The Climb [Chapter XI]

[Chloe/Kat]

Chloe's eyes looked over the inside walls of the tower seeing the ancient symbols of a language long since forgotten to the people of Genesis and unknown to people like her who came from another world. Finding the stairs north to the bottom floor of the tower across the entrance, the Empress began climbing up the many flight of steps that went around and around, making her way up to the next floor, ready for whatever lied before her.

[Ayen]

Upon reaching the top, Chloe would find nothing but concrete wall blocking her path as the room around her began to tremble and the ground underneath her opened up revealing a below sub-zero degrees pool of water that would instantly freeze anything unfortunate enough to shatter its surface and become submerged underneath it. As if the tower itself was turning against her, the stairs she stood on turned into a slide leading her on a one-way trip towards the ice-freezing water that waited for her immortal shell below. Eternity was a long time to be frozen under water.

[Chloe/Kat]

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Chloe couldn't even get up to the second floor without running into problems and this tower have to of had a dozen of them. This was going to be a long climb, a very long climb and it was about to be made worse. The steps beneath her feet flattened and she found herself sliding back on a ramp, struggling just to stay on her feet as the floor below opened up and revealed ice-freezing water at the bottom.

Thinking quickly Chloe used the abilities given to her via siring and stuck to the ramp like a spider stuck to a wall. Easily climbing up it and slicing Kasul through the wall creating her own door and then kicking it down as she walked across the built in threshold to the second floor. "All right, whoever's fucking with the tower show yourself. I don't got all day."

[Ayen]

Chloe would find herself at the end of a long, narrow corridor which down the path from where she stood appeared as if it twisted all the way up and around to the other side of the hall. As one advanced down this hall the room would feel like it was spinning, the quicker one moved the faster the spinning became. And to make matters worse the door found on the other side of the hallway would stretch out farther and farther from the one trying to reach it, dooming those who ran down this hall to become disoriented, nauseous and collapse to the floor on their own vomit.

[Tajna Rasha]

‘‘Where do you think you’re going, little soul?’’ Came the voices.

Those voices: They echoed with a faint dissonance like a ghostly choir trying to sing on the same note. Their tone would have been condescending were it not for the sheer callous chill behind every word. Better yet their origin seemed as though they emanated from the tower itself, adding furthermore unto the inextricable sense of vertigo of the twisted paths of the Downward Spiral. Although she would not notice it immediately, a skeletal figure clad in the image of a torn and broken angel of death observed her out of the corner of her eye; it’s glowing azure eyes piercing through the shadows and intently on her.

As soon as she would redirect her attention towards it however, only the walls of the tower remained with no clue as to this being’s whereabouts.

[Chloe/Kat]

Whoever designed this place was fucking nuts. Chloe walked down the hallway and began to notice that it was slowly spinning around. The vampiress struggled to keep her balance steady as she also noticed that the door was pulling away. An annoyed groan came out of Chloe's mouth as she tried to use her speed to get to the door quickly but it was all for naught. She came to a complete stop and now the room was spinning for two different reasons. And that's when the voice came. She spun around but only saw wall where she heard the voice. The spin causing her to fall down to one knee and throw up.

Chloe stayed where she was for a moment, allowing the dizziness to pass before wiping off her mouth and pulling herself back up to her feet, Kasul raised and ready to defend herself against whoever was the cause of the voice. "Who's there? Are you behind this? Show yourself!"

[Ayen]

No answer would come. Instead the room would begin to shake around Chloe. The reachable door behind her would turn into solid wall as the walls started to close in on the vampiress. As if the room itself was alive, it began taking advantage of the vampiress' disorientation to squash her like a bug between the floors, ceiling and floor.

[Chloe/Kat]

The walls were closing in, that was just....perfect! Fighting through her own disorientated state the vampiress lunged up towards the ceiling of the hallway and unleashed a furious wave of superhuman slashes with Kasul, slicing through the wall like knife through butter and cutting her way up to the third floor before the walls underneath could smash into each other as she stood on the third floor unharmed. "Fuck you too."

[Tajna Rasha]

‘‘Irrelevant.’’

The voice answered evenly at her own impatient words – though this time the voice seemed less disembodied; instead speaking directly into her ear. She would not have to wait long to realize why. Lacerated talons stood silently in front of her, at the very edge of her freshly carved escape from the tower’s deadly trap. The ghost would meet Chloe’s rising gaze with its own radiating blue eyes.

[Chloe/Kat]

Upon meeting the gaze Chloe froze where she stood, her skin notably becoming more pale amidst the harsh glare from the Ghost of Legion that stood before her. Although she never met this demon in the past she knew him all too well thanks to both Amoura and Argus' memories flowing through her mind after tasting their blood for the first time. And it was because of those memories that the Empress knew to do this.

She thrust Kasul into the demon's heart and began to eat away at his very essence.

"Fuck off."

[Tajna Rasha]

There was no outward response from Tajna Rasha. Even as the oscillations of crimson energy emanating from the Kasul tore away at its form, the phantom firmly held the Empress’ gaze. Gradually the ghost’s skin began to crack as though made from glass, letting out an audible snap before revealing the white-hot flames of its soul – the combined essence of countless others – beneath its skeletal and outwardly fragile appearance.

There was no pain, not even a struggle – the wraith simply let the sword devour it from the inside out. Eventually the unnatural light within Tajna’s eyes vanished and the body lost the strength to hold the ghost; it exploded in a flash, the light soon following as it evaporated within her blade, leaving her once again in the dark hallways of the Downward Spiral.

‘‘Fitting for one who proclaims herself an Empress of mortals...’’

Those voices.

The hiss of a spectral blade being animated with unnatural life whispered harshly into Chloe’s ear as an iron grip took hold of her shoulder.

[Chloe/Kat]

Eyes widened and a following hiss of pain would accompany the Ghost as his sword drove into her back and drew blood as the vampiress struggled to get free from his grip. "W-why are you trying to stop me?" Asked Chloe weakly. "Maricul threatens us all. I'm trying to help stop her!"

[Sincara]

The hissing would be drowned out by a loud bang as the arm that held Chloe in place would be blown off from its shoulder allowing the Empress chance to escape from his clenches as the demonic arm fell to the floor by his feet. Behind the demon twenty feet away was his shooter; Sincara. The barrel of the Six Shooter still letting off steam from the recent shot as her eyes were dead lock on the demon. Chloe was far from her favorite person in the world, an outsider taking hold of an empire that did not belong to her, but like it or not to stop the Seductress they were going to need all the help they could get. This demon was holding back a valuable ally in the fight.

Sincara would deal with the Empress when this was over.

[Tajna Rasha]

Tajna held the Empress firmly as the wraith blade began to consume her. Even if it only manifested itself as though she had been impaled with a burning iron physically, the incandescent weapon was quickly tearing away at her soul. Being the Kasul’s wielder, it would not take long for her to realize the horrifying truth about the wound she had been inflicted – that she, her power and everything she ever would become, were being devoured.

‘‘Your future involvement in these events could bring about certain complications...’’ It said evenly just as the transparent form of Chloe’s soul began to unhinge itself from her body, the cold light in the phantom’s eyes offering her no respite. In a single motion the woman’s existence would come to its fatal conclusion. ‘‘Your presence is no longer required.’’

Tajna Rasha’s arm was swiftly amputated following the detonation, inavertedly sparing the Empress her cruel fate and releasing her from the demon’s grip.

The Council Member turned to face Sincara. In the same instant, the azure glow of the mystical blade came into the young lady’s view; the light threatening to blind her as another apparition brandishing the fearsome weapon darted from above to spear her.

A ripple moved across the original incarnation of the phantom as though the space around it was taken over by a displacing disturbance. It only took an instant – had anyone blinked they would have surely missed it – but once Tajna once again came into view, it stood very much unharmed by the assault as though it had never happened… all the while an arm of clear demonic nature still stood on the ground.

Eyes blazing, it returned its attention to Chloe.

[Chloe/Kat]

"You have..." Chloe's voice grew weaker as the wraith ate away at her spirit. "No right..." It hurt just to breathe. Every gasp of air drained her and she knew all too well what the Ghost was doing but the most frustrating part was her inability to stop it. "To... Say this..." Chloe was a woman brought down to the brink of despair, she encountered trials that would have tore the average man apart but somehow she survived it all. Going from a standard vampire dragging herself through the dirt to an Empress with command over an army of souls. And now? She was going to die. Just like that. All because of a bastard demon who decided her usefulness was at an end.

But he was wrong. Chloe felt the iron grip that had her leave after a loud shot ringed in her ears. She would not question it as in that instant she ran. The wound in her back starting to heal but it would take more than that to recover from the wraith. Squeezing the hilt of Kasul the blade began to change and glow a bright red hue as it gave her strength faster than even that of her vampiricy or Argus' blood. While connecting with the vast armies of souls in Kasul one soul stood out amongst the rest. The soul she just acquired in this tower. The soul of Tajna Rasha.

Once the Ghost returned its gaze on the Empress it would be met by the very same radiating blue eyes he set upon any who stood before him. He would recognize the power now leaking off her and a sickening realization, one felt well over a thousand times, would have struck his skull. The vampire Chloe; the one with the Night Angel's blood in her veins, the Nightmare within her grasp, the new wielder of Kasul and Empress of Jherrazad, had one more dark gift in her possession that would set her above both ally and enemy. The very thing that Tajna Rasha had tried so hard to stop.

"Your complications begin now."