Nadir (Open) [Chapter XX]

[Linx]

As the trap card was played, the people around would realize something quickly. This was no normal trap card. Instead of pulling a monster from Jadens hand or deck, it did something entirely different. It summoned a person from another realm. Where the light of the card activating once was, darkness now gathered. A solitary figure stepped through, looking as if he'd been through Hell itself. And indeed he had. Black boots were worn almost bare, and the like colored pants were tattered and faded. The black leather jacket was shredded and torn, and the white t-shirt beneath was almost non existent. Looking closely, one could see a once bright lions head pendant, open in defiant roar, now hanging tarnished halfway down the mans chest. Brown hair hung limp and disheveled around his face, and the formerly bright, emerald eyes shone with an unholy light as he bent his gaze on the Arashi below. Time had not been kind to this man, nor had death. Once before, he had been a proud and noble paladin warrior of the Zakarum order, in service to the angelic Order of Light. Now, he was a broken, half insane man who was bent to one goal. The destruction of the Arashi.

Formerly, he had been Leon Belmont. Now, he was just another victim of the Arashi, out for vengeance. "You."he whispers, staring down into the center of the crater, and the creature floating there. Inhuman brilliance and beauty mixed with all the power and terror of an Arashi. Eos, the End. She was not the one he sought, but he would kill her none the less. He knew nothing else. "You did this." he spoke in a whisper, his voice trembling as the air around him began to crackle with power as he rage began to boil over. "You. Veran. Hell. You did this to me." he spoke in a rising volume, his eyes flashing an unholy crimson as he gathered darkness in his left hand, and light in his right. He dropped from the place he'd been hovering to land on the incline, beginning his slide down into the epicenter, into the waiting arms of the End. "YOU MADE ME INTO THIS!" he roars as he hurls both light and dark at her, aiming to strike clean through her chest and pin her to the ground. In quick succession, two more launched forth from his hands, aiming to impale her wrists and pin them as well.

He stomps his lead foot down, bracing himself almost a quarter of the way down the incline as his glare remains locked on the Arashi. He didn't care that he was courting disaster, he didn't care that he was staring death in the face. At this point in his life, death would be welcome. Since his death, he'd been captured by the forces of hell as his soul sought its way to the angelic realm. And for the past ten years, he'd been in the hands of hell, and the Waking Nightmare. Tortured physically, mentally and spiritually for a decade, he had been broken. Gamaliel, his only true friend since his birth had been torn away from him, he had failed his mission, and as far as he knew, his world and the world of Genesis had been destroyed. He had failed. Were it not for the bindings the demons kept on him, he'd have taken his own life, if it were possible. He'd have shattered his very soul on the Hellforge and not thought an instant about changing his mind. It wasn't to be, he was forced to endure every hell imaginable, but over time, he grew stronger. He began to accept the Nightmare for what it was, and to overcome it. Free of the hell, he had only demons to contend with, and on occasion, the lords of hell themselves. It had been a simple enough matter to get free. They had come to him with an offer one day, and he had accepted. Anything to end his torture.

And for the past nine years, he had been under training and conditioning in the bowels of Hell. Nine years it had taken for him to slaughter his way to freedom, slaying every demon between him and the layer closest to his homeworld. He'd been armed and armored by the Lords of Hell themselves, and one such weapon appeared now. His gunblade, formerly bright and silver, was now a midnight black edged in crimson. It pulsed with unholy light and aura, and his body began to exude darkness as Eos exuded light. He bared his teeth in a snarl as his knuckles whitened under the strain of his grip on the blade and he raised his left hand, lashing out with his anger. All of it directed at Eos. The resulting explosion would create a second crater beneath her a third of the size the one Red Queen had created, and he clenched his fist as he did so, magma rushing forth from the ground beneath Eos feet to consume her. "Ten years. Ten years I've been tortured because of you!" he roars out. Blinded by his rage, he reached for the most powerful weapon he had at his disposal, the Waking Nightmare. "Suffer! I want you to suffer!" he rages as he tapped into that terrible memory, determined that she should suffer the greatest torture that he had experienced. He would gladly subject himself to hell all over, if only he could kill the creature that had done this to him.

[Cap'n Failz]

As his first assault was brushed aside without even slowing down the steadily advancing creature, the skeletal face of the Ghost Rider twisted angrily, a fierce demonic growl ripping from between clenched jaws. He hadn't been so foolish as to really expect one blow to be enough, but to see it so easily disregarded...that was enough to make him wary -- more wary than he was already. If he wasn't careful, he'd wind up going just the same way as the ground and everything near that thing had.

Ripping his fist up from the crystalline earth, he severed the link to the chains he had attacked Eos with. A number of single links of chain, still glowing red-hot, flew past him with the explosive force of his impromptu severing, flashing into nothing behind him like a cloud of fireworks. He swung his arm harshly out to one side, as if cracking a whip, and all at once a tongue of fellish flame blasted from his fingers, lashing through the air like a living serpent. His fingers closed around it and he swung it about, coiling it over several times in his fist. The white-hot links of a new chain slowly became visible as the initial hellish glow faded.

He could practically feel the encroaching tide of the glass as it spread in all directions. More than that, he could feel the power emanating from it; the withering effect it had. And in that instant, he finally had some idea of what he was facing. It chilled him to the darkest part of his demonic soul, and even the human Johnny Blaze stirred in discomfort, deep within his mind.

Then there came the earth-shattering shockwave of the bombs. Reacting on more instinct than anything, the back of the Ghost Rider's jacket ruptured, spewing out a torrent of flame. For a moment it seemed almost like it would set the very air itself on fire. Then a multitude of chains lanced out of the gaping hole in the jacket, spearing into the earth behind and all about him. The flexed like living things, and with a great surge, the Ghost Rider was hurled directly up into the air, sailing well over the shockwave of ruptured earth.

He came down again with a dull thud, sliding down the incline for only a moment before the writhing chains still speared out from his back latched into the earth about him, halting his descent. And then he merely waited, keeping his stare locked on Eos. And trying to think of an adequate plan of attack, if he could.

[Roy Atenwood]

For the first time, Roy knew fear. It was an odd feeling. Nothing was stopping this thing. Roy had literally thrown everything he had at it but physical strength, and he had a feeling that touching it was a very bad idea.

He took to the air again, backing way off, flying away from this damned thing. Hopefully the others would be able to stop it. Right now, he was honestly chickening out. Fear reared its ugly head and he couldn't handle it, for all his want of being a hero.

He knew fear from Kaden's memory, but not his own experience. In his own experience, it was simply overwhelming, and so he fled from the battle.

[Eos]

Mist and vapours of diamond rose into the sky. A silver veiled covered the beach under the pressure of the groundpounder bombs. The crater stooped low beneath the earth; even the water of the sea spilled into the maw like a river only to be immediately crystallized by the power of the Arashi. Eos herself couldn’t be seen through the smoke but the strands of light still floated in the air as an ominous sign of her presence. And they continued to grow, and soar, and dig… and they were not stopping. They lashed at the aircrafts like snakes, piercing steel like water, the glass spreading over them in an instant like a poison. There was an explosion, but even it was caught by the venom and frozen in place. The debris broke down even as it fell, becoming nothing but light before it struck the ground.

Eos looked up to the sky, the radiant substance raining down on her like tears of the moon. She bathed in its essence like she would have in an oasis. It was revitalizing – invigorating – like a breath of fresh air for a god. The experience was divine, and she would honour it. Her eyes opened and followed the motion of her assailants through the cloud of gemlike dust: Some fell back from the onslaught, resisting purification. They desperately tried to claw their way up. They stopped, frozen. Their skin cracked and peeled away, revealing a heavenly glow underneath before covering the bottom of the crater. She cleansed them, and it was just.

The waters separated to join again at her back, and she walked.

A missile stopped near her visage, disassembling itself piece by piece within a matter of seconds before the frigid gaze of the End as though she took in every detail of it’s construct before it too, was melted into a veil of opalescent fluid. Many others followed in the wake of ZX-200’s attack. She saw the figure of the cyborg and watched in silence as the mutilated and broken figure of a man rained fire down onto her. He had parted with the form gifted upon him by God to violate his image with machinery. The wings animated themselves with new-found vigour, dawning upon him like a net of white flames. She would absolve sin.

She rose from the earth like a zephyr.

The glimmer of Walter’s wires caught Eos’ attention before they stopped dead in their tracks, solidifying not inches away from her. She took in their deadly elegance before rising forward into his manoeuvre. A soft glow traversed the weapons as they slowly turned to glass, and then light, quickly making their approach to their former master. Soon Walter was no more holding the monomolecular fibre of his design, but rather filaments of mortal light. She would illuminate the dark.

And then she spoke. Eos’ head snapped in the witch’s leader’s direction right above her before the full force of a hurricane was conjured to stop her. Her ascension stalled, but did not halt. The coven might have thought their efforts were paying off, but Eos had not slowed out of necessity so much out of a deep-seated anger for Lamia who openly defied the LORD. The gale was relentless, yet Eos continued to rise steadily. The air thinned – the particles of water and oxygen liquefying and turning into white pyres around the grotesque image of a woman that dared to stand before the Arashi. She spoke, and Eos listened until finally the wind died out – and the two stood face to face.

Another would interject however, and he played his ace to ensure his words would carry more weight. He summoned beasts, and obeyed him. He fed their power, and they attacked. Eos would not tolerate being interrupted in the middle of such an important exchange. The blast came at them both and engulfed them, but amidst the chaos Lamia and the Arashi stood sheltered by the End’s power, cocooned in a glass prison of the power of the fiends.

‘‘Children of Maricul.’’ Eos’ voice was neither apologetic nor kind. ‘‘Deceitful children; children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction: You would usurp the holy order of all of creation in Her name.’’ She continued, the glimmer in the End’s eyes offered no warmth as her tone changed, suddenly booming with prophetic endeavour. ‘‘For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry – and you have committed all of these crimes – Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you.’’

Thunder roared outside, and crack appeared across the smooth transparent wall. To those outside, the energy of Jaden’s creatures had condensed into a large white cloud that floated above the vicinity. Their onslaught stretched beyond the horizon, until the entire sky was filled with a brilliant white. Eos’ next words were heard to all.

‘‘The sanctity of your souls are forfeit.’’

She crossed herself, before joining her hands across her chest.

‘‘Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.’’ was all Lamia heard before the glass shattered. The entirety of Jaden’s assault was sent outwards and into the world. It was seen across the continent, and felt trembling into the walls of Aircano. The Dragon burned. The Winged beast glassed. The Obelisk shattered. And Jaden received the full force of his own blow, along with every soul in the desert of Jherrazad.

[Ayen]

‘‘The sanctity of your souls are forfeit.’’

The Crimson Devil used her speed and agility to stay out of the light's trajectory while Kaso and Alexander used their expert timing and reflexes. Ranko moved down to the center of the crater, appearing as little more than a narrow red beam of light in contrast to what was being sent everywhere, swinging Kasul down diagonally towards the Third Aspect stoned main body.

‘‘The sanctity of your souls are forfeit.’’

ZX-200 performed evasive maneuvers to stay away from the light that blasted from the glass dome around Eos and Lamia. When it saw the missiles did nothing it changed to the laser aimed right between the strange creature's eyes while never stopping its movement. Its programming not understanding the sheer complexity of the being before it here today and ZX couldn't do this forever. Soon or later it'd have to land and retreat lest it ran out of power and became an easy target for the Arashi.

[Walter C. Dornez]

The Angel of Death was forced to drop that string of wires before the light could reach him and stepped to the side for caution. When he got closer to the location of The End he was in perhaps the most inconvenient of spots when the dome shattered releasing the power of the Egyptian gods. Thinking quickly he cut through the already crystallized ground and hoisted it up using it as a shield to defend against the light as he moved out of position. Keeping his cool demeanor in check all the meanwhile praying that the glass didn't shatter as he backed away out of the crater.

[Lamia]

All Lamia was capable of hearing after the wind stopped was the sound of her own heartbeat, which defied the witch's wish to remain calm and unfearing of the Arashi as it threatened to pound out of her chest and fall out to the crystal ground in front of her. A thick sweat poured down her face and dropped off her chin into the ground below. Even the small splash of the water hitting the ground could be heard now that the world outside were all but a faint whisper. And only the Arashi's voice remained.

"Children of Maricul."

"How dare you speak her name. She is the Enchantress!"

"Deceitful children; children unwilling to listen to the Lord's instruction: You would usurp the holy order of all of creation in Her name."

"Blasphemy! There is no order! The realms fall apart and your god does nothing!"

"For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry – and you have committed all of these crimes – Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he has rejected you."

"We curse your god!"

"Thou shall not suffer a witch to live."

"We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees!"

The glass shattered and the light came crashing down, firing in every which direction. Lamia was prepared to surrender her life in the name of the Enchantress. Ready to embrace the light and cease to exist if it was Her will to do so. But the witches of her coven all jumped in the way of the light. Lamia watched as one by one her own servants sacrificed themselves, being turned to crystal statures and then shattering in the wake of the Arashi's divine might.

"NO!"

Lamia leaped back through the air, defying gravity one more time as the light forced her back out of the crater. She tried to save her sisters but she wasn't fast enough to save them and avoid the light at the same time. They continued to die and they continued to make sure she wouldn't. In her anger Lamia threw every single element she could think of at Eos. Light, darkness, fire, water, ice, lightning, earth, steel. Not thinking of the damage it could do in return. The head witch was ready and willing to die for Maricul but she could not dishonor the sacrifices of her own coven members. They had died so that she could live, and she had to honor them. Seeing that, as much as she refused to admit it, her power was insufficient to do anything against the End, she headed back down the road which led to Isafaro. Alone... Broken...

And angry...

[Sincara]

Unbelievable. Even in the face of infinite energy being fired towards the Arashi it was able to absorb it and use it against the entire world with no strain on herself. Jaden's attack had failed miserably to inflict damage upon the Arashi's form, but it had helped tremendously to let the AI know what needed to be done. In order to defeat this threat they had to transcend infinity. White Queen ordered the tanks to retreat back to Kari where a defense could be formed. A secondary unit being sent to serve as a distraction against the Arashi if it was needed. Not all of the tanks made it out however, a couple of them were too slow, or too large to avoid the light and were glassed on contact. The smaller and lighter equipped of the tanks managing to evade the light as it fell down from the sky and passed them. White Queen turned away from the screen monitoring the desert and began to process what she had learned. There was much to do...

And not nearly enough time to do it.

[Red Queen]

Red Queen watched silently as the data came in, the overwhelming flood of information was enough to break many of the consoles in the control room. But what was needed had remained. The lost of life contributed to the research that was required to reach her overall objective, and the continued distraction by those on site, whether it was their own troops or not, would continue to buy them time as the Red Queen continued to collect data. And she would continue to throw more obstacles in its way to assure that they had plenty of time to act. Red Queen began looking through her database of the information they had acquired on the Downward Spiral, and the Spiral tech they had received from Utopia several months in advance. This battle was only beginning.

[Kara]

Kara had no idea what those creatures up in the sky were, but she could still feel the overwhelming power that radiated off all three of them. But it didn't come as a surprise to the former Woman of Steel that they were dispatched so easily. After all Kara was just a god herself when Aper's energy destroyed her from within after she took it into herself. How it didn't discourage and make her want to give up hope was anyone's guess. Perhaps it was mere stubbornness that kept Kara going. That unwillingness to yield until the very end where her body could just no longer move. Seeing the streams of light rain down from the sky Kara moved as fast as she could. Seeing the cave entrance behind her glass and then taking cover inside of it against the light that came.

"Don't shatter. Don't shatter. Please don't shatter!"

That was all she could do now. All she had left. Hope.

[Cap'n Failz]

"Human! Give me control!"

The demand came with the force of a hammerblow against his distracted mind, nearly flooring him. The demon Zarathos rarely made it anything resembling a question when he attempted to wrest control from his human host, opting to merely crash past the defenses Johnny Blaze kept up when he was distracted or otherwise incapable of resisting. The fact that he'd actually spoken up was both strange, and terrifying. But it wasn't enough to let what tentative control he still had go. Johnny Blaze was powerful as the Ghost Rider, when the Rider took control he was more powerful still, but the human soul still guided the demonic fury.

But when Zarathos took full control....all bets were off.

Zarathos was an ultimate paradox in all facets of his very nature. A demon in its purest form, Zarathos nonetheless served as an agent of Heaven itself, receiving his orders supposedly from The One Above All -- God Himself -- so many countless eons ago. He wielded the chaotic, destructive fires of Hell, ripping souls destined for vengeance asunder and destroying them utterly. But at the same time, he wielded the nigh-unstoppable force of Vengeance and Divine Wrath itself. Zarathos's powers, within the tasks set to him -- destroy the corrupt and the evil, and defend the innocent --were bordering on limitless.

Not even the Sorceror Supreme had been able to match Zarathos in a direct contest of power.

"Why should I?!" The defiant answer was barked out to no one in particular, his head tilted back toward the heavens above, as if they might answer him. The answer he got once again nearly put him down, blasting his mind with a wave of such unbearable psychic presence it would have been his undoing had Zarathos himself not protected him by the very bonding he so loathed.

"You're not dumb, human. Think about it. Do you really believe you can do anything here, with your pitiful human will holding back our full power?" There was a pause, presumably to give some time to think that bit of information over. "I'm not even sure if there's anything I can do. But I know I stand more of a chance than you do! So I say it again: Give. Me. Control."

The logic, and above all the outright sincerity of the demand turned request caught him offguard. He knew very well the reason for it -- if he was glassed and destroyed because he refused to flee or give Zarathos full control, then that would also be it for Zarathos. He would either be destroyed along with his host, or be sent back to Hell, awaiting to be bonded to another unknowing host. ".....on one condition."

"Fine! You'll get control back once we deal with this one way or another."

"See to it you don't try and worm out of that deal."

And then it was done.

Throwing back his head, the Ghost Rider let loose a horrendous roar, ripped straight from the darkest corners of Hell. The raw force behind it blasted out a huge chunk of the already massive crater he was stood in, forming a second, smaller crater in its wall. A spiralling torrent of Hellfire, burning with bizarre shades of crimson, black, orange, gold, and even white, roared dozens of meters into the sky. For a handful of seconds it merely hung there, looming ominously, before it exploded, showering molten fragments about for hundreds of meters.

The Ghost Rider now literally shone with hellish power. Hellfire rolled off of him, threatening to set the very air on fire, streaming back from him like some twisted cape. He rolled his neck, producing a series of cracks, and then let out a disgruntled growl. Lashing the chain in his hand once, it whipped through the air like a living thing -- a serpent of writing flame, hissing through the air. And then the flames about him reared up like a great pair of wings, demonic and batlike, but seeming to rain flaming feathers. It was mockery and challenge both.

When the attack that had been meant to destroy Eos was instead turned back against all those in the area, the Ghost Rider drew back his free left hand, slowly curling his fingers into a fist, and then struck the earth before him like a meteor. An explosion of fire scorched the earth behind and to either side of him, as a literal mountain of earth was blasted up before him, rising up in rough, angular ridges, low and narrow at first, but growing as they expanded, wider and taller, until the final barrier between him and the blast was nearly a dozen meters wide and tall.

"You do know this is still probably not gonna do much, right?" Within their shared consciousness, Johnny Blaze was uneasy.

"It'll buy time." The demon was no less uneasy, but he kept a tight lid on it. "That's all we need to do."

"....yeah. But how much time can we buy?"

"Enough."

[Eos]

The energy continued to expand until it engulfed the coast of Jherrazad. The coven threw themselves at the light, sacrificing themselves for their leader. The troops of Isafaro burned in the sky. The battalion of Kari froze – glassed by the tremendous oscillations of power that emanated from the Arashi. It was night across the continent, yet bright auroras could be seen across the sky – scarring it with white-hot tongues of flames.

Still there were some who refused to embrace the end. Eos’ gaze moved across the crystalline sands to meet them and their desperate onslaught. The weapon of the Empress slashed across her body in a resonant screech. It cut through her silken robes, and they reformed themselves like water in its wake. The eyes of the dark angel remained soft despite the woman’s defiance, and she took the blade in her hand. A surge immediately traversed the metal like a jolt of lightning, rippling outward into the desert. The sheer force behind it struck the crimson devil like a meteor – and she was launched like a comet. The crater offered little resistance, shattering like glass as she passed through. A crystal canyon shaped itself in Ranko’s wake as her body ravaged through the earth. ZX-200’s missiles halted, as though frozen in space before being dismantled by an unseen force. Bolt by bolt, the devices were taken apart in a flash before being liquefied.

Eos walked forward. The Arashi would not stop. They could send their armies tenfold, a millionfold if they could – it would make no difference. She looked to the east and saw the Spiral, her objective, and continued her trek towards destiny. The wings behind her expanded for miles, burning with the intensity of a thousand suns. They stretched over the horizon like the radiant hand of god. The Arashi walked, and the world behind her was torn from its hinges and followed suit in beaming glory. The survivors could only hope to outrun the tide before it caught them – to the east.

[Kara]

The glass didn't shatter and by a miracle the mortal had managed to survive for now. Once the coast was clear Kara could make out the beast was heading for the Holy City and as much as she wanted to stop it, she was powerless to do anything. Kara couldn't even fly ahead and warn the people there of what was coming. There was one thing she could do though. Get to Kari and hope those in Aircano will be able to buy them enough time. And so, Kara ran off for the daylight metropolis in hopes that they could draw the line in the sand. Before it was too late.

[Ayen]

Ranko saw Eos getting smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until she realized that it was not Eos that was moving away, but her. Crashing through the solid crystal glass and finally the desert sand before her back slammed against the remains of her throne. Kaso and Alexander turning around and falling back after their Empress. There was nothing more they could do now. When they got to the throne of the Empire, they found their Empress standing on her feet with Kasul still firmly gripped in her hand. Eyes glowing a bright crimson as she looked at the two.

“Mount the horses. We're not done yet.”

Receiving the order to retreat, ZX-200 took off into the sky, staying out of the way of the Third Aspect and returning to Isafaro to await further orders.

[Walter C. Dornez]

They had managed to survive the encounter up to this point, except a few unfortunate souls that would never again see the light of day. This left Walter with two options: follow the target into Aircano or head it off at Kari. The latter was the most logical course of action after what had just been witnessed, but Walter's young drive caused him to lean more towards the former. However, Vulture's orders would yield to the logic of the situation, an abnormality when you thought about it. Vulture and logic wasn't something that mixed well. It was clear that Red Queen was calling the shots for now.

Knowing that this conflict was far from over, the Angel of Death made his trek towards Kari. On an average day Kari's military would have shot the Vulture agent on sight, but this was no average day. If the military powers in Jherra didn't work together then there would be far more than just their continent and world that would be lost. Walter headed for Kari more determined than ever to be the one that finished off the Arashi.