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[Chikara Nadir]

Fact: Chikara did not mind being pandered to, especially when it meant that they bowing down to her were also making life easier for her at the same time.

Fact: Chik had almost entirely forgotten that both Selena and Steel had just run from the room as soon as they were out of sight, instead pouting at the thick dust accumulating on her bloody form. The woman had just gone from crimson and formidable to...looking like she'd had a romp in a flour bag. Oh, that swordsman was screaming at her daughter somewhere, it might be a good idea to check on them.

She thought of stepping out of space and time for an instant to appear in the heat of their impending battle, but remembered that Shiima and at least one other presence would be left behind. Well, the more, the merrier in times of war. So a hand waved over the space of the nearest cracked wall, the draped emblem of the nation disappearing into an empty, dark space. The portal should be solid enough to hold up for another to travel through, should her new-found apprentice choose to. If any unassuming guards also happened to follow...well, that'd be much more exciting.

Satisfied, the filthy woman took a step through the doorway to nothing and walked out the other side shortly ahead of the escaping duo, armor shining with as much clarity as it had in the shop window, skin clean and ivory-white. If she could leave the room behind without actually traversing the hallway, so too could she leave behind all that muck that had accumulated on her throughout her recent battles. The masses who she would make bow down to her couldn't have a high queen and all-powerful goddess with blotchy skin.

And so Chikara cocked her head to the side, silently watching events unfold. Perhaps Selena would kill this loud man who had gotten in the way of her murdering Khuffie, or maybe he would get rid of her -- apparently for Chik's sake. Impatient as she was for grander events to take place (that was, she really wanted to blow something up), she could always lean back and enjoy the show. But where was that popcorn...

[Selena]

Selena immediately halted and darted back, narrowly avoiding Steel's blades. Dammit, dammit, dammit, why did this day suck?

"Why duel?" Selena asked with a sneer. "I might die from being exposed to lethal amounts of stupid."

This was trouble. His weapons were quick and could cut easily, perhaps even straight through her armor. Her spear, despite being lightweight for its design, was slower. Her only advantage was one of range. She couldn't afford to make any big, powerful swings. He'd close immediately and finish her. She was limited to quick stabbing attacks that would be keep him at bay and out of striking distance. Hitting him in the chest would be difficult, maybe. He could more easily defend it. But if she pierced his leg or knee, that could at least hinder his progress or even give her a chance to make a finishing strike in his moment of pain. He was a quicker, more professional fighter than most. He didn't play around. At least not if he was serious about matters. Which was up in the air. It was advantageous for him to be rid of her, just as she had thought the same of him earlier. Shame she didn't just crush Shiima's heart and get Chik to kill him. No more Ms. Nice War Queen.

She held out the tip of her spear as far as she reasonably could, darting it a few centimeters forward as an act of warning as she stared him down. Well. Did she let him make a move and expose himself to an immediate counter? Or the opposite? She moved her eyes in the direction of his knee, tightening the grip on her weapon. She gave him another warning move, thrusting the tip of her spear out again. There. She saw it. She moved to attack...

...letting one hand free of her spear, she instead threw a rather large collection of dark energy straight at his chest, intending to knock him over and get him out of the way. She did not have time for this bullshit, especially not after tiring herself out in earlier fights.

[Steel Samurai]

"Why duel?" Selena asked with a sneer. "I might die from being exposed to lethal amounts of stupid."

"Stupid? At least I wasn't the one who intentionally pissed off a frickin' goddess. The hell? You expected me to actually think you had my best interests at heart? Next time you decide to be nice, let someone know first. If there is a next time."

He stood steady, every ounce of his attention focused on her, watching her movements. She was tired. Far more tired than he. He had killed perhaps twenty soldiers today, almost nothing for someone in his supreme physical condition. But it seemed Selena had been through a lot more. Maybe he could do this. Maybe.

She feinted. Twice. He shifted slightly, and suddenly a dark ball of energy soared towards him. Steel tossed his Odachi aside and gripped the Dualist blade with two hands, tiny blue flecks of light streaming off the blade, now glowing blue, as he swung it down towards the ball of energy. The edge of the blade hit the top of the ball of energy, sending a shockwave down through the sword into Steel's body, but sliced cleanly through it, the flecks of light eating away at the dark energy. Steel grunted. This dark energy was on an entirely different level to that used by Shadow Link or Z. He stumbled, caught his footing, and released the mental limiter on the muscles of his legs for a microsecond. To a casual observer, it would have seemed as though he had disappeared and reappeared inside Selena's guard. In reality he had, using the intense speed of the technique, dashed forward, taking advantage of Selena's one handed grip on the spear to knock it aside and get inside her guard. He drove forward, his sword pointed towards the armor covering her heart.

[JRPomazon]

As Jordan ran through the hallways, he eventually remembered where he was going after following specific art pieces and blood spatter. He was almost to Khuffie's chambers when he stopped in his place. There were two people there, two he didn't recognize before. He walked over behind a very large bust of the former emperor, hiding as best as he could while he attempted to listen in to what they were saying.

They're words sounded muffled, like a condescending adult or parent to a child. Eventually, one of them said something interesting:

"--- out, ----, I would ---much --- of the power of Lazu..."

Jordan's eyes became wide, Tiresias' warning had come to past. A new priestess had descended, which explained the general feelings of fear and insanity that wrestled each other in Jordan's mind. Steel showed himself, only to run away into the dark with one of the strangers following after. So it was just him and the small woman. Should he approach her? No, Steel's choice to run away had to be for good reason. What could Jordan do here? His spear accidently nicked the floor below him, creating a rather large mark in the marble. He looked at closely, his weapon should not have done as much damage as it did. The stone looked nice, but was rather weak.

Then an idea came to Jordan. He grabbed his second spear from the sling on his back and walked out into the hallway. His footsteps were loud, he wanted the attention. There was no time to think about fear and madness now, in fact, there was no time to think. So that's exactly what Jordan did. He released his spears to his side and took hold of them with wind manipulation. The pole weapons began to revolve around him, slowly gaining speed as they span around him. The spinning increased dramatically, moving the wind to Jordan's will and creating a storm inside the palace walls. It was at this point where the wind obscured Jordan's figure within his personal tornado.

The walls of the palace began to slowly crumble away as windows shattered and the stone on the ground began to rise into the winds. He would destroy the palace to kill the person in league with Lazu and hopefully prevent another incident like the Eagle's Talons. It was all he could do.

Edited by JRPomazon, 01 May 2009 - 11:49 AM.

[Ransom]

Like a broken tap, the alliance forces continued to pour through the entry to the courtyard towards Perseus. He wasn’t exactly their main target, but he stood in their way, and that meant death.
Still, in his delusion he hobbled towards them, his bloodshot eyes, wide with his intent.
He was going to kill them. All of them.

Jordan jumped down beside him, landing in a cushion of wind. Perseus ignored him, and limped on.

It was madness that drove him forward to his doom, and madness that saved him.
For, just as the gap between Perseus and his opponents became lethally small, the wrath and madness of Lazu was made suddenly and most gloriously evident. As half the soldiers practically exploded, most of the other half were being killed by the localised earthquake, or suffocating in the monsoon of blood.
And explosion in the ground caught Jordan unawares sending him flying in another direction.
Now covered in not only his own blood, but the strange blood from the sky, Perseus continued to move forward, somehow ignoring the cataclysm around him.
The carnage finally seemed to settle, and the remaining alliance soldiers, (no more than 50) hesitantly began to band together again. Spotting Perseus from across the now mountainous courtyard, four of the band rushed toward him, the others continuing on into the palace.

Like a drunken boxer, Perseus dodged the first soldier’s initial attack by swaying to the left. He unpredictably sidestepped back in front of the first soldier, simultaneously dodging a second soldier’s charge.

“Don’t you fools realise he is here?”

He lazily ducked a swing from the man’s short sword and then leaped on him, tackling him to the ground.
The other soldiers surrounded him as he repeatedly stabbed his opponent in the face with his remaining knife. A smile of satisfaction crept up his jaw as he made mince of the man’s facial features.
He yelled into the bloodied mass.

“Can’t you feel it? Didn’t you see it?!”

Suddenly, horrendous pain racked his body as the three other soldiers thrust at him with their spears.
Naturally Perseus spread his wings (as much as possible) to vainly try and parry the stabs and protect his back.
He spun around angrily, disarming two of the soldiers whose spears were in his wings.
The crack of broken bones were once again heard as he rushed the two assailants, again taking one of them down. The soldier stared up at him with the white eyes of a dead man, and Perseus realised that the shard protruding from his chest had punctured the man’s neck on the way down, destroying his jugular.
The other soldier, attempting to disable his movement, thrust his spear into the ground through the base of Perseus’ left wing, skewering it there. Perseus was helpless.

Death was upon him as the last soldier raised his spear for a final downward stab into his back.

With all his strength Perseus leapt up.
CRUNCH.
A gut-wrenching crunch was heard as the root of Perseus’ left wing ripped off of his back in a spurt of black blood. Still pinned by the alliance spear, the bloodied mass thudded to the ground, resigning to the fact that it would never fly again.
Catching the soldiers arm in mid thrust, he cried out and stabbed at the man with his free hand, forgetting that he had dropped his knife.

The strength of madness driving it, his arm went straight through the man’s stomach, and Perseus gutted him with his bare hands. The soldier’s body twirled in a peculiar way as it fell backwards onto the hard stone surface, joining its brothers.

Perseus grasped the spear with his right hand and spun, plunging it into the air towards his last opponent.
The last living alliance soldier in the courtyard took the spear in the heart, and was thrown backwards, his body tumbling into a newly formed chasm.

With only one bloodied wing, and a shard of obsidian in his chest, Perseus shuddered horribly, and collapsed.

Two minutes later, he raised his bloodstained head, and slowly began to drag himself towards the palace.

Edited by Ransom, 01 May 2009 - 01:04 PM.

[Selena]

The Kanagida was famous for making its user more aggressive and less hesitant. It forced someone to fight off instinct rather than rely purely on the muscle memory that resulted from repetitive training. The spear was most effective, and subject to the most otherworldly enhancement, when the user went with the flow and lived only in the moment, reacting in whatever way seemed best. As it was now evident that the power in the staff stemmed from Lazu, Selena had been hesitant to use it in that fashion. She'd never been a slave to it before, but with Chik now in charge of all that power, things were far less certain. Unfortunately, given Steel's quickness, Selena had no choice but to tap into that source of energy if she wanted to get out alive in a timely fashion. Of course, with Chik now standing right there, her chances were not terribly good either way.

She was pleased to see him drop one of his blades in order to defend himself. It would be less complicated if he was limited to just... holy crap it was being thrust right at her chest. Somebody had gotten a lot faster in the last few years.

Going purely by gut instinct and giving in to the spear's whims, she pivoted and bent her body to avoid the rapid strike, the blade whistling by her vitals. In the same turn, she choked up on her spear by loosening her grip for a moment, her hand then far closer to the tip, and returned her second hand to a similar position in order to use it at a much closer range than intended. Finishing the move, she came to rest just behind him after his lunge, and she swung her weapon's blade down at the back of his knee, the roar of wind and the sound of shattering glass filling her ears.

[ninja kitten]

Shiima was pissed. Not your average i'm-gonna-teach-that-jerk-a-lesson pissed, but truly pissed. Who did he think she was? Here she had suddenly gone from saving Steel's life to being left in a corner with a puppy for a guard. Yeah, like this wolf is gonna really stop anything more evil than a sneeze she thought incredulously. She was seriously considering brushing her guard aside and giving Steel a piece of her mind when she suddenly heard her name. "SHIIIIMA..." then after a pause, "Come out, my pet, I would very much like you to help me dispose of these naysayers of the power of Lazu..." She was being summoned. The voice was that of Chikara, but also resonated with a different, much stronger power. It's Miatch! she thought excitedly. It had been ages since she had met him, but she had never forgotten the great power he held. In that instant she transformed, not physically, but in the way she held her body. She felt chaotic energy flow into her body and without a second thought walked calmly around Ken and headed toward the chamber she had left only minutes before. "You called?" she asked as she knelt behind Chikara, a dark, murderous look in her eye.

[JRPomazon]

Sornaiid
* * *
A young woman is washing dishes in her small home, resting between the foot of a great mountain range that circles around the North and East. Her simple attire of a plain blue dress and her golden brown hair free from bands or ribbons of any sort. It has been a normal day so far. She has only begun to tend to her home for the day. She looks outside to see a soft breeze blowing through the large green field that comes every so often. There is always a breeze here, sometimes gentle and other times harsh. She has grown accustomed to this, seeing as she was raised in this very house. The young woman looked out her window at looked into the sky, the soft breeze tossing her hair gently to the side. Her thoughts went somewhere, to a place far away from her small home. To a young man who favored green armor that she had grown fond of, who was fighting for his life.

Olimandias
* * *
The storm Jordan created had grown fierce, gathering pieces of even the floor below while it raged on. There was no sense keeping this storm going any longer, it was time to finish this up. And so, he recalled his spears and released the confined winds, sending the gale force gusts in every direction shattering everything in their way. The entire top floor of the palace was torn asunder and the fate of those who were there was yet to be determined.

(OoC: Yeah I know, kinda of God-Mode like but I assure you I'm done with the uber stuff.)

[Ken the Wandering Soul]

"SHIIIIMA..."

All it took was that. Ken shivered and became stiff as the might of that voice shook him to his core. He soon felt himself becoming limp and as Shiima walked about him, he lost all feeling and collapsed to the ground limp.

The feeling of terror felt so horrible. It was an incredably oppressive feeling, as though he were held in the jaws of some great predator that was barely aware of his presense, that would only require a simple closing off the jaws to end his pathetic little life.

The warrior had been reduced to pathetic, whining wolf, cowering in the chambers of a now dead tyrant.

Raiyu, please save me... Ken futily prayed, knowing that his guardian spirit had long since left him.

The floor rumbled, the tower's structure now being called into question.

Please someone... anyone...

Please... come help me...

Some one help me...

Please... don't let me die...

---

Veni, veni, venias,

Ne me mori facias

Edited by Ken the Wandering Soul, 01 May 2009 - 10:41 PM.

[DarkJuno]

With the echoes of his heavy footsteps reverberating around the dark, long tunnel, the Admiral does his best to ignore the incessent chatter in his ear. The darkness parted as he stepped forward, holding up an....odd, long cylinder that somehow radiated light, showing the way down the long passage. He had found what seemed to ahve been a tax collection building - hard tos ay since half of it had caved in with the rest of the city - but nonetheless his hunch had been correct. There was a hidden passage in the government building, leading to others in the city and also to the main palace. Presumbly this alrgeer tunnel that he had stepped into was the main thoroughfare for the udnerground, with its somewhat more lavish looking archways and carpeted floors. Still, one couldn't help but note that the oil lanterns that should have lit the way were down - perhaps no one had the time to light them with all the death and destruction around. Not that it really mattered.

So, you really are following the darkness that you manage to sense, are you not?

"Of course....there's something disturbingly....familiar about it, yet I cannot quite put my finger on it."

Just be sure to die horribly once or twice, all right? That was always my favorite part of the times when you actually stepped foot in battle rather then letting the pawns do all the sacrifice. Always so much fun...

"Whatever. The onyl small comfort I get in your enjoyment of my untimely demises is the fact that you are then forced to undo them. Surely that breaks your heart, if you even have one of those anymore."

You're one to talk about having hearts.....but true enough. I suppose I can look forward to the next time you die slowly and agonizingly when I ressurect you. It has been such a long time since that pack of wild bears attacked you back when you were doing that silly "Tribal Warlord" identity...

"Hush. I think we're almost there."

That's the second time you've said that now.

"Hm?"

You're saying "we" instead of merely "I." I'm touched.

"Shut your mouth, incessant harpy..." At that, the Admiral stops, ignoring the rest of the arrogant prattling from the being and noting the dead end to the passage, blocked not by a wall but by a door with the Alliance's symbol upon it. This was it, he thinks as he tosses his lightsource to the ground, the glow following the object and adjsuting the shadows cast from it to its new location. With a grunt, he places his armored hands upon the door and pushes, the heavy stone entrance budging as he cracks the entryway open.

Just enough for a large piece of shattered glass to stab him square in the throat as he steps into the room on the otherside. From as far as he could tell, it seemed like the royal chambers, confirming hsi theory that this had been Khuffie's personal passage through town to ignore any of those pesky citizens who didn't particularly agree with him, allowing quick passage about the city. It had also seen better days, as much of the regal splender had been torn asunder, as like the rest of the city it had been wrecked and torn to shreds, an entire wall seemingly missing and open to the madness outside. Still, that damn foot long piece of glass stuck in his throat, jutting out violently the opposite side and dripping blood down his armor onto the floor below made all of that a little tough to see. Hacking and gaggign with wide eyes, the Admiral seems to flail aboiut somewhat, as the being lazily floats - for lack of a better term - over and comments with what one might call a frown.

Pity. Not enough to kill you...

Shooting an angry glare to the side where she was, the Admiral nonetheless takes grasp of the glass shard with both of his hands, and with a rather sickening sound rips it out of his neck with a squelch and burst of blood from the jugular. Coughing and gagging, he stretches his neck somewhat as the blood pours from the large hole in his neck....at first. Rather unnoticeable due to the amount of the stuff caked around his upper torso now, the bleeding stops disturbingly quickly, as more sounds of flesh almost stretching and crawling eeks out quietly, finally culminating with the Admiral makign a cracking noise with hsi neck as he seems to casually cock his head from left to right, as if merely getting rid of an annoying crick in the neck. With a final cough, he growls, irritated and paying no heed to what had just occured. This palace was easily coming down, he could feel its foundation shake beaneath his armored boots on the bloodstained ground below, the waves in the pools of his own blood showing the proof. He supposes that he had better get out of here, yet ahead of him, he narrows his eyes and sees......a...tiny woman? What?

No, surely, this could not possibly be the source of the darkness and just out and out wrongness he had been feeling and sensing.....yet one glance at the being seemed to show it was true, as while she didn't seem particularly bothered, she still twitched at the sight of the tiny blood stained woman - perhaps an involuntary reaction left from her days before ascension. Snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of stone collapsing on stone, he turns slightly, noticing that the tunnel behind him had collapsed, an obvious forerunner of what was to occur to the rest of this palace. It seemed that the Alliance turly had well and fallen, though at this point, maybe it wasn't quite the way any of the dorms had expected. Resigned to his fate, the Admiral once again lands his eyes on the woman, and to be eprfectly frank, feels something he had long believed he would never feel again - uncertainty. Still, the arrogance and gall of the man rises above true to his nature, as he sneers - probably stupidly he admits to himself - at her in his icy, calculating voice.

"You....you're the one I sensed from out at sea this whole time?" Still, now he also understood what was so familiar about the sense, as he feels the annoying little urge to start attacking and ravaging people in the very back corner of his head. For all intents and purpsoies, that had always been there - the hatred, darkness and evil caked around his heart - as the being had alluded - was always an irritating little voice in his head, not in the literal sense as the being, but all the same similar. Now it felt as if there were two annoying little things uring him to kill and maim and destroy, and it did indeed seem to radiate from the....small woman.

"I suppose I expected someone......bigger."

[Steel Samurai]

Dammit. Her movements changed just like that, his sword whistling past her torso.

THIK. The Kanagida drove into the back of his right knee. Steel winced, but continued with his forward momentum. The head of the spear was ripped out of his leg by the motion. He pushed off with his good leg, rotating and flipping in mid-air, then instinctually landing on his right leg. It gave out, and he fell to his knees. Dammit. Dammitdammitdammitdammit. There was no way he could counter right now, he could barely move his legs.

Then the world collapsed. Well, not the world particularly, but the palace around him. He moved instinctually, narrowly dodging a falling pillar by rolling aside, using his left leg to do the work. A stroke of luck, giving him time to do something about that leg.

When the dust settled, Steel stood on one of the pillars that had fallen, several feet above Selena and about twelve feet away. He licked the last drop of a red fluid from a crystal vial and then threw it aside, the container shattering on a broken piece of marble. An observer behind him would have seen that his leg had been completely healed. That was the last of his elixirs. A pity he had had to use it early on, but then, what choice did he have? He would need to be careful from here on out. He hadn't expected her to be able to dodge that strike. She was moving differently. Perhaps it was the legendary power of the Kanagida. Perhaps it was something else. Whatever the case, he needed to defeat it.

Storm clouds gathered overhead, and raindrops, real raindrops began to fall from the sky. The last guttering flame of the sole lamp that still stood went out. It was dark. Steel was in his element now. He released his armor, which fell to the ground with a clatter. There. He could move easier now. As the clatter of the armor rang out, he melded into the shadows, reappearing behind Selena. He disliked giving up the higher ground, but this move required a bit of time to get ready. Damn. Only someone as powerful as her could have gotten him to use this so early in the fight. Lightning arced between the clouds above him. He focused, somehow controlling tiny changes within his biochemistry with his mind. A spark arced between his gauntletted thumb and forefinger, then another, then another. A steady electrical connection flew between them. He raised his blade.

"SELENA!"

Lightning arced down from the sky, striking his blade. He felt the electrical energy enter his body, and opened himself to it, guiding it to his left hand, controlling it with his own bioelectrical current. The two currents merged in his hand and shot out, instantaneously seeking the nearest metal object. Which, in this case, happened to be Selena.

Steel felt his strength leave him. Although the lightning had not affected him in the same way it would have one who had not trained to use the move, it still put immense stress on the body, which is why he used it so little. But he couldn't rest now, couldn't allow himself the luxury of feeling tired. He released the muscle limiters once again and flashed towards Selena, bringing his blade sweeping down in a diagonal cut across her off-shoulder and torso.

[JRPomazon]

Jordan collapsed on the broken ground, his body was far too strained. More cuts on his body now, he was reaching that all too dangerous limit he hated. If he were to use his wind manipulation now, he would most likely die. He was on his back looking at the cloudy sky, his eyes barely open. What in the world was going on now? Everything just didn't make sense anymore. He could feel the madness seeping into his mind, it was intoxicating. Was this how he was going to die? Death would be a welcome alternative to whatever Lazu's advocate had in mind. But he didn't want to die.

No, death was the last thing Jordan wanted. He was too afraid. Afraid of what he couldn't comprehend, control or even prevent. Did his attack serve any great purpose? Was the person under Lazu's influence still standing after all this? It didn't matter now, all he could feel was fear and madness.

Drop

A small sensation resonates on his face.

Drop

Again, on his hand this time. The trend continued, leaving a dampness on his body. It was rain. It began to come down now, the cool sensation provides Jordan with a small comfort. It felt nice. A face popped into his mind, someone familiar and . . . warm. A young woman with blue eyes and golden brown hair.

"Gwen." He mutters softly to himself, a lazy smile perking on his face.

She was the only thing that made sense right now. Jordan slowly got up, his own blood mixing with what had caked on to his body while the rain washed it all off. Nothing was settled here now, there were enemies to be defeated.

[Selena]

She grinned in satisfaction as her strike connected, though refrained from gloating. That was a wise decision, as the palace collapsing upon itself was something of a downer in the moments just after. The violent winds, or some unearthly power, had ripped the top half of the palace off entirely, exposing them to the sky above. Selena braced for another shower of blood-rain, but was relieved that it was normal this time. That damned hobbit. Selena assumed it was her doing, what with all the earlier destruction.

The fact that Steel was, moments later, back to near perfect condition and ready to strike again put a further damper upon her post-hit mental victory. Healing spell or some other method of recovery? How unsportsman like. Why, back in her day, no one used healing tricks. They fought like warriors - to the death and with no recovery for the winner until after the duel was finished! Kids these days. Much whinier and demanding. Reverting back to pure tribal warfare, without the Alliance involved, was sure to help people harden the fuck back up. All right. Steel still wanted to play. Fine. She readied her spear, not minding the newfound darkness. It was, after all, what she was used to thanks to years of living underground. She saw him easily enough without any lights.

Or, rather, she saw him easily enough until he legitimately vanished. She darted her eyes back and forth for a moment before deciding, of course, that like any foe attempting to be scary, he had probably gone behind her. She pivoted.

"SELENA!" Yup.

Hey, lightning. He was all current-y. That was actually kind of prett- oh, it was going to be shot at her. Nevermind. She gripped the Kanagida firmly, and, again going off pure instinct, she slammed the trip straight down to the floor, Lazu's energy releasing from both the weapon and Selena. A half-sphere shield of shifting black and gray, like a destructive maelstrom, formed around her body to shield her from the attack. She held it there as the lightning bolt was launched at her, the electricity crackling around her last minute defensive barrier. It nipped at her metal armor, causing the hairs to stand up on the back of her neck. Her skin felt uncomfortably warm and her spine tingled uncomfortably as a portion of the current passed through her. The barrier had done it's job, however, and the majority of the attack was misdirected by the her power and the Kanagida's.

But, naturally, Steel himself charged at her in that moment of partial weakness. The sword came down again, and, her hands feeling heavy after the current had passed through, she instead jumped back and to the side, dodging the attack. She summoned up additional strength and brought the spear back up in an instant, going back on guard and looking for a good opportunity to launch a quick strike of her own.

There was just the little matter of the half destroyed palace and the falling debris. A huge hunk of stone crashed on the floor not far from both Steel and Selena, which caused her to back up even further and dart her eyes up in worry. Oh. Oh, that was bad. That was very bad. Not only were chunks of stone and other heavy materials falling, there was an entire tower coming back down from just above, it's pointed tip face down and ready to crash uncomfortably close if her eyes did not deceive her. Okay. If Steel had any sense whatsoever, this was the end of the duel unless both wanted to die. Chik was certainly going to portal away. Selena turned on her heel and sprinted out an open doorway, not caring if Steel followed.

Then, seeing the roof of another palace structure not too far below, Selena jumped out of one of the blown out windows. Nonsensical, but again, that was likely the Kanagida at work. She winced just before impact, knowing that there would be pain despite her enhanced abilities. There was a massive sting in her knees and lower legs after hitting. She fell over onto her shoulder and then slid down the sloped roof, rain water and blood making it slick. She grabbed onto the side with one of her hands, preventing her from completely falling down to the surface.

Despite the ache in her legs, the massive crash that followed from the tower and all the other debris made her more than pleased with her choice. Finding a walkway below, she released her grip and dropped down, aggravating her limbs, but was still able to stand. That, at least, was the first bit of good news she'd gotten all day.

[Chikara Nadir]

Dark energy and lightning, light and dark, they melded and danced in the limited battlefield before Chikara as the loathing between Selena and Steel reached its peak, making the voices in her wild cheer wildly in excitement. From what she could tell, the bodiless entities that housed themselves behind her eyes were taking bets. Chik herself wasn't too far behind, somewhat eager to see whether she might lose an enemy and gain a...well, he had complimented her by proxy. It was a start. Yet as much excitement as there was to be found in sitting aside and letting the mortals wrest one another to the death, she couldn't help but notice that the entire world around her was quite literally crumbling to pieces. The castle walls had begun to shift, echoing the cracks of unevenly distributed weight. Had she done that much damage without realizing it? Chik couldn't even begin to approach how strange the concept of forgetting past violent acts sounded in her mind, so she decided that one of the stronger presences elsewhere, nearby, was trying to blow the whole establishment down- Big Bad Wolf style.

She pondered whether to find the wind-bringer and put him out of his misery before his acts resulted in the battle at hand ending prematurely. She did hate to miss out on watching a good match, especially when they might as well have been fighting over her in some form. But alas, she had more pressing matters.

"You called?" spoke a wry, female voice from behind, that girl that she could not bring herself to attack earlier. Shiima, a follower of Laz. She couldn't quite comprehend why she knew this, but Chik knew how to use her. A dark grin was plastered so far across her cheekbones that it looked almost surgically placed there. "You took a little while getting here," the newborn deity said almost jokingly, placing a hand on the kneeling girl's head. "Selena's been awfully naughty, pitting herself against us. Did you realize she went and got Miatch killed today? What traitorous nerve! And this lightning bearer she's fighting...he just tried to leave you behind in the company of a dead man, am I correct? I think we should help remind them of who they're messing with."

"And to make sure you're never tardy again..." Chikara lowered her form close to her chaotic follower, dark hair curtaining her pale face as she whispered, "May you have the right and the speed to kill any man before he's blinked an eye." She dropped the tips of her fingers to Shiima's toes, the twain met together by single shadow darker than the light should permit. She understood, and hoped that the girl would as well. Just as Selena had been gifted by Keel with the miracles of a powerful spear and the ability to bring back a mockery of life to her dead subjects, so too could Chikara create great works in her followers. Shiima, at least when running at a sprint, should have speed nearly rivaled to her own now.

Then, before she could give the faithful girl any further instructions, Chik found her attention wrenched away by the realization that two individuals had snuck up close behind, and then had even gone to such effort as to address her mighty presence, the great Chikara, incarnation of chaos and power in its' rawest form with...utter disbelief that she wasn't larger.

The woman craned her head to the side, glancing behind her to find only a single man standing there. His look was rougher than most soldiers, and his blood-splattered regalia was thick and woolen to withstand wind and storm. Even from a distance he smelled of salt. A seafarer, one of the city-raiding pirates. A high ranked one, from the look of it. Then why, when she looked at him only out of the corner of her eye rather than straight on, did he almost appear to have two shadows?

"If you're that desperate to face a taller foe, I could unburden you of your legs and see how the situation fares," the woman murmured quietly, discontent with this man. "Too bad you reek of misplaced self-riteousness, I might have liked to sit down and have a chat with you."

Crack.

There were the walls, groaning and shifting. Hmm, this might not be good.

Grrrreeee...

The realization that as she was not getting taller, the ceiling must in fact be getting closer to her, was not very satisfying. Nor the idea that she might find herself covered in thick, pore-clogging dust yet again. Somehow this seemed more disagreeable than the concept that she might be crushed.

"Oh dear," Chikara sighed, half surprised and otherwise a bit impatient. She stepped away from Shiima, trusting that the girl could hasten herself out of harm's way with little time or effort if she were able to realize her new powers. The two-shadowed seafarer, however...

Chik slipped forward, grabbing onto the man's forearm and pulling him back the way he'd come from, toward the collapsed nothingness from which he'd come. One step, and they were almost slammed into the dead-end hallway, all the howling of a miserably collapsing castle echoing around them, one more step, and...

...There she let go of him, taking a breath of fresh air from the surrounding, albeit decimated, gardens outside the castle. Her crimson eyes darted back to stare at the high towers above where they had stood not two seconds earlier, rumbling as they deflated from the grandeur of an emperor and spread out flat, level upon level of riches, relics, and sins collapsing into one another. A rather large stone, wider than a bed and heavier than a book of all the ridiculous laws Khuffie had passed in his time as supreme leader, jettisoned itself out and landed a yard away from her, but Chik didn't even blink. There were too many questions at hand for her to bother worrying about being hit by a pebble.

Who had been responsible for such destruction, if not her? Or rather, why? Was it someone hopeful that destroying the citadel meant potentially killing Khuffie? Clearly, many of the stronger soldiers (herself included) had wanted to see him dead for themselves. That was a blind attack, as though aimed at a dangerous enemy they did not want to closely face. Was she making enemies already..? A twitch in the corner of her brain hoped that Shiima had made it, and with her any other faithful followers. Chikara was used to feeling pride and even occasional concern for her best soldiers, but recognizing Keel's compatriots was a new sensation. She had to gather them soon, before they were put into danger by whoever might be targeting her.

Then there was the more immediate dilemma. She'd just saved the life of a man she did not know, did not care about, and certainly did not care for the company of. There was something about him that felt off, not quite in the same way that she was sure he had recognized her presence as atypical, but certainly worth noting. This was the only reason she could think of for why he was still next to her and not squashed and spread out under the still-falling debris. After all, she couldn't be going soft...especially now of all times. Chik would deal with this ridiculousness later.

"Pirate. I saved your life, you should consider yourself in my debt," she decided in a dry, matter-of-fact tone. "Of this I am sure-- today's events will decide the future of the world." Well, of course they would. Regardless of her gaining the power of a god, the empire had been torn asunder and the dictator dethroned. She might have helped move some things along, but the joint militaries of the dorms would have done the same, eventually. This much didn't change her opinion what she was responsible for this day would have the greatest effect on mankind and be most remembered for years to come. Chik could never be satisfied playing a role in the background. And the more she came to comprehend what she was capable of, the more she plotted. "Swear fealty and I may see you spared." With convincing logic like that, where could she go wrong?

[Goose]

A skeleton sits in a pile of rubble. Having completed its task, it sits, lifeless. An emporer who let his power consume him had been consumed by raw power itself. The skeleton has a smile on its face, its owner was in peace, by now in another place. Now reunited with his love, was a bard, a musician, a dancer, a singer, a joker a fighter, and most importantly, a lover. He sat with his love, in that other place, singing her a song about dances with wolves.

[DarkJuno]

Hearing the telltale sounds of stone crumbling upon itself, finally giving into the natural pull of gravity on what was now a fairly ramshackle, barely held together structure, the Admiral grimaces once more, accepting the fate that had befallen him....that is, until the tiny one had somehow sped forward towards him from across the once great throne room and grasped his arm in her own. Oddly but perhaps not unexpectedly due to the immense dark power he could sense radiating from the woman, she had a deceptively large amount of force, enough to push him abck into the tunnel in the semi-tackle and.....


...now found himself standing out upon the blood stained grass in the citadel's ruined, broken courtyard, the collapsing structure now in his sights rather then around him. Admitteldy somewhat surprised as the small shards of broken granite and marble flew through the air and smacked upon his exposed face and rattled on his armored wear, he dodges some of the larger pieces of debris, noting how unflinching the tiny one was at the whole ordeal. Clearly, perhaps going about his usual way of diplomacy was out of the question......that is, until he heard her rather condescending demand of him. Admittedly she was correct in her ob servation that the world on which he lived had, once again, changed politically (at the very least) and chaos would come before order, easily. Still, the Admiral was nothing if not arrogant, even though he knows that this was probably a.....bad idea. It was strange, while he presumably had no reason to fear death at this point from experience, there was almost part of him, somewhere deep wiuthin telling him that snarking back would be a poor choice. But once more, the man can't just help it.

"Bah. I did not ask nor did I need any saving." Glaring out of habit, the tactless pirate leader adds, ocne again in an admittedly bad move,

"And I bow to no one. I need no permission to live, even your choice not to spare me is meaningless by this point...."

[Chikara Nadir]

(ooc: Before anyone complains, the following was completely condoned and, I daresay, requested in its full.)

The stones of the palace still rumbled as each piece of the large and once mighty structure dominoed down, slowly. the greater precipices already were spread out on the ground around them, now only the aftershocks of small boulders remained. Chikara heard every tumbling pebble, like she heard every heartbeat left in the vicinity of the palace, whether strong like that of the pirate before her or weak and faltering unto death.

She turned her glance from looking upon the only living person within over a thousand yards -- for she hesitated at thinking of herself as truly alive at the moment -- and looked toward the sun, or what was left of it. As the orb retreated into the Western sky, ash and debris dimmed the empty blue into a still-darkening grey. She much preferred it this way. Still, heat permeated the very stones at their feet mercilessly, making the many bloody puddles stick like molasses as she turned to look about.

"Pity," Chik finally uttered, airy as a sigh under her breath. She touched her whip with one finger, rubbing its leather handle like one scratches a pet under the chin. "I had so hoped to have at least one honest chat with you. It's so hard to make good conversation with people nowadays without them attempting to behead you at every turn."

The breeze picked up, scattering soot and dried leaves into the air, and the woman took it as her cue to quickly face the Admiral again, whip loose and aimed to wrap itself around his neck. The man was prepared, his arm up to his face before her weapon could reach its goal. The thing instead wound itself loosely about the back of his neck and his wrist, easily thrown aside while the dark queen gnashed her teeth in disdain at his insolence. She could try again. She could rush him and engage the man in hand-to-hand combat. She could tear him asunder in an instant, granting him a quick death and giving herself a fresh new coat of paint. But no, he had personally insulted her. This called for more.

"Do you even realize who you're speaking down to?" the woman chided, choosing to wear a grin despite her mild frustration. She had never felt so emotional as she did on this day, her mind raw with power, anger, and the throbbing of containing so many quickly changing ideas-- many of which felt not to be her own. Still there was some light in the sky, but the sun didn't explain the width of the woman's shadow by any long shot. When she asked him who he believed he was speaking to, even she began to doubt knowing the answer for herself. "Whatever it is that's so remarkable about you, seafarer, it must have given you a death wish."

Chik began to step forward, ready to rush the man and see what fighting skills he had at his service, but stopped at the slow realization that the armor about her torso had been penetrated by a couple of sharp, well-aimed darts. Damn, this was the second time today her intestines had been shredded, and this time it was without her even having a say in the matter. She couldn't let her guard down like that. Oh dear, he was rushing her with the claws built into his gauntlets extended, and looking taller by the second. Wait, at what point had she fallen to her knees, and why was she beginning to feel so blasted dizzy?

Ditz is more like it. Stop making us look bad. Stop thinking like a human, while you're at it.

But...she wasn't! All this time she was trying to behave like an invincible being, bringer of chaos, evil, and death.

And therein lies the problem. Chaos is never inherently evil, you just want it to be. Lazu gave the Labyrinth its power, not the other way around.

Oh dear, was he trying to behead her? That might put a damper on her day.

We can't help you if you aren't willing to help yourself. Remember, 'Boredom shows unrest within your own capabilities,' Chapter 2, verse...

Alright, she couldn't just let herself die with that particular voice in her head. Stop thinking like she normally would in her human life -- what the hell was that supposed to mean? Stop being stabbed and bleeding onto the ground in an ever-weakening heap? Stop dying?

Of course. For once the woman felt her own voice in her head, pushing the others aside if only for a moment. She was only behaving like flesh and blood because she forced herself to, thinking of body like a human would. If you close a cat in a box and shoot that box, shouldn't you assume the cat's still alive until you see otherwise? In turn, if she stopped believing she could die by normal means, wouldn't her invincibility be nearly ensured?

She looked up at the face of her would-be murderer with a still-present smile, pleased at such a revelation. And then she blinked, willing herself to look at the situation from a distance behind him, staring at the puddle of blood where she had begun to follow mere seconds prior. She could control how she made enemies fall apart around her, unravelling limb by limb, so why not sew herself back together by demanding her own body disappear into the nothingness which Chaos called its foundation and reinvent it in whole somewhere else?

Just as when she'd first discovered herself reborn earlier in the day, the woman could only find one word to describe the sheer awesomeness of her discovery. "Wicked."

Off she went like a shot of lightning, the full force of her knee to the small of the man's back. And, unprepared to brace for such strength, the man was thrown head-long into the crumbling rubble across the courtyard. "Now where did that whip go..." the woman pondered for a moment, before deciding with a smirk that it was again in her hand. And so it was.

For a fleeting second the woman almost wished that she'd gone to the temple to listen to service once or twice, if only to hear what their religious leaders had to say about a god's abilities at creating and controlling the world around him. Maybe it could have helped her to comprehend what skills she could put into play. Today, destroy a city...tomorrow move a mountain? Create a species? End world war? No, that last one sounded a bit too unpredictable even for her newfound abilities at creating unexpected disarray.

The man had begun to rise, a fire in his eyes that she was quick to quench. Chik's grin had grown to Cheshire length as she thought of how to end this. As the music in her brain began to hum, the woman raised her arm to play grand conductor, swinging it lightly to release a ball of dark energy at the man, hitting square in the chest of his thick woolen jacket to pin him back against the wall as soon as he'd begun to lift himself off.

What wall? one of the voices asked, and she took inspiration from the words like a duck takes to water. Disappearing for only a moment, the fragile supports of the disheveled tower were removed from the ground in an instant, instead beginning to pelt the courtyard from high above. As for Chik, she appeared to have not moved an inch from her previous location, only raising her arm to wave a final farewell to the sea-scented man as a thousand tons of bricks descended upon his seemingly minuscule form, a tidal wave of stone to both steal his life through the most literal crushing defeat, and also to offer the gift of an undeniably large and memorable tomb.

[ninja kitten]

Even before Chikara had time to move toward the strange looking man, Shiima was off. Out the door, down the hall, flinging herself acrobatically out a window, all her movements were suddenly hightened. She sprinted with ease and dashed between the falling debris as if it were hardly moving at all. Outside the palace, Shiima stopped and watched as the building collapsed. Everything is so slow she thought. I need speed and excitement! My daggers call for blood. Setting off around the ruin, Shiima was determined to find the traitors and teach them a lesson as Chikara had commanded. Their deaths would certainly bring her to favor in her new master's eyes.

[Crimson Lego]

As the troops began to execute preliminary plans for digging in and setting up camp in the middle of nowhere, Leo thought he could feel and hear a slight rumble. Glancing at Olimandias, the dwarf was shocked to see the distant structure of Khuffie's palace, where Steel and other members of the dorms seemed to be, start to collapse. Soon, the part of the building that Leo could see was gone, and soon replaced by a large amount of dust in the air. Around, the dwarf heard various murmurs of concern and shock.

"The palace..how?"

"Steel...Jordan...the others..."

After a short amount of time, Leo found himself besieged by the officers from the Forsaken Fotress and Ikana. "What should we do?" they asked. "Do we go back to the palace and see if they survived?" "Do we risk getting massacred by the Alliance army?"

Holding up his hand, Leo put deep thought into the options now laid down before him. Weighing the consequences of each choice, the dwarf finally came up with an answer. "I think we should stay here. Steel ordered us to scatter. We've done that. If they perished in the palace, we would be committing suicide to walk into a city containing thousands of Alliance soldiers." Pausing for breath, the dwarf sat down on a mat, breathing deeply.

"If Steel and the others have survived, they'll clean up and meet us here. So return to your dorms, tell your men about this, and make sure nobody returns to the city," ordered Leo.

The officers nodded, saluted and returned to their respective groups. Turning, Leo entered the main tent, where some of his lieutenants were already asleep, exhausted from the recent activity. Flopping down in a chair, the dwarf fingered the blade of his axe, wondering indeed if Steel had survived, along with the others.

Edited by Leo Crimson, 04 May 2009 - 03:32 PM.

[DarkJuno]

OOC: Yes, that was completely condoned. Well executed as well.


******


Silence. Soon enough, the last remaining bits of the once grand tower had clattered onto the cracked cobblestones below, a far cry from the massive multi ton chunks that outright penetrated the grass and landscaping below violently. As the dust settles in the faint sunlight, the being sighs, a look of satisfaction of her face nontheless.

This will be fun...

At that, the enormous pile of rubble seems to vibrate somewhat, a low rumbling heard faintly beneath the pile of stone and twisted wreckage of what had been within the tower. A few minutes apss, the sound ever slowly amplifying in the eerie, still air, as sure enough, small piles of rock and rubble begin to roll off one side of the structure, still about 15 feet above the ground. Suddenly, with a bone cracking, ear splitting noise, the sun catches one of the Admiral clawed gauntlets burts forth back into the daylight, the glint catching the eye of anyone who might ahve been watching. Oddly enough, the hand is actually rather....limp and lifeless, almost like a ragdoll caught under a rock with a determined little girl attempting to pull her favorite toy out without calling for help, instead causing mroe damage to the item before helping it any

Which, admittedly, is fairly close to what's going on.

His other arm joins the first appendage, now both being jerked about in attempt to free the body from its enclosed, unnatural tomb. With one final seemingly frustrated tug, the Admiral fliesd out of the pile limply and rather disturbingly, and just as soon falls onto the side of the pile of debris, completing the rag doll analogy as he collapses onto the sharp mix of stone and steel bent in unnatural, disturbing ways. His outwear was essentially torn assunder, the heavy woolen cloak over his body torn to shreds and with only the small amount around his arms remaining, looking all int he world like the world's worst designed punk vest....not that this current civilization would know what that would particularly entail.The armor, interestingly enough was a different story - certainly it was fairly banged up with dings and scratches all over its once pristine and shiny surface, but considering what it and its wearer had just been through, it was in amazing shape, certainly beyond the armor that should by all rights exist at the time. For a few more minutes, that would be it, the body lying there unmoving - naturally - as if said little girl decided it was not so beloved after all and had run off to claim it lsot, in hopes of getting a fancy new one instead. However, the body suddenly seems to twitch - no, it definitely was! Anyone within earshot is then treated to a most....unnatural set of sounds, as the cracking and twisting of bones and muscle echo across the area, the makeshift canyons of rubble serving only to amplify what was about to occur. The random twitching begins to stabilize, as they become mroe focused, the accompanying sounds growing more disgusting and violent all the while.

First, the one arm that had originally punched its way to the surface, as it began to untwist itself back into its original natural form, the muscles slowly reattatching to the bones and the blood vessels grasping at each other, reconnecting and the other vital organs seemingly refitting themselves together. The fingers on thsi right hand, hidden beneath the metallic clawed gauntlets slowly extened or compress back to their normal orientations, the otherwise constricting metal surrounding it following suit though still appearing fairly twisted and ratty. Soon, the other arm begins to follow suit, and the legs, the shattered bones sticking through the skin in grotesque, bloody fashion being pulled back by this unnatural force, the legs straightening as the bone disappears back beneath the skin, which itself wraps back upon itself sealing the wound. That first arm shudders once more, as the hand clenches into a tight fist and lifts up, pounding the ground at the body's side, almost in a push up type position. The left arm soons follows suit, and unbelievably, the prone body, it's twitchign and convulsing now mroe vilent yet more controlled, and almost periodic, beings to slowly lift itself up by its arms, the legs working on their final retwisting of limbs and sinews. Rather horrifically, the Admiral's neck cracks back into place, as his body slowly lifts up on his knees, his torso convulsing and spasming as his ribs and muscles begin to replace themselves into their natural palce in this decidedly unnatural way. All the while, his face reforms, the shattered skull and chips of bone crawling beaneath hsi quickly tightening skin back to their respective places. Rather...grumpily, hsi eyes open, rather blank comapred to the norm but still as aggravated as usual, his facial features returning to normal along with the long crack on the top of his skull realigning, his now dirty, grungy hair placing itself back into a decent approximation of where it was before.

Soon enough, he brings hsi right legt forward, as weight shifts to it, balanced on the jagged rubble he stands on. Then, his right leg, as with the now dying twitches still circulating his body as he fully stands, the sounds of bone still snapping back into place. With a final, agonizing split, he loudly exhales in a half growl, his eyes glowing orange for an isntant as life returns to them, alogn with the seemingly perpetual look of annoyance and anger to his face. Other then the dirt and blood caked about his form, and the torn, wispy remains of the cloth outwerwear being removed from his now exposed inner and rather ornate armor glistening in the fading light, the Admiral was oddly no worse for wear. With another exasperated sigh, he shakes his head, recompossing himself and re-establishing where he was.

Well.....that ended rather badly.

CRACK!

The Admiral bellows in a thunderous, gutteral animalistic roar as the one final vertebrae in his spinal column shoves itself back into place, having purposely been left out of order for this sole reason. With a glare he snarls to his side,

"YOU...did that on PURPOSE!!! The being, however, feigns ignorance as she sits perched on a nearby smaller patch of rubble, legs crossed, whistling and smiling sweetly as she looks down upon her nails with far too much interest.

Well, not really, but that's what she was making it look like. Turning his attention back to the now clearly powerful - though still tiny - woman across the wreckage of the garden, the Admiral admits that perhaps his usual method was just....not going to work. Certainly, he thinks that a being with this much power and darkness would sooner kill him again just to see if she could, and the man has no reason to believe she could - though it would still hurt each time. Rather desperately, he thinks, sliding down the rubble back to the ground and announcing, still as smug and arrogant as ever since that was just his nature.

".......despite my now accepting that what I did earlier was....not in my best interest, I have to say, my first impulse is to curse at you and exclaim "Is that all you've got, wench!?" but frankly, that will get neither of us anywhere." The gears in his mind turning, he ponders one last ditch effort to at least distract the small woman so he may, unashamedly, retreat. Walking confidentlly all the while, the Admiral in his ancient armor he has decided that at the very least, he can get some sort of information before setting his plan into motion.

"Mind every bit of my insolence all you want - who the hell are you?"

Edited by DarkJuno, 04 May 2009 - 04:09 PM.

[JRPomazon]

The word "incredible" came to mind as Jordan watched the fight from above. Although the warriors below appeared small from the distance, it didn't take away from the awe he experienced. His entire body trembled. Was it the blood loss from all his cuts or just fear? To imagine that there were people this powerful was . . . a shock. Especially the Admiral of the Fortress, it was no wonder why Steel served under him.

"Why?" He asked himself.

"Why did it have to take the end of the world to see just how powerless I am?"

He clenched his spear, infuriated by his own weakness. It was far more than he could stand. He reached into his small pouch and pulled out some bandages for himself, patching up all the wounds he humanly could.

Goose got his revenge
Perseus was probably dead
Ken was nowhere to be seen, possibly incapacitated
Shadow had vanished like a fart in the wind
Leo was off fending off the remnants of the Alliance forces
Steel was fighting with the priestess' partner.
and there stood Jordan on the ruined palace, watching the world come to an end before his very eyes. He heard footsteps coming from behind him. He slowly turned his head to see how he'd find.

Edited by JRPomazon, 04 May 2009 - 06:32 PM.

[Selena]

With aching legs, Selena quickly descended a flight of stone stairs that led down from where she had come to rest after her fall. It was the guard's walk - a place for Khuffie's men to keep an eye on things just beyond the citadel's perimeter. It wasn't too much further to ground level. Most of the would-be guards were no longer at their posts. Some were in pieces along the walk, all thanks to Chik's handiwork, and Selena passed over them and continued on without a second thought. Steel could have been right behind her, though she hoped he had the sense, or at least the honor, to leave her be after their mutually supportive alliance over the last year or so. But who was she to consider honor a part of life? Much less a part of life when a raging goddess was threatening to rip civilization in two. All her damn plans gone to waste because of a freakish incident. Had Chikara planned it from the beginning?

Three more flights of stairs and she reached the bloodied ground beyond the palace, where countless bodies laid motionless. Most were Alliance. A few were dorm affiliated. It was a slippery mess to walk through. No wonder portals were so convenient. Selena came upon a fleeing Alliance infantryman and rammed her spear through his gut before he could move to attack, then pushed on ahead toward one of the many town squares beyond the crumpled palace walls. She'd left her executive officer in charge and had ordered her Labyrinth troops to hold a defensive line in order to allow the other dorms to push into Khuffie's palace. She trusted that they were doing their duty, despite the chaos and the foul odds.

She reached the square. The Labyrinth elite were right where she left them, and most were still alive and even uninjured. Good ol' Loddies. Even in an apocalypse, they held their own. Of course, Selena figured, Chik would have never hurt them. They were her people too, at least as far as history was concerned. That just wasn't going to be the case anymore. Selena walked up the defensive line and found her XO, sporting a few wounds but otherwise all right. "Zero! Order a full retreat to the south. We're leaving immediately."

"Is Khuffie dead? Did we win?"

"Khuffie's dead and the Alliance is done for. But we've got bigger problems. Sound the retreat. I'll explain on the way," Selena replied.

There was a moment of hesitation, but it was done. Her XO removed a horn from her belt and blew it three times in quick succession, the signal for a retreat to the south. The tone was loud and clear enough to be heard for some distance, hopefully getting the attention of all her forces. There was a chain reaction as other Labyrinth officers in the distance repeated the signal, spreading on the message. The troops in the square fell back and began to run toward the decimated southern gate, not keeping a strict formation as per Selena's usual wishes. She felt they mostly got in the way, and they certainly hindered the somewhat... 'chaotic' nature of the Labyrinth's aggressive fighting. It was quicker, really. The soldiers cut their way through any remaining enemies, and, at Selena's suggestion, a few pirates.

As her legs were not improving, and not wanting to slow anyone down, Selena procured a rider-less horse that was left wandering on the bloodstained streets. It looked to have been Alliance. She ripped off any of Khuffie's emblems from the saddle and, with some degree of awkwardness due to her many years without relying on a horse for travel, she rode back to the front and resumed leading the retreat atop her noble steed. After some time, they came across a part of the Ikana military. Selena held her spear toward the southern gate, and, hoping that she still had some influence as the former consul of Ikana, she ordered them to make equal haste. She should have still had many loyalists amongst their population.

"Ikana! Retreat to the south! The Emperor is dead!" Then she stopped her horse and turned it around a bit, noticing other watching dorm members from various backgrounds. "Anyone who wants to stand up against the... the thing that brought all this unholy devastation upon us, follow me! This is no longer about the dorms! This is about survival! The thing is worse than Khuffie!"

She turned her horse back toward the gate and gave it a gentle kick, urging it to continue on. She repeated the message several times along the way, trying to recruit as many as she could for her migration south. Other dorms or not, she still needed extensive manpower. To hell with the dorms.


---
ooc: Quick word of warning - if you head south, try to go alone and not with other people. Where you end up going exactly, and who you're with, will largely depend on which new dorm you get into. The Chronicles will likely go on a brief hiatus after the chaos here is finished. Things will restart with a 'new season' after the new dorms are opened.

[ninja kitten]

Shiima heard the call for retreat from the Labyrinth horns. Having trained with many of Selena's warriors and then during her stay at Ikana she had learned all the different signals. This call must have originated from one source: Selena. As the blasts ended, Shiima knew what she had to do. She let out a viscious snarl venting her displeasure at the change in events and slowed from a sprint to a calm walk. Now was no longer the time for seeking out enjoyment in the destruction of a certain individual, which disappointed her greatly, but to do what she was sworn to do. With a big sigh and a kick at a rock she obeyed the call to retreat and jogged toward the south hoping she could catch up to Selena and inquire after the other members of her group.

[Steel Samurai]

Something twinged in Steel's left calf as Selena quickly dodged his strike. He fell to the ground and braced himself for his imminent death. He had misjudged his timing on the release of the muscle limiters on his leg. The technique required extreme concentration; allow the muscle to work at full capacity for too long and it would tear, not long enough and it would not provide the blinding speed necessary to defeat ones opponent. A double edged sword. He waited for the strike, intending to roll over and get out of the way at the last second, if possible, but it never came. Instead, a low rumble sounded, and stony debris began falling. The palace was collapsing. The gust of wind that had taken the roof off before, allowing him to use the lightning, now seemed to be about to kill him. Wait. His armor was right behind him. If he could just get to it . . . Steel put his palms flat on a relatively clear piece of the floor. A large chunk of stone fell not three inches from his left hand. He had to hurry. Using his uninjured leg, he kicked off the ground and held his body vertically. Careful, careful . . . his gauntlets protected him from the sharp rocks below him but the ones above required constant attention. Something caught the corner of his eye, and he quickly shifted the position of his hands, a marble cornice smashing into the rubble right where his hand had been. Slowly (by Steel standards anyway) but surely, he made his way to where he had dropped his armor earlier in the fight. There. He had reached it. A shadow overhead caused him to look up. A massive piece of stone, half of the wall was descending towards him.

"Armor of mine, protect me now."


* * *


When Steel opened his eyes, all was black. Really, truly black. Steel's eyes, thanks to the blood of the Shadow which coursed through his veins, could see in anywhere there was even the smallest amount of light. A candle in a bedroom in a castle, as long as there was nothing completely blocking a path for the light to follow, was sufficient for him to see clearly anywhere in the structure. But there was no light here, which meant it likely that the air would run out soon. Steel felt around. His legs were trapped, but didn't appear to be injured. The armor, made out of the hardest material known to the Pirates and infused with magical energy, had done its job, springing onto his body at his command. He was covered by stone rubble. Damn Khuffie and his opulent tastes. Steel smirked when he realized that, if there was an afterlife, Khuffie would be in the section reserved for the worst offenders and would, quite literally, be damned. But, no time to be thinking about that now. Steel closed his eyes, feeling the auras around him. Shiima was leaving, heading towards Lena and what must be the few Labyrinth soldiers remaining. Ken and Jordan were around. Ransom's life signs were present, but quickly failing. But the one he was interested in was still relatively near, along with . . . Lord Juno? Steel was confused. What did this mean? Had Juno known about this the entire time? Suddenly, the positions of the two changed, auras fluctuating rapidly. Juno's sunk so low it almost seemed as if he were dead, and then . . . rose again? He had to know what was going on. He placed his hands on the stone covering him, fortunately mostly in big chunks, and pushed. Nothing. He pushed harder, straining his muscles against the unyielding stone. Khuffie's damn rock was not going to keep him here. He pushed again, releasing the muscle limiters in his biceps just as his muscles reached their peak. The stone flew away, almost as if he had blasted it away. He got to his feet, using the sheathed dualist blade as a crutch. He hobbled towards the two. Something caught his eye. His Odachi, somehow standing point down in the rubble. He pulled it out and sheathed it. He was good as new . . . *twinge* . . . almost.

Steel reached the edge of the gardens just in time to see Juno's bone slip back into place. His eyes widened. During all the time he had spent as Juno's bodyguard, not once had he let a potential threat come within a hundred meters of the Pirate Lord. He had heard only rumors of the pirate's undying nature, rumors which he was not sure whether to believe. Obviously they were true. Yet the goddess had tossed him around as if he were a ragdoll. There was no way Steel could escape in his current condition. And, no matter how often he might try and fail, it was unlikely Juno would ever be able to defeat a being of that much power. So. It was down to this then. Steel made his decision.

He hobbled towards the two, all fear, all hatred, all passion draining from him. He was empty. Step. Step. Step. He reached them, and drew his swords. He pointed them first at Chikara, then to Juno.

"Six years. Six years I've spent loyally serving you. In that time I have done nothing but what is good for the Fortress. Not once have I allowed any to come near you, nor failed any mission you sent me on of my own fault. Do you know why that is, Dark Juno? Because you had strength, and a will to use it to accomplish something. That day when you offered me the chance to become your bodyguard, I accepted not because you'd have killed me otherwise, but because I saw an opportunity to become part of something bigger than myself, to serve a cause under a leader I could respect. Khuffie had never offered me that chance, he never had any respect for me. The society of Laz, as I knew it, gave neither rhyme nor reason for its objectives. So I accepted, and have served you faithfully till now." He paused, and looked, searchingly into his leader's eyes. "But no more. Your strength was greater than any I had yet seen, but now . . . now the ability to alter the world as you see fit has left you, and so shall I."

He turned, slowly, pointing his swords to Chikara once more, looking down at her, nearly a foot taller than she. Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee, and tilted his head downward. It was not the bow of a slave to his master, nor even that of a lord paying homage to a king. It was the bow of a warrior giving respect to one stronger than him. He crossed his blades on his palms and lifted them to her.

"This humble warrior doth offer you his swords, my lady . . . my Queen."

Edited by Steel Samurai, 05 May 2009 - 10:19 PM.

[Chikara Nadir]

OOC: Sorry this took so long and has so little to it-- been busy busy and worn out.

The second time that the pirate lord had the opportunity to scream with equal parts fear and tact (that is to say, none of either) at the Labyrinth queen, she found herself lacking any of her previous infuriation or need for battle that existed before she'd thrown the man into a wall then sent a tower cascading over his body, crushing him a million times over. This time there was no fury, no vengeance at his treatment of her as a god incarnate. Chikara was too blasted amused to be anything else.

She had watched with twinkling eyes and childish glee as his body re-hinged itself, climbing begrudgedly out of the rubble beneath which he was supposed to sleep. His attire was thrashed, his hair disheveled, but his body and armor looked surprisingly none the worse from when she'd first met him. Her curiosity had gotten the better of her.

Thus the woman slipped her whip back into its looped binding at her waist, stepping lithely forward on the tips of her heeled boots past cracked boulders and ruined statues, even hopping over the top of what had once been a rather large chunk of an oak ceiling beam rather than try to maneuver around it. When finally his pace and hers had met halfway, his uttered question of who the hell she was hanging in the air, she raised her arm swiftly toward him...and grabbed his hand, shaking it with wild excitement until both their armors rattled. "That was brilliant, just amazing. You could make a fortune off it, if you did shows for the right audiences." It was not lost to her that he seemed neither to have enjoyed the experience nor to have been in complete control of it. He'd been talking to himself a bit, or at least talking to...something. It made him all the more fascinating as a research subject set inside the petri dish that was the world, as far as Chik seemed to be concerned.

Her petite figure was shadowed by his more now than ever, but her confidence was not shaken by the realization that the sailor was easily a head taller and could probably bench-press her weight without breaking a sweat. "You'll have to forgive my excitement; virtually gaining control of the world and all its life is still new to me." She had only now released her grip on his hand, partly because he'd been trying to pull it away for quite some time. "As for my name? Those who fear can call me Lazu, those who I befriend call me Chikara, and those who inhabit my Labyrinth can certainly never call me boring!"

She inhaled, ready to release a short chortle at her own terrible pun, when a sharp, metallic cry swept through the air in a sequence of three, echoed through the heart of the battlegrounds by fellow horns. It sounded familiar, somehow, though only in the recesses of her mind, and this fact alone silenced her in a heartbeat.

Three blows. Chikara couldn't be sure what they meant off the top of her head, but she recognized the horns themselves as part of an overhaul of the Labyrinth military that Selena had tried to implement in their later days ruling side by side. The younger had insisted on organization to create a more efficient and effective body of warmongers, whereas the elder had believed it stifled creativity on the battle field, could give the impression that a military who needs to change their tactics and potentially run at the last second was a weak one that could easily be beaten, and might generally lead to rogue members who lacked her brand of discipline wandering off and away from their military to be stand-alone villains. She had never thought the day might come where as a whole she could feel Selena's military force running away, moving as a single wave across the battlefield and out of the ruined sandcastle-like city.

The last thing she wanted right now was to lose her potential army; abstaining from her battle with Selena could easily be perceived as being too frightened or tired to continue it. Shiima was among them. Damn, there went yet another follower, and a strong one at that after the power boost her new master had offered. No worries, she could be used as an insider in whatever camps Selena might set up, or in any cities the Loddies may raid. She could have eyes and ears when not there herself...and with her godlike skills, Chikara doubted there was a place on this planet she could not travel to in a heartbeat.

Right now, though...reconsolidating her forces, whether Labyrinthine or Laz, had to be the main priority. Sadly, spending what was left of the waning day with this pirate would only be a waste of time in the long run.

"You'll have to forgive my rudeness," the woman stated with sudden and suspiciously insincere politeness, her dust-filled hair flipping from side to side as the queen's attention twitched all around them, head bobbing like a rodent on the lookout for threats. "Busy day, so much to do with so little time."

And if only to suggest the lengths of her statement, there at last was Steel again, that pirate soldier who had pitted himself against Selena in an attempt to win her favor. He seemed at it again, fearlessly speaking of his intentions to both she and the other man. Weary though he looked from having his energy drained throughout numerous battles and the effort of escaping death with the fall of the castle, he could at least make a good meat shield. Chik was yet to see his fighting abilities, but they couldn't be half-bad either if he'd not been slaughtered by Selena at her most fear-driven. His words were intriguing, though, above all else.

"You can get up now," the queen said quietly to Steel's bowed figure, touching a dirt-stained hand to one of his swords as he offered it and himself up at her service. Her words were not that of a woman bored and ignorant of his honest submission. Instead, she explained, "I accept your proposal, but honoring me should come second to your original loyalties."

Her eyes flicked back to the elder pirate, now needing no introduction from him. The skill, the weather and war-wearied features on both his face and his attire, they all suddenly made sense. The fellow immortal who had pulled his beaten, ragdoll body from the rubble was none other than the pirate lord himself, DarkJuno. She'd heard of him, though only as an enemy who she should be wary of without outwardly offering any sign of fear. How strange it was that so many of the most powerful beings in the realm should meet on this day, and how fortuitous. "You two have both fought well. You need not die today."

The woman jumped forward, a leap that seemed meant to strike Juno-- but instead she slipped past both men, striking the disintegrating wall with the flat of her palm. It began to hum with the vibrations of energy, yet seemed not to be crumbling at her touch so much as simply disappearing into a shadow large enough for a man to climb through. It led to nothing visible, only a dark void of her own creation. "Take this doorway, it will bring you outside of the city's perimeter by a few miles." She huffed once, though it could have been out of impending weariness as easily as a sound meant for dramatic effect. "You may take your ships if you choose and run away like cowards, or take the southern route like so many other souls. Find your fallen soldiers and prepare them to be moved quickly, if you so choose, but don't dare stay here long. There's still so much to do, so much to do."

She seemed nervous, wracked with anticipation that quivered in the muscles of her neck and the wild gazes she gave every which-way. "Fate decides who we are so fortunate to meet and what we may do with these opportunities. I should like to meet you both again, soon. We may be able to use one another in rebuilding after this nation has fallen." One might easily mistake her for meaning the falling of the political nation by means of Khuffie's death and the descent of his army. But her brain still looked to be ticking with an immediate desire to fulfill even more massively crazed plans. There was still daylight to burn, and into the fire it would indeed go.

"I need to find my own people, I should like them to see this this through rather than perish in the flames..." Now she was muttering, sticking out fingers one at a time as though counting invisible numbers again and again. "Neither of you two die until I see you next, alright?" Lifting her hand, the woman gave a sweeping wave goodbye, then took one delicate step back and...

...disappeared.

[DarkJuno]

As such, the Admiral stood there, by the glow of the, frankly, portal before him, the experience fresh in his mind. Well, that was certainly not what he ahd expected, the man thinks, as he shrugs and comments to what is presumably now his ex bodyguard,

"Tch. Pathetic. They're all the same....." That said, she was right though. This world had most assuredly come to an end, and staying here would almost certainly be folly. Still, his mind was now teeming, crafting and planning what his next few steps would be. Clearly, his original intent would ahve to be altered, changed again. Surely, whatever course of action he chose would eventually lead him down the road to meet this so-called Chikara again, like it or not. It was merely the matter of how he would that he had to figure out. But that could be figured out some other time - for now, there was definitely one thing that had to be done. This world was not safe, not anymore, and soon enough even he may ahve to flee. In that case....

"Steel." he thunders and with full command.

"Whatever you choose to do, do so. Just know this much." Turning to his ex follower, he glares icily, his unwavering voice not having skipped a beat or changed despite the recent meeting of a physical god brought down to the mortal existance.

"If you do this, do so for yourself. I've seen enough gods and dieties come down from the heavens or rise from the pit and declare their power, holding sway over followers who like sheep run and bow to those who seem to promise a better life. Oh sure, they gain ground over us mere mortals, as their flocks of mindless believers raze villages and burn beings who do not share their views, but all the same, eventually, people start to ignore them. They lose faith, gain a sense of self worth, or even just get bored, but by the end of the day, those gods for all their power and all their fury have nothing, as humanity for all its insanities and imperfections move on, outlasting the supposedly omnipresent beings who rule over us through kindness or wrath." Stepping forward over the debris on the ground, the Admiral looks out at the landscape before him, wrecked and ruined by war, and continues,

"Tell me Steel, have you ever heard of Le'yld? Or of H'pmasques? How about Chymire? Of course not. For all of their talk of being the ones to herald in a new age under their individual guidances, their followers raged from billions...to thousands....to hundreds....and continued to whittle down to a fleeting, near silent whimper, until now, the one one who knwos their names is I, as I say them aloud and curse their names to their faces. Oh, they're still around, and anyone of them could strike me down in an instant if they so chose to. Yet as you can see, nothing. Admittedly, as you have witnessed death means nothing to me, no one can bring that untimely end of life to me until a specific bargain has been fulfilled, but the reason is because these so called gods and goddesses have been broken, they know they are nothing to us measly mortals. The fact that we can bring an end to our race so many times over and still persist makes this truth sting ever so more." In a frightening moment of emotion, the Admiral chuckles to himself, continuing,

"I am not delusional. Perhaps this Chik-whatever can change this eternal cycle of pathetic dieties whow aver into near non-existance. But I have no reason to believe she will be any different as the millenia drag by, and as such, I refuse to bow my head to any of these so called gods. They can punish me all they want, the one thing I have over any being is that I can and will outlast everyone and everything that has or ever will exist on this planet." With a grunt, he stops thoughtfully, as if beleiving that is enough. Reaching up and adjusting his still glistening gauntlets in the fading light, he rattles his armor, finishing,

"That said, I do believe it is time for the priates of the Lalvician to leave. Not because of this holy wench's forewarning, but because in due time we all realize that an age, an era has ended. I've seen it in the winds many times - before that, in the sands, and even further beyond that in the stars above. This is no different. Go, Steel, do what you beleive is right. I have one final set of buisness to attend to in the Fortress." Now was hardly the time to hide anything, the Admiral muses to himself as he finds the slight panel on his right wrist. With a smirk, he nods and walks towards the portal, eyeing the Darksyde as one of the many pirate ships sitting in the bay.

"If we ever meet in the future, you will die if you continue on thsi foolish, blind loyalty to a magic wench who appears from nowhere. If not...the same may well occur. Whatever the case, save your troops Steel, and bring them out of harm's way." At that, the Admiral steps forth into the glowing field of energy, and...finds himself back at the seashore, back in the gore of the naval battle that now felt like it had been years earlier. Looking behind him, the Admiral sees nothing but the gently rolling landscape littered with the corpses and scorchmarks of war, the ruins of the great city in the distance burning with the fires of hatred and destruction. With nary a grunt, the Admiral continues to walk towards the seashore, eyeing his perosnal ship all the while. At this point, both the Crimson and Cerulean corps should be with the other normal Fortress troops, presumably to be found by Steel. Ah well, what a waste all the same. Still, now was not the time to podner such things, as he had one final act to complete at the Fortress, the place he had called his base of operations for well over a century now. If evil was to rule this land, then one thing was certain.

The fortress had to simply.....go away.

[JRPomazon]

The world had ended. Yeah, that sounded about right. After witnessing everything for himself, Jordan had finally had his fill of . . . just about everything. There were no such things as allies now, only ravenous wolves. By the time "Chikara" had left, Jordan had made his way to the ground. He slowly walked over to Steel, who had just received a verbal lashing by Admiral Juno. He tapped him on his shoulder, causing him to turn around and delivered the strongest punch he could muster.

"Steel, you son of a bitch!" Jordan cried, furious as anything.

"Is that the kind of person you are!? A leech that sucks on the teet of whoever has the greater power? I thought you were strong but now I see you for the bastard you really are! You betrayed us! You betrayed all the men who died here today!"

Jordan was mad, but not furious enough to forget his condition. He couldn't strain himself too much. He passed Steel and made his way towards the exit.

"You can live forever in the care of that monster, but you can go ahead and spend eternity as a worm for all I care."

Jordan had respected Steel more than any other man he had met in the fortress. If he hadn't met him, he never would have joined the Fortress. From the day he helped him defeat Crowe in Sornaiid to the time they spent attacking the Sultan, he had always known him to be a "dark" individual but never one to sacrifice his integrity for anything. But that was an article of the past now.

[Ransom]

The portal was opened, and Chikara disappeared.

Ransom had finally gotten a glimpse of her. The one that had been drawing him. A full half-hour of dragging his broken body through the carnage had paid off. There he was. Or... she?

In a brief moment of clarity, he was surprised to find a woman. The chaos and the dissarray... it had all felt so... masculine. What was this thing? What was that whip for?
Irrelevant.
She was here, and he could see her: Chaos embodied.
(a rather sexy embodiment at that.)
He smiled.

Just when he could feel himself slipping away into the dark, she left. Her mighty presence was suddenly gone, and his mind awoke, his head again a raging torrent of nothing.

From his vantage point atop a pile of rubble he screamed into the dark sky, his voice drowned out by the horrific sounds still going on around him.
Then he saw the portal.
It was his only way out of this hell, and perhaps his only hope for survival. He started to once again drag himself toward it.
Inch by inch he descended down his small plateau of rubble, continuing his wide trail of black blood into the ground.
This was too slow. Damn his twisted legs. Damn that giant shard in his chest. Damn this injured wing.
The wing. Yes, it was slowing him down the most. He would have to carry almost half the weight if he didn't have that infernal thing, growing out of his back like a weed.
Seeing the body of a dead Labyrinth soldier, Ransom had an idea.


There are three very difficult ways to chop off your own wing.
1) Rip it off. Other than the most painful method possible, it also happens to be the hardest. One would have to reach around their own torso, grab the end of the wing and pull it around to the front, (a very painful and unnatural activity in itself) and use your back as a lever as you attempt to tear it off from the side.
This method would take a) someone invincible so as to not faint during the excruciating pain. and b) Someone as strong as Lazu himself to carry out the actual deed. Bascially he would have to be Lazu.
2) Bite it off. Everyone knows that no matter how much power you think your jaw can pack, it is no match for the thick, almost impenetrable root muscle of a standard giant wing, no matter how razor sharp your teeth are. Not to mention the impossibility of getting your mouth around there in the first place.
3) Using a standard issue Labyrinth soldier bonesaw to saw it off from behind. A labyrinth bonesaw, usually kept in the pack of a common labyrinth soldier for various uses in battle (such as escaping tight spots, or throwing limbs at the enemy), is probabaly the best method in terms of, efficiency, speed, and pain to cut off any appendage among all three of these difficult and impossible ways.

Ransom chose 3. It was after all the most efficient.
Bloody, but efficient.

Ransom got to work, screaming in mad delight and in pain.
With his face in the ground, his arms behind his back and small fireworks of bloody chunks exploding above his head, he looked up to see Steel standing over him.

What a rude interruption, he wasn't even finished.

Edited by Ransom, 10 May 2009 - 02:40 AM.

[Steel Samurai]

Steel listened wordlessly to his former leader. As the man turned and left, he muttered, under his breath,

"Do not think it will be so easy to kill me. This is the first thing I have done for myself since I left those who raised me."

WHOOSH. Jordan's fist approached his face. Steel resisted the instinctual drive that told him to draw his swords and slice the man to pieces. BAM. It collided with his cheek. That. Hurt.

"Steel, you son of a bitch!" Jordan cried, furious as anything.

"Is that the kind of person you are!? A leech that sucks on the teet of whoever has the greater power? I thought you were strong but now I see you for the bastard you really are! You betrayed us! You betrayed all the men who died here today! You can live forever in the care of that monster, but you can go ahead and spend eternity as a worm for all I care."

Jordan began to walk off. Steel grabbed his shoulders and whirled him around. He gripped the other man's armor, holding him motionless.

"Call me a leech, call me a bastard, but NEVER say I betrayed my comrades. Those men died to bring down Khuffie. They died to bring freedom. All of which I fought for, and achieved. I don't believe in many things, Jordan, but I do believe in protecting one's friends, at all costs."

He released him, but continued talking.

"We are Warriors, Jordan. I've known nothing but fighting, and killing for as long as I can remember. It's in my blood. I couldn't retire to be a farmer or a blacksmith even if I wanted to. But butchery is meaningless if it does not serve some higher cause, some goal above and outside oneself. That cause is different for each person, some more "noble", as the term is commonly understood, some less. And, in the end, do you know what all those goals have in common? They require power to fulfill. Some more, some less, for some, the pursuit will never stop. Let me tell you a story, Jordan. A story of a young assassin, who had one friend, one love in the world. Do you know what happened to her? She was killed. Those in charge of the assassin thought she made him weak, that she held him back. When the young assassin discovered they were responsible, at first he blamed them for her death. But, as time went on, he realized that it was his fault. If he had had more power, more influence, he could have protected her. Could have ensured that no injury that came to her was on his account. He realized that the more power one has, the better they are able to protect their friends and those they care for. So, the young assassin began to search for power, for some way to decrease the likelihood of his friends ever being hurt if he could prevent it. He realized, that mere bodily power would not be enough. One must have influence over others as well. And so he sought to obtain that power. At any cost. Jordan, the days of the Fortress are over. Juno sees that better than anyone, and I see no reason to stay aboard a sinking ship."

Steel sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment, seeking the auras of all nearby. Ransom's was fading quickly. He began to walk away from the green-clad warrior, but then paused and spoke, without looking over his shoulder.

"Think of me whatever you like, Jordan, but know this: I shall always regard you as a comrade."

He found Ransom several hundred yards away. Damn. He was in bad shape, his wing sawed half off, lying, exhausted, amidst the rubble, a bloodied saw in hand. The wing would have to come off, but doing it here would almost guarantee an infection. Miraculously, it seemed that none of his vertebrae were damaged. Grunting, Steel picked him up and put him over his shoulder. His bones were lighter than any normal human's, but he was heavy nonetheless. Now. One more thing to take care of.

Keira peeked timidly up at the dark sky. Somehow the couch in Khuffie's Imperial Love Chamber had protected her from the falling debris, and she had survived, unharmed save for a few bruises and scrapes. She looked over the top of the couch and instantly regretted it. Khuffie's single remaining eye looked blankly back at her from a mutilated face. A shadow fell upon her. She turned around and began to scramble backwards, bumping her head on the couch. Steel knelt down and extended his hand. Normally he would just knock her out and carry her, but he was unsure how far he'd have to travel, and carrying both Ransom and Keira would not, likely, be much fun. Keira looked up at him, still clad in a towel. Khuffie was dead. Her family had lived close by, so they were probably dead too. She had no choice. Slowly, haltingly, she reached up and grasped his steel-clad hand. He tossed her some clothes, and turned around. She put them on, and they set off.

The remaining Fortress troops were gathered outside of the city, along with the rest of the Dorm troops. Well. It seemed it fell to Steel to inform them of developments. He found a stump and stood upon it.

"Soldiers of the Dorms! Well have you fought today. It is due to you, and you alone, that Khuffie's body now lies broken and lifeless at the foot of his throne." (actually it wasn't at his throne, but 'at the bottom of the couch he was having sex with Keira on in the Imperial Love Chambers' just didn't have the same ring) "The world has changed, forever, but in more ways than you may realize. The era of the Forsaken Fortress, the Ikana Canyon, and the Lost Woods are over. Chikara Nadir has become the avatar of Lazu, and gained power beyond comprehension. I do not know what will happen to this world, but I do not think this city will be safe for long. I head south. Those who would follow me, are welcome to do so, but there are things I must take care of first. If it be your desire, meet me at the burnt dojo of the Sensei in the mountains to the south in one month."

He stepped down off the stump. He nodded to Leo. "Good work" Then he began walking south.





Olimandias burned.





Khuffie's empire, built up over decades of toil, had been ended, but from its ashes two, each greater than it, would emerge.

[Crimson Lego]

ooc: One last post before this closes.

As Steel walked away, Leo felt a satisfactory yet strange feeling. The era of Khuffie is gone, yet there is a newer and more destructive danger than him. If what the pirate said was true, the new avatar of Lazu would destroy all the dorms in one sweep. They had to leave. Turning to the Lost Woods, Leo addressed them one last time.

"Members of the Woods. It has been an honour to fight with you against Khuffe the dictator. But as Commander Steel has stated, Chikara has been taken over by Lazu. Therefore, the dorms must go their own ways to avoid a massacre. Good luck." Taking a breath, Leo walked over to where his chief lieutenants were. Holding out his hand, the dwarf shook hands with each of them.

"Been good knowing you guys. I wish all the luck in the world and survival," he said quietly.

They nodded in agreement. "There will always be another battle to fought," one replied. Leo nodded. "That's right. And I think this one is over." Raising his hand for a final wave, the dwarf began walking away from Olimandias, wondering what would await him next.