"Are we ready?"
The seven of us looked at Clarity in her human form, her eyes glowing a frightening shade of lavender, while ours remained resolutely turquoise. This was it; we were going to Spearbreakers. Many soldiers had already taken residence there; they claimed to be fighting a... a war, of that much I am certain. I don't really understand the details, but I have a notion that Clarity could really help them; or destroy them. Meanwhile, in turn we each responded with a convincing "Yes, Clarity", but I could see 0009 flipping his sword around incessantly, and Nine wouldn't stop clenching and unclenching his fists inside his gloves. Zedo seemed the calmest of us all, but even he couldn't stop his eyes from darting back and forth, from Clarity to Kyh to each of us. It was Rokenzan who unnerved me the most, standing ramrod straight, face serious. Ever since I met the guy, he was always doing SOMETHING with his spine, and he always had a terrifying grin on his face, constantly sneering and chuckling. Now that that was gone, I noticed that he and I were probably the most alike of all the Aspects. And now we were all going to the same destination.
We each invoked Scindite and Sarcirent in turn, and it was Lolfail who struck up the tune; a slow threnody that seemed to steal fear, anger and doubt from our hearts. A few bars in, Clarity began to chant, and it was a chant of a thousand voices. I realised that this was what an Isho would sound like if one spoke with its mouth and not its mind. Then it was my turn to take up the song. I drew my Scindite and Sarcirent across each other slowly, then with more vigour. The floor of the Eyrie began to glow blue, and then it seemed as if I were looking into a tunnel made of the sky. The song ended, and the portal remained; it would until we reached the other side, or until something unexpected forced its way through from Spearbreakers. We each remained silent, and by unspoken consent jumped through.
It was beautiful. I could see all of space and time, a huge mass of matter and entropy, twisting around itself in a huge oscillating ball. But then we stopped dead, and the beauty turned into a violent storm. Lightning crackled for as far as I could see, it felt as if cold fire was being held to my skin. We all writhed for what seemed to be - and what could easily have been - eternity, before we were all turned to a hollow in the clouds. It was impossible to see past the mouth of the hollow, but there was one thing visible; a pair of huge, radiant turquoise eyes. Nothing, not even the Spawn, the human siege, the Void outbreak, was more terrifying; all of existence faded into that accusing glare. Lightning flashed brighter than before, and in that small window I saw... something. It had a huge torso resting on a snake's body so large it could dwarf a forest with each tree laid end to end, and at least as thick as one of Spearbreakers' main hallways. Its head was alien, as if someone had taken a mako shark, shrunk its maw to a cobra's skull, and added spikes. Lots of spikes. But the thing's arms are what terrified me. The arms themselves were dwarf versions of the monster's lower body, but on the ends of them, sprouting from the wrists, were countless tendrils of solid darkness. They extended and retracted seemingly randomly, reaching longer than the aberration's entire body and snapping back in an instant. Then the lightning flashed again, and it was gone. The storm dissipated, but it remained dark.
Suddenly, just as we began to move forward again, a human wearing strange-yet-familiar apparel appeared before our group, arms crossed, one eyebrow raised, tapping his foot on a ground that wasn't there but still made sound. He glanced at each of us, boring into us in turn. He drew something from around his neck so that they were all visible from beneath his shirt; five necklaces, each containing a different gem. He caught me focused on them, and said in a surprisingly young voice, one word.
"Moxen."
At this, Clarity and Lolfail dropped to their knees, eyes shut and mouths shaping silent prayers. The rest of us simply stared at him and at the two on the ground that wasn't there. He spoke again, this time addressing Clarity.
"This is disallowed. LFTON was undetectable and impossible to follow, but you led me to him. He should not be leaving Everoc; it was either a miracle or an omen that he made it to Idyllia at all, albeit in a..." He paused, glancing at Zedo and I. "...A roundabout way."
She stood, and gathering what was left of her dignity, replied: "You left these paths here. I was only following your trails," she sneered, one side of her mouth lifting, "Creator."
At this, she roared and returned to her native form, that of the Wyvern. The Creator simply watched, before calmly reaching inside his jacket (His what? How do I know this?) and retrieved a small, brilliant rectangular object. He lifted it high above his head and called loudly, in a voice that commanded authority, a name.
"Nicol Bolas."
Three of his necklaces, the ones containing a sapphire, a jet and a ruby, began to emit... something. Three tendrils of coloured light, the black one emanating from the jet particularly confusing, fed into the object, and it flew out of his hand and grew into a colossal dragon unlike any I had ever seen before. It landed, and roared at Clarity. Stubbornly, she glared back at it, then at the Creator. Then, she mentally yelled so that we could all hear it, "You think this CREATURE can stand against ME? At least you deigned to threaten us with Tenebris Lux in the storm!"
The Creator simply stared, before finally replying, "Bolas is here to escort 0009, Lolfail, Cor'Daz and Nine back to Vijha, Rokenzan back to Nankaina, Zedo back to Idyllia, but first he must take LFTON back to Everoc. You know that I would not use a Planeswalker to fight you, Starlit Priestess."
Clarity, obviously taken aback and mortified, simply hung her head and mumbled, "Well it would be nice to win for once..."
The great dragon, Bolas, turned to me and spoke directly into my mind, "Chandra would like you."
Perplexed, I stammered something unintelligible, before Bolas grabbed me and reared up. The Creator looked up at me and called, "Do not tarry, Dreamer. Your ex-Colonel wakes, and is barrelling towards your quarters, furiously thinking that you had better be polishing your swords to a mirror finish so that the Spawn can see themselves get beheaded or else she'll behead you." Thoroughly frightened again, I tried to stammer out a thank you, but the Creator simply waved us away, and Bolas flew down the tunnel at ludicrous speed. He suddenly stopped, and inertia carried me off his back and into the glowing end of the tunnel. I covered my eyes, bracing for impact...
"Sergeant! What are you doing in here?"
I swiftly pivoted off my bed, and with rushing memory replied, "Polishing my blades until the Spawn will be able to see themselves beheaded, MA'AM!"
Fischer's expression softened a tad, and she simply stated, "Good answer, Sergeant LFTON. As you were."
"Thank you, Colonel."
She chuckled, "No, not Colonel. It's just Commander Fischer now."
"Yes Commander. And if I may..?"
"Yes Sergeant?"
"It's good to see you awake, Commander."
At this, she grinned, a rare display of emotion, and mirth nonetheless. "It's good to be awake, Sergeant."
At this she left, leaving me to my swords. I thought about my experiences in Idyllia and, after some time muttered, "Yes, yes it is." I twisted the swords in my hands, and a brief flash of light caught one. In it, I saw seven pairs of blue eyes, one pair of purple, a pair of crimson, and a new pair of silvery green. Before I could get a closer look, they were gone, but curiosity remained, to be replaced by calm acceptance. As I lifted my head, an unseen, swift red light ran down the edges of my blades and winked out of existence.
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Topic: [34.11] Spearbreakers - It shudders and begins to move (Read 2210188 times)