That fear in your eye [Chapter XVII]

[dmc89]

"I don't think so!" Dante dropped down to a knee, shooting his fist into ground. A large wall of white light cascading upwards and around Dante while sending a seismic shock wave outward, the wall of light began absorbing the impact and converting it into raw kinetic power, as was the ability of Gilgamesh as the Wall of light soon shot out evaporating anything within it's path.

Dante himself trailing right behind the wall going for Ranko, the power stored within his fist launched outward in a punch however... as he did a crack in reality began to splinter in front of that light ball he shot out before finally the cracks ripped open and the energy orb shot out of the dimensional warp... Wait what?

Dante looked into the rip now big enough to fit himself into... and saw what looked like the old Arinco ruins. This was his ticket out, he looked up to peer past, the white wall of destruction still advancing which gave him just enough opportunity to slip through the dimensional whole and close the rift, but not before launching a nice little present in there that would be the equivilant of five mega-tons of explosives.

the light wall would fade and dissipate showing instead of Dante... A dark, black vacuum orb that resonated with the first Aspect's face within it... A little gift from his fight against the Veran shard... it's power to engulf everything... and it began doing just that.

[Ayen]

He ran away. All that power at his fingertips and he was still no match for you.

Ranko powered down and allowed the Netherrealm's essence to freely pass from her body and return to the focal point of the realm. Her eyes turning back to normal, normal for her anyways, and the veins fading away from her body as she picked up her red trench coat and put it back on. But as she did so her attention turned immediately to the familiar face of the First Aspect, a little present left behind by the Demon Slayer that had fled back to Genesis to escape death by her hand.

But it was only a shard of the First Aspect unlimited power and Ranko, to the surprise of the demons watching, allowed it to being slowly absorbing the realm. She did nothing to stop it, despite protests from the soldiers but they quickly bit their tongues when Ranko's glare met their gaze. At that point, as she stared into the abyss that was Veran's eyes, she could only think about the Paradox that she encountered all those years ago. Wondering, pondering, what would he think of her now?

Then, as it continued to work itself as the bane of the Netherrealm, the Netherrealm adapted and merged with it causing it to fade away from sight and the realm itself felt a boost of power, Ranko included, as they began to understand the nature of this shard and what it could do. Ranko turned, the soldiers killed in this fight already resurrected and ready for battle as she looked at them. Her masked expression as cold as it could ever be as she spoke.

“Let's go.”

And a portal opened as they made their march back to Genesis to finish what they started in Moon Valley.