amenities

Imagining all the mistakes that can be made during a hurriedly decided body change, is plain negativistic. I would know.
It’s not like I didn’t have it coming. So, let’s be honest... I haven’t been very well behaved lately, I’ve been spending way too much time in the shadows with severely odd people, and I am way too old for that. Life is supposed to be short, no one should live this long and come out with nothing; having done nothing with the abundant length of precious time they’ve managed to get dealt.
By no means am I trying to be profound while whining, I just really hate this body…
 
                                                                                                                                                                               
 

Destruction, interference, assimilation, hijacking, anti-magic, magic jamming, at the end of the day it’s all magic. Through countless fights and an endless cycle of building and breaking magical systems, Ashton had come to understand this fundamental truth. And from this fundamental truth he came to understand a second, and perhaps even more important truth; systems hate chaos. Magic requires precision and order; the slightest tweaking of variables makes it wildly dangerous or in some instances utterly useless. Changing a single value can break a spell, or cause it to backfire. It’s this randomness, this lack of order, that Ashton hopes to introduce and capitalize on with his latest spell.
Michael, who stands tall, braving the cloud as it engulfs him, confident in his own ravenous power, assuming that his magic will protect him from the glimmering dust, allowing it to ebb past and around him, has miscalculated. Although, to be fair, so has Ashton.
It isn’t instant, the reaction of two magical systems interacting, but Michael’s devouring barrier is the catalyst that procs the transformation1. There is a brief but intense flash, the ground heaves, and rubble rains from the sky. The thunderous roar that accompanies it is indistinguishable from the concussive impact blast that follows, the timeframe between the two is simply too small to measure.
The simple truth is that, as much as Ashton would have preferred to inject chaos directly into Michael’s system, it’s much easier to create a system that reacts randomly. The reactive field he created, with no known outcome in mind, converts into a blast of lightning. The 30’ cloud, which Michael stands three feet deep in, explodes2.
With both fighters off center, it becomes a directional charge, one that launches Ashton toward Michael, and presumably launches Michael away from Ashton. And although the bombardment of ionized particle and searing plasma is without a doubt damaging, the bulk of the energy is expelled as a shockwave which lifts and hurls not only the fighters but the ground itself, several dozen feet.
 

'I am God, I am the Devil,
A holy trickster protagonist,
Sola scriptura paganist,
Fortunam capit.'
The Son of Gaia sang with a whimsical, heartbreaking harmony. His voice’s tune would carry through the immense forest with sorrowful abandon. Birds stopped singing, squirrels stopped running, deers stopped grazing to the wanderer’s longsome will ‘o the wisp. 
He came to stand before the unnaturally thick wall of trees. Behind it, there warbled a discomforting warmth. Crimson red, that aura beyond the trunks— densely packed like warhorses— was like a furnace that was just barely, scarcely contained by the staunch trees. The final thrums of his voice took on new meaning, a chantlike reverence that rang with harshness instead of harmony against the thicket of trees; like an army beating its spears on its shields, like an army of warhorses himself, snorting and champing at the doors of the crimson furnace.
With its chorus' final words, he snatched a wafting wisp of web out of the air. Looking above, he saw in the canopy a constellation of hand-sized arachnids. His frame became a white gold light, his hand spooling the melting web around it.
“Gaia did not gift me with the ability to create,” he said with the same magnitude, apparently to nobody, as he wrenched down on the strand of spiderweb like a steam whistle at quitting time. “I am Her Son, and my Mother gave me the power destroy.”
Three significant things happened within two seconds of one another:
1) Huge spiders rained down all around and on top of Michael.
2) Without a singular gesture from the Diocese, the trees slid aside like slatted blinds. Behind them, as if listening at the door, there stood a hulking creature in war gear that seemed straight out of a Tokein-esque alternate dimension. Within the crimson furnace clearing, there grew a single steel tree. Instead of branches, the trunk sprouted two great metallic wings like those of dragons. The wings did not beat, but neither were they inanimate. Subtly but definitely, the tree and wings rose and fell with a surreal breath. The creature stood twice as tall as Michael, two horns protruding from the black metal of its warmask. One of its arms was transmogrified into a chainsaw cannon hybrid, and the other ended in a meaty fist studded with spikes like a mace. Its chestplate was as big as Michael, its loin cloth dangling eye level with Commager.
3) Michael’s golden frame erupted in boiling spirit fire. A spider as large as him landed on his head only to vaporize in a red mist of gargantuan predator panic. A white ball of fire became his human form, obscuring his form and obfuscating the spiders who had been meant a grim defense but now skittered for safety from the Bastion.
*POWCRUNCHSMASH*
Blasting, cascading, caroming, ricocheting, Michael’s cometesque form obliterated some trees whole, razed holes in others, and eventually died out to ping-pong from tree to tree until he skidded to rest in a simmering crater of steam.
“GWA GWA GWA GWA! God of nothing! Devil of the people! Michael Commager.” *thud!* *thud!* *thud!*
It approached. Razors frayed the edges of Michael’s shattered consciousness as he reached his arm up, watched his hand blur in the space above him. Somehow, he held the falcon’s feather.

I went to a Wendy's in Denver at 9PM once and there was a guy counting the rounds in his pistol while ironing his clothes in the corner

Shikai watched the boy go over what they had learned the day before with a great deal of satisfaction. Ash had managed to learn what would take most students a few weeks to fully grasp. It seemed that he had just as much potential as Phoebe and Cain seemed to think he did; which the shinobi had never really doubted. The boy would have been a Problem Solver, and if the one he had fought was any indication, they were no slouches. For now though, he would put such thoughts aside. It was time to reward Ash for the patience he had shown.
"You've done great!" he praised, "Now for the moment you've been waiting for. I know you've been wondering why I'm teaching you guitar, and I appreciate you trusting me. Watch closely!"
The shinobi's hands blurred as he wove together a series of handsigns while he called up the energy from within himself for the jutsu. A moment later there was a great puff of smoke, that upon dissipating revealed a clone of Shikai, accurate down to the last detail. 
"This is called a jutsu," explained the clone, "They function much like magic spells, but are activated by handsigns. I've just shown you one of the simplest, the Shadow Clone Jutsu."
A moment later Shikai dismissed the clone and grinned at his student, "So what do you think?"

Overlooking the field where Shikai confronted his ill-formed twin, it was clear that the horses were in utter terror. More than anyone here, even the Dead themselves, their maned friends seemed to be the greatest victims; but wouldn’t the horses be fake too?
Were Void Cain and Void Phoebe any actual representation of the real thing, Cain would have expressed surprise at Phoebe’s losing her cool but he didn’t, he just kept eating the luscious and increasingly-obviously immaterial fruit and riddling away— and that was just it. These things weren’t their real counterparts. Void Phoebe didn’t act like Phoebe, Void Cain acted only slightly like Cain (except more riddly) because of greater interaction over months past, and Void Shikai and Void Mistress were practically bears and flamingos compared to what they were supposed to mirror.
“They— it— may have spent more time with me than you guys,” said Cain to Phoebe and the others as the former, the First, came to the Architect’s side. Strangely, he felt compelled to, and raised his hand gently to run in a plane one half-inch from her cheek. In that space, there was a special type of electricity. He examined the ring finger with a perfectly preserved hole in the middle, and let the hand fall to his side.
“But they’re nothing like us.”
"I've dreamed of meeting you,"
Meanwhile, Shikai faced off with the beast in a clearing at the center of the massive herd of horses that grew and grew every instant, funneling in from— running away from—the North. It seemed as if whatever fate they held here with Void Cain was better than whatever lie North.
"Of coming face to face with the worst part of me... and cutting it out!"
Void Shikai’s lips began to grin. The stitches holding its lips shut strained, tearing through the flesh and falling away to expose fanged teeth clenched around the violet gem.
“We need to get those crystals off our mirrors,” said Cain to the others, pointing as Void Shikai did so and Shikai charged and raising the black rose in his other hand. Within the black rose, there sat a small crystal exactly like the one Void Shikai carried. Void Cain looked at this crystal with envy, with anger.
It would perhaps strike Shikai as amazing that, with his first swing of Mykur, the Void Shikai was able to use his knock-off blade to knock the Legendary blade aside to slice into the earth beside it. Now Void Shikai’s voice could be heard as it grunted with demonic strength, aiming its massive elbow for Shikai’s chest in a counter-move.
"I'd rather play with you instead."
“Ah?” said the freshly engaged Void Mistress, who had seemed very much to travel like a super-extra NPC until she noticed the real Dead Mistress heading toward her. “No hey! Waddayou want?”
Perhaps Cain’s words would paint the way the Dead Mistress approached her Void twin.

Overlooking the field where Shikai confronted his ill-formed twin, it was clear that the horses were in utter terror. More than anyone here, even the Dead themselves, their maned friends seemed to be the greatest victims; but wouldn’t the horses be fake too?
Were Void Cain and Void Phoebe any actual representation of the real thing, Cain would have expressed surprise at Phoebe’s losing her cool but he didn’t, he just kept eating the luscious and increasingly-obviously immaterial fruit and riddling away— and that was just it. These things weren’t their real counterparts. Void Phoebe didn’t act like Phoebe, Void Cain acted only slightly like Cain (except more riddly) because of greater interaction over months past, and Void Shikai and Void Mistress were practically bears and flamingos compared to what they were supposed to mirror.
“They— it— may have spent more time with me than you guys,” said Cain to Phoebe and the others as the former, the First, came to the Architect’s side. Strangely, he felt compelled to, and raised his hand gently to run in a plane one half-inch from her cheek. In that space, there was a special type of electricity. He examined the ring finger with a perfectly preserved hole in the middle, and let the hand fall to his side.
“But they’re nothing like us.”
"I've dreamed of meeting you,"
Meanwhile, Shikai faced off with the beast in a clearing at the center of the massive herd of horses that grew and grew every instant, funneling in from— running away from—the North. It seemed as if whatever fate they held here with Void Cain was better than whatever lie North.
"Of coming face to face with the worst part of me... and cutting it out!"
Void Shikai’s lips began to grin. The stitches holding its lips shut strained, tearing through the flesh and falling away to expose fanged teeth clenched around the violet gem.
“We need to get those crystals off our mirrors,” said Cain to the others, pointing as Void Shikai did so and Shikai charged and raising the black rose in his other hand. Within the black rose, there sat a small crystal exactly like the one Void Shikai carried. Void Cain looked at this crystal with envy, with anger.
It would perhaps strike Shikai as amazing that, with his first swing of Mykur, the Void Shikai was able to use his knock-off blade to knock the Legendary blade aside to slice into the earth beside it. Now Void Shikai’s voice could be heard as it grunted with demonic strength, aiming its massive elbow for Shikai’s chest in a counter-move.
"I'd rather play with you instead."
“Ah?” said the freshly engaged Void Mistress, who had seemed very much to travel like a super-extra NPC until she noticed the real Dead Mistress heading toward her. “No hey! Waddayou want?”
Perhaps Cain’s words would paint the way the Dead Mistress approached her Void twin.

Overlooking the field where Shikai confronted his ill-formed twin, it was clear that the horses were in utter terror. More than anyone here, even the Dead themselves, their maned friends seemed to be the greatest victims; but wouldn’t the horses be fake too?
Were Void Cain and Void Phoebe any actual representation of the real thing, Cain would have expressed surprise at Phoebe’s losing her cool but he didn’t, he just kept eating the luscious and increasingly-obviously immaterial fruit and riddling away— and that was just it. These things weren’t their real counterparts. Void Phoebe didn’t act like Phoebe, Void Cain acted only slightly like Cain (except more riddly) because of greater interaction over months past, and Void Shikai and Void Mistress were practically bears and flamingos compared to what they were supposed to mirror.
“They— it— may have spent more time with me than you guys,” said Cain to Phoebe and the others as the former, the First, came to the Architect’s side. Strangely, he felt compelled to, and raised his hand gently to run in a plane one half-inch from her cheek. In that space, there was a special type of electricity. He examined the ring finger with a perfectly preserved hole in the middle, and let the hand fall to his side.
“But they’re nothing like us.”
"I've dreamed of meeting you,"
Meanwhile, Shikai faced off with the beast in a clearing at the center of the massive herd of horses that grew and grew every instant, funneling in from— running away from—the North. It seemed as if whatever fate they held here with Void Cain was better than whatever lie North.
"Of coming face to face with the worst part of me... and cutting it out!"
Void Shikai’s lips began to grin. The stitches holding its lips shut strained, tearing through the flesh and falling away to expose fanged teeth clenched around the violet gem.
“We need to get those crystals off our mirrors,” said Cain to the others, pointing as Void Shikai did so and Shikai charged and raising the black rose in his other hand. Within the black rose, there sat a small crystal exactly like the one Void Shikai carried. Void Cain looked at this crystal with envy, with anger.
It would perhaps strike Shikai as amazing that, with his first swing of Mykur, the Void Shikai was able to use his knock-off blade to knock the Legendary blade aside to slice into the earth beside it. Now Void Shikai’s voice could be heard as it grunted with demonic strength, aiming its massive elbow for Shikai’s chest in a counter-move.
"I'd rather play with you instead."
“Ah?” said the freshly engaged Void Mistress, who had seemed very much to travel like a super-extra NPC until she noticed the real Dead Mistress heading toward her. “No hey! Waddayou want?”
Perhaps Cain’s words would paint the way the Dead Mistress approached her Void twin.

The Dead Mistress sighed as she witnessed Shikai charging prematurely. Surely the man could wait for a bit longer before taking any drastic actions? Well there's not much point in peaceful negotiations now that her companion had made his choice. She could only roll her eyes in exasperation.
"My, my! Rushing off as usual," she spoke while placing another lighted cigar on her lips. She already lost count of how many she had smoked at this point but she never cared for the consequences of her vices. The place was starting to get to her, not because it felt queer or unnerving but because she was no longer in control of the situation or even her own person. Something else was in control of this realm and that did not sit well with her. However, she should stay put for now-
The man's words made her pause. Only for a second.
"Actually, fuck that!" she spat as she realized she did not know what the answer is. Instead, she sashayed towards her clone, menacingly. "I'd rather play with you instead."

“Gaia’s children are a warrior child, are they not?” said Michael up to Sister Eils’ chiding grin.
“Yes, brother, but they also carry within them a merciful youth. Eradication is never to be the motive, but purification,” she said to Michael’s noticeably deafened ears. He was already flexing his muscles, tensing his neck this way and that in preparation.
Therein, perhaps, lay a very un-Gaian flaw in the young Major. His youth emanated a passion from within like sunfire, but temperance did not seem practiced in his mind. Loving those for whom he intrinsically cared was never an issue, but for Michael forgiving the evil was as difficult as not slighting those who had wronged him in the past; he was equally as cold to those who had wronged him as he was to those who had wronged Gaia’s children, with little mind to spare the perpetrators.
This was not the fire alight in his hungry blue eyes now, though. Yshmael would remember Michael’s apparition Matte, splattering his enemies’ guts in human-shaped cookie cutters on the walls behind them— but that was not the expression he bore now. Like a viking or pirate who derived enjoyment from fighting his crewmates, Michael grew through every battle with both friend and foe.
“If either one surrenders then it’s over, got it?” said Sister Eils as the three positioned themselves in the fields not far from the church.
Michael nodded in affirmation. He was barefoot, wore brown slacks and a waist-length white tunic that blew airily around his defined torso. True to reality, there was no indication of any magical build-up around him as the grass tickled his ankles and the air tousled his silver shoulder-length hair. He pulled the wooden hilt that would normally be the harbinger of his Tenchi-Ken/Peachy Keen, and threw it into the grass beside him to indicate that he would not be using weapons, at least at first.
“Ready? Start!” she said.
Michael took off at a sprint toward Yshmael, dispatching of any fighting stance he’d held before the Sister’s starting signal. His eyes were full of the same playful, dangerous light as before. Leaping into an arc that reached surprising heights en route to Yshmael, Michael formed laced his fingers together above his head to form a two-handed bludgeon that he brought down toward the Thrice-Blessed’s head.

DUM DUM DUM
As the ogre’s footsteps approached Michael’s crash-landing, Michael sat up, fighting to regain cognizance. He wobbled to his knees, both hands flat on the ground while the fat, blurred figure bobbed toward him. 
“I’m concussed,” he said to Tori.
I can tell Sir, attempting to stabilize! 
***URGENCY MODE!!!***
Hyper-collagen injected itself into Michael’s broken skull and C7 vertebrae, particles of light energy sealing it together.
DUM DUM DUM
Sir you need to move!
If there was even an ounce of ‘begging to stop’ in such a situation, Commager would have died, but there was no such thing that existed within Michael of the Lions; The Dragonhawk cried to Michael Commager that This was the Vessel within which He would be delivered unto the New World. Not a feathered bird, nor a scaled dragon, but a Feathered Dragon.

Ash dreamt of perfectly spaced fields. Separating each field was a wall that represented one fret to the guitar. A frightening bass built behind him that caused him to run from field to field, vaulting each wall as he went. The walls got taller and taller, spaced closer and closer, the bass behind him growing louder and louder, until Ash was running along the tops of the next fret. Soon, the walls began waving and split into six string-like paths that led off into obscurity. When he fell, the fields beneath him opened up into a great mauve pit. As soon as he saw that what was within the pit was his dead father, the pit became mouth as big as a mountain. A mouth belonging to Cain. A mouth that swallowed his family whole.
"Breakfast time!"
Ash flinched awake from the bad dream. His eyes settled from fear into focus. Somehow, the fear of his nightmare had further nailed into his mind the notes Shikai was teaching him. After eating, when they progressed that day, he showed an extraordinary understanding of the material they'd gone over the day prior.

The ambience, as it were, had indeed struck her as she moved silently through the house, finding her vantage point. It felt not too unlike those homes she heard about in stories -- the kind that restless teenagers stumble into on a dare, the kind that is furnished, well lit, and warm, with food still left on the table half-eaten.... and no one to be seen. It was not what she had expected, and left her with an uncommonly eerie feeling. Frowning inwardly, she decided to wait it out a little longer, but eventually the silence became oppressive, if only because there were no sounds of anyone coming in; no sounds of a struggle; no sounds of sickness; no sounds of distress. 
Oh, silence was golden, even the silence of death, but not when Lala herself did not cause it. Something was amiss.
With a barely audible rustle, she slipped out of her hiding spot in the shadows of the sitting room and, careful to avoid the windows, crept around to the opening of the hallway and leaned in to listen. Hearing nothing, her inner frown turned to a scowl, and she was beginning to feel impatient: that rat-bastard should have been home and dipping into his stores by now, but if he had come home, he wasn't dipping into anything. 
One of her shrouded hands moved to her non-existent stomach and reached beneath the layers of black cloth which wrapped her bones; it slowly snaked its way up into her ribcage, and with a quiet scraping sound, withdrew a simple, but sharp and well-kept hand-sickle. 
If he wouldn't drink, she'd do it the old-fashioned way. 
On padded feet she crept through the hallway, a looming specter without a face, like the shadow of the monster which haunted Lisette into her own kitchen. Only this time, the shadow found its way to the doorframe of the dining room. 
Lala's teeth cracked together in spent patience when she saw them just sitting there, but the moment vanished in an instant when she saw the masks. Her skull twitched into a baffled tilt. Her gaze flipped back and forth between them, taking in the unsettling scene with the grace of a serial killer who finds a ghost in place of his mark. Thankfully she didn't have any blood, or it'd be awful cold at the moment. 
It felt like cold stone and a slowly smoldering ice-fire before her; their energy was palpable to her virtually naked spirit and she curled her spine in slightly, expecting retaliation for her presence and a not-so-graceful exit as she had planned. 
What she got instead, was a greeting. 
“Hello,” said the man without intonation. He seemed ever so lost in the woman’s eyes across from him, so much so that he did not move but for his lips when she entered. “Would you sit with us?”
Her skull tipped the other way, half-incredulous and half-intrigued. There were filled glasses on the table -- and between them was the bottle she herself had tainted a while ago. 
"A toast?" Proposed the woman seated across from the ram. Lala froze where she was, sickle held at her side in a rigor-mortis grip, looming, head tipped, wanting to leap forward and make these people dead like she planned. She found her vitriol rising, shamed at having been caught out and trumped, and outraged at what she perceived as mockery of her failure on their part. An inhuman, barely-audible growl rattled in her cold dead windpipe.
"To hospitality," the woman said after an unceasingly long moment, making her first movement as she cupped the crystal wine glass in the palm of her hand and hoisted it to the flickering firelight, waiting for him to join her raised glass before she finished,  "And new friends."
Yes, yes, drink away, Lala hissed inwardly, Let me see it.
The two of them then drank, drank away a multitude of sins by a multitude of individuals. Lala leaned forward, her abnormally long neck craning to its maximum length to take in every moment of their reactions, every shiver of their auras, every deterioration as it happened. Rarely did she get to watch her work so closely; maybe she'd have the last laugh after all. 
The moments stretched away, stretched into an awkward thinness as half a minute became a full one. One became two. 
And absolutely nothing happened.
Their energy remained stable -- they didn't appear to flinch or wince, and they said nothing. The silence in the room was oppressive, and heavy enough that they could hear her grinding her teeth in newly found frustration. But something else accompanied her frustration -- as infuriating as it was to see her most reliable weapon fail, the sin-eater couldn't help but begin asking questions. The chief of which was, of course.....
".....how?" 
Her voice was hollow and sharp, muffled only very slightly by her wrappings. The hand holding the sickle lowered as though defeated, and she looked back and forth between them once again. 
Now it was they who waited. After the minute or two it took her to realize they were not going to fall ill or go mad, she registered the display as a show of power, and the fact that no normal person could possibly resist the spirit-poison she had spat into that wine. They weren't attacking her, and they weren't outing her to any authorities. 
Straightening, Lala stepped peaceably forward and pulled out another chair, sitting down as the man in the bone ram mask had originally requested. Still uncertain and alert to any possible aggression, she finally spoke, addressing them both at once in a low tone of intrigue and caution:
"What are you?"

Y S H M A E L ,  T H R I C E - B L E S S E D  A G E N T
 
Disciple | Nomadic Apprentice of the Church
 

       Through verdance did he wander in bliss of profound actualizations and absorbed understandings through the forest in spirit and mind, but not body. Astro-Gliding, or whatever they call it, right? Yea, right past what felt like Michael. He wanted to be alone, though, and it probably wasn’t him fighting steely tree foes and creepy crawlies… right? Without further examination, he returned to his reverie.
 
       With a means of travel and yet another medium for reflection, his Discipline could only benefit from his encounter with one of De Viento’s young. Together, they would grow and cultivate a powerful relationship. Druids and the various dioceses would also be his greatest advantage, should he follow a more in-depth path to communicating and even imposing his will on the ship to be had. Persuasion, Agreement, Compromise-- anything short of Domination, if he could help it. Coming here with a mind to interact and not subjugate, he held to his faith in that he would treat it as well as he did his horse! With such a full heart for exploration and knowing as much of the whole of Her Creation as he could through personal experience, he would not lose hope.

 It was this good faith in his situation that elicited similar sympathy from surrounding forces. Ever so gently was he egged on toward his fated union. Every tree with an inch of life radiated at the presence of his ethereal form. In his spiritual journey, he now slowed from the blur between each transfixing experience and encounter made upon this journey. That evening, he found many lesser spirits and forces within and around De Viento. She had truly blessed him with a powerfully insightful time. Not the first, but certainly the first within another loci -- save for his channeling during his stint with Jericho and Michael-who-was-Matte. An altering experience it was to see just how much the land manifested for itself. Just as the Glacier permeates her essence all over, so too must the rest of the Continent.. Fantastic!

Canon Summary
Kahd’Xel, an arch-demon thousands of years old, holds a grudge against Gaia for making him a pariah in the early days of his existence. Without realizing that Gaia cannot be embodied but that she is an idea, Kahd summons a horde of aliens and demons and plagues called the Xelken. Trekking along the northern border between Empire and the Shawnee Glacier, Kahd gathered a force of 30,000+ Xelken and made a hovel called Groff Basin for them.
From Groff, Kahd launched an assault team that was meant to catch Aspyn unawares and destroy the home of many refugees from the misfortunes that years ago assailed many of the old Terran Cities- but Terrenus was ready.
With a force composed of the Terran military, the Gaian clergy, and HGA, the protagonists were able to defeat the Xelken with relative ease.
Kahd’Xel and the Xelken were not the only threats, however. Two vigilante groups with little-to-no care for civilian life over defending their own, HGA and the denizens of a mysterious ship not yet known as the Banzai, were identified during the conflict and will be followed up on.
Opportunities
Help rebuild Aspyn, add a new location, add attributes to the military base in Aspyn. Follow up on reports of HGA assaults on Aspyn citizenry and Terran military. [can be done by anybody] Follow up on the strange ship in the sky that destroyed more of the Aspyn wall than Kahd’Xel. (the Banzai) [can be done by anybody] Track fleeing monstrosities back to Groff Basin and provide intel on it.

"Keep the rest of these assholes off me."
Ash had taken one of the armored robes of a nearby fallen guard. It was big on him, hanging about to the ankles, but it concealed his naked whiteness from the night with a shroud of black. He’d gotten his father’s sword back, miraculously. It was only after gaining it back now, after nearly having lost it for the first time ever, that Ash realized how devastating it would be to him if he lost the last remnant of his lost lineage. Within his hand was the weapon of his choosing, within his mind unwavering determination.
Crouching before Phoebe as her spear launched overhead, Ash followed in the blade’s blistering wake. His targets, the men framing the projectile’s path en route to Amirah, scarcely saw him in a whorling of wind and fabric before he was upon them, among them.
He took out the first, who had turned his back foolishly to follow the Mindgorger with his eyes, much like he had earlier; a blade to his calf hamstrung it into the air, the elbow of Ash’s other arm crushing his nose as his balance left him, driving his head into concussion as the pit of his knee bled profusely.
The second was turning his weapon toward Ash even as the warmth of his comrade’s blood spattered his face. The crouching Ash’s blade slid sickeningly from the knee tendons of his first victim in a straight horizontal line into the man’s abdomen. Guts and gore gurgled and gushed from the wound as Ash pivoted around the man’s back, reaching around him with his free hand and grasping his trigger hand to release a spray of dying friendly fire on his fallen foe’s nearby friends.
He also used this second body to shield him from the wave of hot air washing in from The Phoenix.
A fatal wound turned into the inhalation of blazing hot wind, and the ultimate death by friendly fire of Ash’s second enemy.

“Why is he killing the horses? Seems more off than normal for Shikai.”
“BECAUSE WE NEED THE HORSES!” For just a moment as Void Phoebe looked back, regular Phoebe would swear she saw the purple eyes of a viper and a snake tongue lashing within her heretical lips. She definitely broke character from her faux image of the real Phoebe’s personality. Something more carnal was obviously at play. “WE NEED TO FIND ALL OF THEM AND EAT!”
The sounds of horses dying in the background intensified as they walked through the forest.
"I'll shut that thing up, then ram that copycat blade up that monster's ass."
Cain didn’t stop Shikai from following his Void counterpart, except to say a meaningful “Be careful, we don’t know what’s ahead.” As Shikai ran ahead, he would notice that blood painted the trees the way Void Shikai went. Shikai broke out on a clearing after running for a few hundred yards where there are hundreds of horses. Void Shikai danced around the field of horses ripping them apart and showering in their blood.
The others were still far behind.
“Map?”
“Very good!” said Void Cain through the juices of the fruit he gobbled up, core and all. Now the sounds of horses dying was a screeching neigh in their ears, and it looked like music to Void Cain. He posed his next riddle just as they broke out on the scene of the two Shikais and the horses.
“Next. I am not only alien, and not only bee, but Taen is a home to me!”
To the North, it appeared that horses were fleeing from the Northern hills and gathering in this field.

“Why is he killing the horses? Seems more off than normal for Shikai.”
“BECAUSE WE NEED THE HORSES!” For just a moment as Void Phoebe looked back, regular Phoebe would swear she saw the purple eyes of a viper and a snake tongue lashing within her heretical lips. She definitely broke character from her faux image of the real Phoebe’s personality. Something more carnal was obviously at play. “WE NEED TO FIND ALL OF THEM AND EAT!”
The sounds of horses dying in the background intensified as they walked through the forest.
"I'll shut that thing up, then ram that copycat blade up that monster's ass."
Cain didn’t stop Shikai from following his Void counterpart, except to say a meaningful “Be careful, we don’t know what’s ahead.” As Shikai ran ahead, he would notice that blood painted the trees the way Void Shikai went. Shikai broke out on a clearing after running for a few hundred yards where there are hundreds of horses. Void Shikai danced around the field of horses ripping them apart and showering in their blood.
The others were still far behind.
“Map?”
“Very good!” said Void Cain through the juices of the fruit he gobbled up, core and all. Now the sounds of horses dying was a screeching neigh in their ears, and it looked like music to Void Cain. He posed his next riddle just as they broke out on the scene of the two Shikais and the horses.
“Next. I am not only alien, and not only bee, but Taen is a home to me!”
To the North, it appeared that horses were fleeing from the Northern hills and gathering in this field.

“Why is he killing the horses? Seems more off than normal for Shikai.”
“BECAUSE WE NEED THE HORSES!” For just a moment as Void Phoebe looked back, regular Phoebe would swear she saw the purple eyes of a viper and a snake tongue lashing within her heretical lips. She definitely broke character from her faux image of the real Phoebe’s personality. Something more carnal was obviously at play. “WE NEED TO FIND ALL OF THEM AND EAT!”
The sounds of horses dying in the background intensified as they walked through the forest.
"I'll shut that thing up, then ram that copycat blade up that monster's ass."
Cain didn’t stop Shikai from following his Void counterpart, except to say a meaningful “Be careful, we don’t know what’s ahead.” As Shikai ran ahead, he would notice that blood painted the trees the way Void Shikai went. Shikai broke out on a clearing after running for a few hundred yards where there are hundreds of horses. Void Shikai danced around the field of horses ripping them apart and showering in their blood.
The others were still far behind.
“Map?”
“Very good!” said Void Cain through the juices of the fruit he gobbled up, core and all. Now the sounds of horses dying was a screeching neigh in their ears, and it looked like music to Void Cain. He posed his next riddle just as they broke out on the scene of the two Shikais and the horses.
“Next. I am not only alien, and not only bee, but Taen is a home to me!”
To the North, it appeared that horses were fleeing from the Northern hills and gathering in this field.

Stared at the white horses. Clearly, something is wrong with this development but the Dead Mistress could not figure it out. It seems that even her cognitive functions were being affected by the weirdness of this place Or she's prolly low on nicotine. Producing a stick of cigar from her coat's pocket, she place a lighted stick between her lips then inhaled deeply. Her eyes briefly closed as she relished the flavor, the smoke filling every fiber of her being. A moment later, her focus was back on track. Sort of.
"Queer place," she mumbled at the sight of the wildy varying colors of the flora before her. These trees did not seem possible or did she smoke way too much last night. Whatever it was, she mostly ignored it and trailed aftet the others hoping thing would get clearer the farther they were into the island.
“Next riddle.” said Void Cain, plucking a low hanging fruit and biting his sharp teeth into it. “I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. Water, but no fish. What am I?”
Her lips frowned at the riddle. A rather odd question but not impossible to answer. Her dainty fingers gripped on the hilt of the weapon kept inside her coat as she drew power from it. Her mind raced with all the possibilities, the calculation speed greatly amplified by the sealed artifact Baeoi. A few seconds later her eyes opened and she mouthed a single word.
"Map?"

"I'm not sure what that says about you,"
Phoebe always knew what buttons to push to make sure her verbal jabs hit home with the most impact possible. With a few carefully chosen words she could cause joy, pain, or anything in between. It was a skill that Shikai had seen her employ often during the missions they had done together. This was the first time that he had been on the receiving end though; and it hurt just as much as he always suspected it might. He glanced over at The First for just a moment; sadness tinging his expression before he cast his gaze to the ground. There was nothing he could say. Her scorn was deserved, and he knew it.
Between the emotional turmoil provoked by his ally, and the bestial screeching that seemed to somehow becoming from inside his own skull, he quickly grew irritated. Maybe Phoebe had a right to dress him down, but that fucking screaming was like fingernails on a chalkboard. His thoughts clouded by sadness and anger, he twirled Mykur around in his hand and moved to follow his doppelganger.
"I'll shut that thing up, then ram that copycat blade up that monsters ass."

Prose interjected on behalf of Brutus, as he turned his head in some display of submission. His heated expression shattered somewhat, once plastered across his face in the kiln of adversity he and the rest of the refugees faced on the surface. When Prose beckoned for him to follow, he spoke for himself before joining her.
"I apologize for the pointed tone, Captain Benny. Understand that I do not expect you to know everything, nor to expect a foolhardy group of adventurers to move through vaguely-mapped waters. You miraculously came at the right time, and we owe you our lives. The only negligence I know of, truly, comes from our own leadership. Good day." With that, he turned to leave for more private company.
The dankness of the submarine's hallway exacerbated the cold of the subsurface vessel. Brutus' lead-heeled boots clapped dully against the floor. As he and his apparent leader stood parallel in the darkened hallway, his chest swelled with an agitated swagger. Like a dragon spitting a breath of acid, his head reeled back and unwound to unload a brash, personal conversation that brewed in him since they were nearly lost.
"Madam, you call yourself captain, but seldom do they return from a voyage such as this with half the crew dead and the other treading dangerous waters-- with no delegation to rally them when they're naught but slaughtered on the decks. You call me a sailor, as if you forget I make do with your navigators entirely on good faith-- that which has been squandered. The scrawlings you call 'maps' are as esoteric as they are useless. You call this an expedition, when it's plainly seen to be a long-haul delivery of fish food. All this, while you've been so off-handed to abandon your crew alone in the same waters that saw their fellows killed. There must be some kind of record you've broken for the finest waste of life and time this side of the world." The tirade was rhythmic and low in tone, as if to protect it from alien ears in the neighboring deck. His arms swayed and gesticulated wildly, prying open some of the clotted bandages and flesh wounds upon them.
"I was never one to undermine authority, but when you keep the plans as secretly as you do, waiting as your loyal followers die by the dozens without direction, abandoning them on your own ship in a sea filled with sunken hulls, the problems are only going to grow-- And I don't simply mean more stern chastisements. The next thing you'd better do is get the rest of our merry men together and tell us everything you know. Your fantasy of treasure and glory had better be within reach, for the cost of it is starting to take on water. It'll be sunk before long."

"Why would you let anyone do that to you?"
Sierra withering away from her flesh like ashes in the wind, Phoebe made a good point to her silent doppelganger. Why had any of the aberrations let themselves become this? The only response they would receive from the trio, for now, were their sick visages grinning in twisted resemblance back at them. And still, the laugh trickling like a distant stream in the background.
"They're all monkeys, puppets maybe- even yours. There's something else here, something bigger, but I don't know what.  You said you were here before, did you run into anything?"
Void Cain looked adoringly on his counterpart, the original back on him with disgust. It was Phoebe’s touch that snapped him out of it.
“I didn’t run into anything, but I felt it. They’re all one thing. Some trickster demon,” he said, the grins on their Void clones souring just slightly. “It uses traces of our magic and what it can make of our appearance to generate copies. Not even good ones, either.”
“Oh come on, you don’t need to ruin the fun,” laughed Void Phoebe.
With Shikai and the Dead Mistress’s answers, Void Cain held a finger in the air.
“Correct!” He said, leading them up the pier toward the blackened island. Fleets of white horses ran along the beach, scared away from where they grazed on white petals by the strangers. From the end of the pier, Void Shikai crouched. His coiled obsidian legs suddenly sprung him from the boards in a launch that sent waves crashing from either side of the pier as he rocketed through the air toward the horses. With the same motion as his landing, he used the replica of Mykur to slice one of the horses in half. Grabbing one half of the twitching animal under each arm, Void Shikai sprinted into the forest ahead of them. 
Soon they walked through the trees. Everything felt and smelled the way a normal forest would, but the colors were all inverted. There seemed to be no animals besides the horses with which the island was inundated.
Among one another, the Void creatures and the Dead walked together.
“Next riddle.” said Void Cain, plucking a low hanging fruit and biting his sharp teeth into it. “I have cities, but no houses. I have mountains, but no trees. Water, but no fish. What am I?”
The quiet laughter in the background seemed to be replaced by the quiet sounds of distress. Whinnying and beastial screeching scraped at the backs of their brains.

Michael’s hand, Cain’s hand. God’s fist, the palm of the Devil. The Hamsa, the Evil Eye. Fuselage and Fuel, Forest and Fire, From Ash to Ash, From Dust to Dust. Night became Day. All around them, Life became Death. Symphonies of Orchestras of Bands of Blood marauded the sifting waves of raucous aura raging off of fist upon palm. Michael’s blow upon Cain wrought an entire four-hundred yards of forest into the wind like leaves, the closest buildings of Tia’s crumpled infrastructure shattering away like sugar glass in a bright white wind.
An entire species of rodent native to Tia was wiped out. The last water supply to a nearby village of Maleficence-infected humans was utterly evaporated. The entire fan of Tia’s western peripheral was laid to waste.
Dust and light blinded all. While the echoing of death and desolation harangued off of every dust particle dancing in the night-become-day of their nuclear collision, Michael’s fist burned with passion the likes of which he had scarcely felt before. His entire forearm numb with justice, his shoulder aching with exactness, he exhaled the last ounce of breath saved for his attack. For a moment of numbness, Michael felt as if he had utterly blown the demon away along with a mile of space before him. All smoldered in strange silence...
“Ha ha ha," came the dark, decadent cackle. "You fucking fool.”
Clouds of smoke and vaporized biomatter still shrouded all, but as the feeling danced back into Michael’s tingling knuckles, he felt the steel bands of a mechanical demon wrapped around them. As thin as stainless steel might seem, to punch it will still break bones before steel. Beneath blood and charred flesh which bubbled in the disgusting acceleration of Unnatural healing, Cain’s Shadow’s thin lips arched into the grin of utter Blacken. With the very power of the false god Alignak tightening fist around Michael’s, Cain crushed Michael’s dominant hand with his weak hand. 
Before the hero could respond, Cain threw the stunned Michael to his right like a ragdoll.

“Why, after all these years, have you come? And alone?”
Cain was visibly incensed by Michael having landed a blow on him. Punctuating the perpetrator’s every word, spikes of maroon Maleficence made a furrow forward from the dirt toward Michael even as he fell back and Cain spoke. For the first time in a long time during a one-on-one encounter, Michael found himself panicking. Cain seemed as capable of shifting the very components of reality around him as a temperamental loci. It seemed like the only thing Michael could grasp at was gasps of breath in between escaping Cain’s onslaught. He fell, he rolled, he tumbled, he stood and jumped for his very life. Cain’s eyes were a miasma of dark magic filling their claustrophobic colosseum with mortal threats to Michael’s life..
What could Michael even say to Cain? Had he not lived in Rose’s shadow since the day he found out Cain had stood beside Faustus and him beneath? Surpassing good and evil and his capacity for perspective— his very capacity for comprehending the truth of the matter— Michael was fated to hack away at Cain until he felt vindicated over his ultimate loss of Faustus Clemens. Only one thing was certain in this frenzy of motion and cathartic expression between arch foes: even in those gasping breaths, he would sever and sever forever until nothing was left of the great evil root known as Cain Rose. 
Imbued with this power, imbued with this impossible, delusory passion, Michael shed his cloak of fear, shed his sheep’s clothing, and became a Lion.
“It’s just,” he acrobatically vaulted a spike from the left.
“I’ve always wanted,” he ducked under a flailing limb from the net of gore and blew his knee explosively through a pyre of earth reaching in from the right. At this point, one singular iota of concern was visible in Cain's eye as the boy— he was only a mere boy, just like he had been years ago— neared.
He was still just a boy. Wasn't he?
“To do THIS—”

Michael Commager was upon Cain Rose. Under him, crouching, and suddenly screaming up like a rocket destined for the farthest reaches of the cosmos contained in Cain’s brainstem.