wasn’t normally Malkate. This was one of her biggest aces in the hole, if she fucked this up – she was going to be cornered for options as this would take a lot of her magic up – but not all of it. The Arc of Magik provided with her enough energy to renew it, but she would have to pour a lot of of physical energy into this attack. Her skin cracked a final time as the blood that oozed around the barrier dripped a final time, and she suddenly started laughing again. This time it was more than high pitched, it was completely inhuman.

A light started to form from the center of her chest where her heart was, a pounding red light that suddenly took over the charred appearance of the Mage’s body. The shield snapped shut, and laughter filled the entire thing. Even as her shield faded away and the other Malkate Gathered energy, her ultimate attack was unleashed. A sound so loud that it was completely silent besides a nasty ringing to the ears would be the split-second warning before her body erupted into an explosion bright enough that it could probably be seen across Terra Catalina easily as her existence barrier around her exploded within the confinements of the secondary barrier. The instant that her explosion hit the walls of her first shield, it shattered, taking with it the momentum outwards that would be an almost explosion to everything within that secondary barrier, all seconds before an almost vacuum feeling would take place.

The plane folded in on itself, collapsing as it became a void of itself – a hole where once life would thrive. She completely collapsed that plane and turned it into a massive nothingness that would suck in everything possible – that is everything within that secondary existence barrier. The power of the winds was fierce, and even as the large gaping hole where once her body stood the power that fed the outer existence shield that protected the land outside with a steady ebb of power – oddly increased outside of the barrier as if something that was feeding it had the power returned to it.

[Sitherack's Soul]

The Dark clone of Malkate's eyes widened as the Energy she was gathering was rapidly transmuted, It took her less than a second to manipulate the energies and she was slowed only by the time it took to send a thought through the Darkness that fed her from Sitherack, a warning about the impending disaster. Then her form flickered and vanished from the plane just as the cusp of the initial explosion began to rip forth from the body inside the shield.

Sitherack didn't have time to react, he couldn't planeswalk with the small amount of power that he had gained from Malkate thus far, and the existence cage effectively rooted him inside this shell. The options were slim, non of which were particularly to his liking, only the advantage of the Arcs of Light and Lightning gave him the ability to watch the explosion in slow motion, gave him the time to sit and think it through as it were before the detonation would hit him. He was nearly omnipotent now, but that kind of blast in this kind of environment would almost assuredly vaporize him, and vaporization was not on his agenda today. He had been siphoning energies through the Corrupted Arc of Light since their fight had begun, he had enough to stop this explosion head on, but the resulting impact of the two shock waves would rip away the fabric of reality creating a massive black hole if her initial blast wasn't powerful enough to do so already.

He could revert his form to incorporeal and survive the Void, rest and restore his own energy, but that left him with the problem of getting out of this blasted cage. His form Flickered inside the cage, everything was still happening in slow motion for him, he appeared just next to Malkate as the Explosion began to shred her body, It was a concussive blast, not a thermal one it was tearing her apart not vaporizing her from heat. In essence it was the one fatal flaw he had been waiting for, still to get the timing right even with the advantage of being able to move and think at the speed of light was going to be incredibly difficult, but time was already wasting.

First he pulled energy from his Darkness, the regular kind not fed from the Arc, but the part from his Sedian Element, He soaked it around the inner shield of existence like oil, it compressed tightly around the shield itself. Then he blinked to the complete other side of the cage, as far from her as he could get. As the initial blast shattered the shield the Darkness shifted from an oily substance to incorporeal, unaffected by the energy wave passing through it, then back in the form of a sticky substance and reached out snagging on to every fragment and drop of blood that came out of the shield when the explosion commenced no matter how small. Once it had salvaged everything it could from the blast it corrupted it and pulled it into a tight incorporeal ball of darkness.

As the Shockwave raced across the cage Sitherack let loose the power building behind the Arc of Light. The detonation was intense, it shattered what was left on his side of the cage, and raced forwards slamming into her shock wave and delaying its expansion for just a seconds time. During that time the ball of incorporeal darkness that contained the remnants of the corrupted blood and powers of Malkate flashed through the two shock waves and hit Sitherack full in the chest. The shock waves collision slammed him backwards into the existence barrier. His sight spun and he slid downward even as the new infusion of Magus Energy filled his body. The Sudden roar of the resulting void began to pull him forward towards nothingness.

His vision began to blacken out, he thought briefly of staying in the void, shifting to non corporeal but he couldn't risk leaving himself in a prison of this creatures construction. Who knows what she would do next. He gathered the energy he had just been infused with and shifted. His destination was not top of his mind and he ended up in a chaotic fiery elemental world where lava and steam geysers rose and fountained across the land. His form fell, impacting the side of a volcano and skidded down, before becoming completely immersed in a massive pool of lava.

The heat of the molten rock didn't really bother him, not with the Arc of Fire infused into his armor so he let himself hang suspended in the magma let the heat from it replenish the energy of the fire, for some time. He could feel the other Malkate now, the one he had created, and he watched through her eyes as she stepped carefully through the planar portal that the real Mal had used to escape. He watched silently and passed his time waiting for precisely the right moment to strike.


The first thing she did when she upon emerging into the lush verdant wilderness that the other Malkate had escaped to was to check herself. She was indeed still there which meant that Sitherack had found some way or another to survive the attack, a thought that chilled her in its possibility of having killed him and thus erasing her existence. She glanced around carefully before spotting a flash of red in the wilderness. Her eyes widened with delight as she silently weaved her hands, mystical energy shaping itself to the motions leaving soft afterimages in the air. Her voice was silent, hidden in the darkness that was her being everything about her was stealth at the moment, however that was all prepared to change just as soon as the other Malkate felt her emerging disturbance into this plane.