[DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (Full Version)

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The ErosionSeeker -> [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (1/11/2013 21:41:09)

Teh Discussion Thread

Prologue

I just want to protect everything. If I cannot, then I must preserve what's left, because that means I must be too weak to stop all destruction.

~~14 weeks after The Rose was defeated, Guardian Hill, FalconReach~~
The cloaked figure trudged up the hill and silently crept into the temple. The sentry standing guard there was bored, half asleep, and in no mood to be protecting anything. Even though the trek up the cliff was without problem, the kick of a rock alerted the guard into action.

“Officer Duncan Montana!” exclaimed a gruff voice, revealing a security badge. “State your name and business!”

“What is my business, being here?” there was a pause. “You should’ve known long beforehand. It may have been a long time, but forgetting people is simply unacceptable. It... saddens people, if you may.” Duncan could’ve sworn that the trespasser gave a smirk. “Do not worry. You will not make the same error next occasion. Because there will be no next ‘time’!” with one fell swoop, the guard was instantly overtaken. There was a bright flash of light, and then he disappeared, leaving just a scorched patch of earth. It was almost as if Duncan Montana had never existed. With that annoyance out of the way, the shadow walked into the temple, stopping at its altar.

The only thing on the pedestal was a heavy boveox-bound tome. One flick and its pages moved from recounts of the time FalconReach fended off an insane pyromancer, mentions of a storm that tore apart the very land, the clash of two island groups (and a related monkey uprising), the incident of a vengeance-filled apprentice, a monstrous crazed infernal, and passages referring to a gigantic darkness dragon. Close to the end of the book, there was a large list of names, likely to be of people who perished in the unending fighting. The events themselves were of no interest to this shrouded intruder, but it intrigued him as to why such a macabre volume was placed in what he interpreted as sacred grounds. He removed it from its resting place, and chose to keep it for further investigation. With a slash at the ground and another bright flash of light, he disappeared.

~~A few days later, Cysero’s Superstore of Savings~~

“So Cysero, you said that your timebooth was getting buggy these days?” asked a voice from within the depths of the booth.

“Pretty much; I used to be able to go frontwards and backwards and upwards and downwards and sidewards in time, but I can only travel to this really weird place near the end of time.” Shadow couldn’t tell whether it was real, or some kind of elaborate prank. She decided to take no chances.

“Interesting,” wiping sweat off her brow. “Can you tell me more about this ‘End Zone’? Neither I nor my colleagues have heard of such a place,” she probed.
The mad weaponsmith gave a sharp inhale, and looked around, as if trying to make sure there was no one around to overhear the next piece of information. “I’m not entirely sure what this End Zone is, but from my experiences, just before the booth moves through time, any location I set it to gets changed about halfway through the journey. Whether it was half a full journey or half an empty journey is still up for debate,” he said, musing. There were a few more heavy crashes, and Shadow finally stood up, out of the machine.

“It should be fixed now, but I’d like to borrow your timebooth for my fellow Chronoweavers to see. I’m sure they’d like to hear this story as much as I did.”

“That’s fine, I’m not sure I wanted to stay in a vehicle that sent me to the cover of a heavy metal album. Want some barn flakes?” Cysero asked, holding up a bowlful of fragmented red wood. “It’s (probably) good for you!” Cheerfully declining, Shadow pressed a button on her Chronoweaver communicator badge to request the Movement Corps, asking for two people to help lift a timebooth. After straining to get it to budge (and making it fall over, nothing a little time magic couldn’t solve), she reconnected the call and went on to ask for ten people instead. Waving goodbye to the Mad Weaponsmith, Shadow departed for the Weaver Headquarters to report on her discoveries.

The journey was not a long one, but people from all over came and greeted her as she walked from Cysero’s shop to the Chronoweaver hub. Although it was no melancholy day; everyone was in bright spirits, Shadow couldn’t help but shake off the feeling of a big event about to arrive. Striding into the Chronoweaver hub, Shadow used her powers to move up a platform to the highest tower in the castle. Letting the stone drop, she treaded into the head office. After notifying the secretary, Shadow took a seat and waited for Head Chronoweaver Oscuras to return. After waiting, and waiting, (and accelerating time for a bit, then waiting some more), the secretary informed her of her meeting. “Sorry for making you wait so long (both people let out a chuckle), Master Oscuras should no longer be occupied with his own important affairs.” Opening the door with a loud creak, Shadow looked into the workplace and saw that her boss was lying on the floor playing with toy cars. Oscuras was so engrossed in it, he didn’t notice Shadow walking into his room. After standing for a few minutes, she bent down and gently hit him over the head with a glove.

“Ouch! Who did that...! ...Oh, it’s you, Shadow. No doubt you have some interesting news for me to hear?” the boy picked himself up and transformed himself into an adult. “I know your penchant for mystery, so what new anomaly have you encountered?” he gave a pleasant smile, almost making Shadow forget that he was in fact an old, old man with command over time magic. Guess the elderly truly were young at heart.

Closing the large mahogany door, Shadow dropped a question she knew which would elicit response. “Have you ever heard of the End Zone?” As predicted, Oscuras’ eyes lit up and quickly, he tried to hide the fact that he was as enthralled by the phrase as Shadow was before. “Cysero told me what he could about the irregularity. He mentioned that his timebooth was malfunctioning, and I believe it’s clear to both of us it was not of his own creation.”

“Your story has captivated me,” Oscuras finally said, putting the toys away. “I can assume that you would like to investigate this to the fullest extent?” Shadow gave a nod, and he continued. “You might not want to speak of this to the newer members of the guild. Manipulating time for the benefit of Lore is already a pretty scary concept.” Oscuras gave a short quick laugh, and signaled to Shadow that it was time to further look into this anomaly. As they nodded in understanding, Shadow took her leave to the Libraseum and left Oscuras to his toys. Just as she left the room, Shadow heard the sound of rustling clothes other than her own, and she then knew that something big was definitely about to happen.

The source of the rustling that was following Shadow made itself apparent; it was a Chronoweaver Scout, one of those who could use time magic to more efficiently relay information to their superiors. “Miss Shadow, Vincent Rychlost, Intel Team 7. A message came for you just a few minutes ago. We understand you are currently occupied, but there’s something we want you to see.” The scout snapped his fingers and a few other surveyors brought in an old SneevTV. A very audible crackle of electricity was in the air, and very little of the dialogue could be heard over the sound of the machine operating. “SneevTV footage from the mountain ridge,” he commented. “We finally found a use for those old eyeball-cams,” he was beaming proudly at the accomplishment. “See, we found a very odd... disturbance near the ravine. When Johnny threw a rock at the fissure, it slowed down, and eventually crumbled. From some reports, we have gathered that some scenes visible through the fracture included a decimated city, stellar debris, and... a hooded figure wielding a long scythe,”

“Death?” Shadow inquired. Nearly every adventurer has had a run-in with Death, but everyone who encountered it referred to it by name. Never was such an impersonal description used.

“Not likely. Of the three observers, one went shrieking mad the moment it stared at (faced?) him, and the other two ran back to us. They claimed it turned their way and invited them to enter the portal. We have not yet sent people into the gateway; nobody wants to go near that thing. In unrelated news, the Book of Lore from the Guardian Tower is missing. But it’s not too big of a deal; as it’s highly likely that it was only misplaced. Or maybe it was sent out to the cleaners.”

After pondering this development for a short while, Shadow weighed the benefits and disadvantages of going to see the fissure for herself. “Take me to where this dimensional crevice is. I’ll call for assistance if necessary.” Today’s going to be a really long day... Shadow thought to herself as she headed after the Chronoweaver messenger.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (1/11/2013 21:42:13)

Depths

Those who can change time change lives, which is all the reason to protect what we have for the future.

~~In the depths of a castle forgotten by time, isolated quadrant of space-time ~~

The sounds of a book being read diligently were all that could be heard from the bygone fortress. ‘...There was a tremendous flash of dark light as the DoomKnight had just completed the Ultimate Orb. Although nobody was injured by Sepulchure’s attack, it is clear that the repercussions will echo around the world...’ the distorted TimeLord was fascinated at the profundity at which the document was written. Even though time flowed around him, it was like being trapped in a story, forever knowing yet fearing what was going to happen.
“I see...” he whispered to himself, “so the villain’s goal was to use the Ultimate Orb to... revive. Although I loathe his imprudence, I do quite admire his obstinateness...” a pause as he dipped a quill into a vial of ink and wrote the name down in another section of the grimoire. There were multiple names scratched next to the new one; each one already having many mentions in the book. He was only studying the text more closely when a thought came across his mind: Where was his own entry in the shifting sands of time? There was a large amount of furious page-flipping as he tried to find out what happened to himself. There was a very audible sigh of relief as he found the page that related to what happened to his teammates. He read over it greedily, and found something quite to his dismay.

The Chronoweaver Society would like to bring acknowledgement to a specialized group of Weavers who perished while fighting off the monsters from the Alternate Timeline. They could not be recovered from their final resting place. We would like to apologize to the individuals’ families for their losses. Their sacrifices made possible to us the future.

This came to him as a great shock. He turned over the next page, and found a list of names of people involved in the crisis. His own was right there, in plainest sight.

Raynor Veritas Sanning, expert Chronoweaver, loved by all, missing in action; presumed dead.

Missing in action; presumed dead.

It struck like a sponge filled with nitroglycerin, and was about as devastating. Through the normally silent space-time void of Halcyon, all that could be heard was a thunderous yelling. Raynor flailed around with fury at what had happened. He flipped back to the start and read every phrase meaningfully, and strained as he struggled to remember the events of decades, possibly centuries ago...

I don’t remember anything. It’s been so long since I’ve had anything connected back to what happened on that horrifying day. The time really does fly away...

Raynor searched furiously for the answer, and when he found it, he discovered that it began with a history of FalconReach. He breathed a sigh of relief as he found that the book he was holding was at least a hundred years old, surprising to find that it has not disintegrated some time ago.

Year 1680 was the year when this town was founded. The settlers who have left SwordHaven to discover what lied beyond the great mountain ranges have long since established a community. It was named Testopia, a fitting name for their experiment for a better land.
There was no shortage of monsters surrounding the vicinity, and so there was always a job for a travelling adventurer.

What followed it was some more history trivia, and Raynor only skimmed over it before he got to an interesting passage.

Year 1725. A tattered traveller appeared in the forest clearing. His appearance was not unnoticed, but many did not pay much heed to his materialization. Obviously in bad shape, he set off for the inn to collect his breath and try to ascertain what had happened. He did look quite odd as compared to the other patrons in the inn, but no one confronted him until after he asked the innkeeper about the time. “I do believe I have been thrown off into the future,” he spoke in the accent of an eccentric. “do you gentlemen know what year it is?” he asked the man next to him, taking a round object made of gold from his pocket. “Well, blast. My watch has stopped functioning in the chaos of time-travel. What a bother.” Immediately after muttering about his timepiece, no person in the tavern dared take their eyes off this mysterious time traveller. After throwing it off the table and fiddling with it some more, the man cursed and put it back in his coat pocket. “Well, never mind that stupid thing. It never did work, and I don’t suppose it ever will. Anyway since I will be stuck in this time for a few more hours... I might as well pass some information on to you all.” After eating some of the chickencow leg he purchased, he continued his prophecy. “You may all think I’m out of my gourd, but savor it. I can’t tell you just when great change will come to the land, but it would be wise to be prepared for it,” he talked with the air that he was holding everyone’s life in his hands. Given that he was speaking about what was to come, it was quite likely that he actually was. “End times are coming to you all. Soldiers from another dimension will attack and force the greatest sacrifice from your finest explorers. A man with the strength of thousands of you men will come to destroy years of work in a matter of days. You will be able to taste the shadows with your dying breaths as a dragon made of shadow swallows up the land. This land will be scorched by a thousand suns as you struggle to find a man who doesn’t even exist. The very basis of your existences will be erased by a group of cultists. The last event that will happen come one hundred years is that of a person not unlike myself. Prepare yourselves, for very few of you will survive before the end arrives.”
Although he did not notice it, many of the inn’s customers grew increasingly irritated at him. It was clear they had no intention of listening to the ravings of a crazy person with a questionable background. Swiftly tying him up, they carried him off to be dropped into a lake, all the while angrily chanting and stamping. He never got to finish his meal or his story.

Raynor didn’t know whether to laugh at or cry for this man. He tried to warn the townspeople, but his favor was returned with great displeasure. He kept reading, seeing if the man’s prophecy would come true.

Year 1821. A Guardian noticed strange creatures flowing into the woodland near FalconReach. They carried strange, advanced weaponry and were equipped with some of the finest of technology. It was nearly impossible to capture one, let alone the 5 million waves that spewed out of a gash in time.

We were immediately overwhelmed by the invading monsters, and so the fiends were able to tear apart the land in their wake. We were at a loss as to how to repel the demonic creatures from tearing apart the land. Naturally, the group with the most experience dealing with time was called in to investigate and likely put a stop to the interdimensional fiends. The Chronoweavers, a reclusive group of temporal prodigies were called in to find out just what was going on. When the top brass noticed that it was ridiculous to believe that their trainees could discover the secrets by using autopsy measures, the most experienced of the bunch was sent in. The Elites swiftly went in and fought back the enemies, noting that they were not trained in the use of their advanced weapons, and that it was estimated that their technology was at least 20 years ahead of our own. The higher-ups did not expect such a quick report, and it was decided that the best thing to do from then on was to go through the portal, and see exactly what caused the invasion. Though they were initially reluctant, the greatest of the Chronoweavers agreed to look into the causes of the attacking army. Locating where the armies were spewing out from, groups of skillful warriors, mages, and rogues led by the Chronoweavers attacked and battled the raiding Time Demons, as they were called. Even though most of the fights were being won by the defenders, more and more portals were being opened across the land. It seemed that the century-old time traveller’s divination was finally beginning to come to light. The warfare was going by well. Clans who’ve clashed for generations had ended hostilities and joined in arms. Some of the greatest fighters the realm has seen were found in this time, and the warmongering tradition was created.

Then an unexplained evolution happened. As the Time Demons’ flow slowed to a fraction of its previous magnitude, people far more powerful than the monsters were being overwhelmed one by one. It seemed that the enemies suddenly grew so advanced; their very bodies had accelerated twenty years each, more than long enough to be familiar with their weapons. Fortunately, many of the combatants who lost their battles were able to retreat; large amounts of fighters were dragged into the other world. From their descriptions, it was clear to the Chronoweavers that they were not dealing with anything of this world. The Chronoweaver scouts who searched the other side of the portals returned right in time. With coordinated attacks, they took out hoards of the vile enemy using their own technology against them.

The battle once again turned to our own side, as scores of the enemy had fallen to the Chronoweaver Elite forces. As the enemies’ strength began to wane, many of the portals from which they escaped began to seal themselves up. It was clear that the unknown enemy was planning some sort of decisive battle. We sensed that a final showdown was near and began to quickly assemble a final battle weapon. Then, a Time Demon whose size and sinister likes of which never seen before ripped its way through the final portal.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (1/11/2013 21:56:34)

Separation

I would like to forget what I've done in the past, because remembered nightmares are just reminders of your enemies.

Several pages were torn between the two entries, much to Raynor’s displeasure. The next few pages looked like they were in a “most beaten-up” contest, they were either torn, burnt, stretched from water damage, or had ink splattered across the pages, the text as shaky as possible while staying (barely) legible.

It was terrible. The titanic Temporal Archfiend was nigh-impervious to any attack our defenders threw at it, and most of the Chronoweavers seemed to have disappeared from the war. With a sweep of its clawed hands, entire sections of land became void. The situation was hopeless, and we knew we had to run if we did not want to be exterminated. Then undisturbed, it began tearing apart the terrain, possibly bringing it back to its own dimension. Its path of destruction was slowly reaching the town of FalconReach, and from then it was clear that the weapon needed to be ready.

We were at the end of our ropes. The Temporal Archfiend was about to direct its attention at FalconReach, already a shambles from the contemptible demonic army. It gave a thunderous roar, and was just about to rip the town apart when it was bombarded with several glowing orbs. The Chronoweaver high command had returned, and it turned out they were engineering a weapon; one that could combat the threat of a nigh-invulnerable titan with the power to rend space and time. Their creation, the Temporal Annihilator was just what we needed to fight back the boss behind the invasion. The inventor of the weapon, Chronoweaver Research and Development Department Head CR informed all of FalconReach that his armaments had the power to create a spherical field of time around the target, which would revert it to its original state, as well as remove any sort of magic that may have been affecting it. This was the decisive arsenal that the Chronoweavers brought back from the parallel world.

After explaining that it was Chronoweaver-created equipment that exploited parallel technology for its purposes, the townspeople were all tremendously happy at what we had created. One shot, and the Titan was reeling. Two shots and it could no longer stand its ground. As the energy bolts from the cannon hit the Titan, the afflicted areas peeled away, as if the Temporal Archfiend was actually comprised of layers and layers of lesser Time Demons. Fragments of its body that were affected by the Temporal Annihilator’s energy disintegrated, and much of the remains were collected to analyze. With its dying breath, the Temporal Archfiend gave a tremendous roar, and slammed one fist across the earth, taking many people of FalconReach with it. Immediately afterwards, it collapsed, exploding and sprayed the surrounding area with noxious vapors and slime. FalconReach had finally fought off the threat of the invading Time Demons, and yet there was no happiness. Many had fallen in fighting the waves of creatures; more had disappeared into the Demons’ portals, no one knowing where they have gone. The portal that housed the Temporal Archfiend had since closed, and so there was no way of even contacting them.

It then went on to list a large series of what happened next, followed by a wake, as well as a large list of people who perished in the war. Raynor finally returned to the page he previously found. Simultaneously depressed and infuriated, he burned the pages while they were still in the book and crushed the ashes into powder.
~~Same day, outskirts of FalconReach~~

The sound of heavy lightning rippled through the air as they reached the portal. The very air surrounding it was distorting in unpredictable ways. “We’re here,” the Chronoweaver Scout Vincent called back to Shadow. “No one can make heads or tails of just what this is.”

“Hmm,” Shadow replied, cautiously grasping a nearby round stone. “If this portal is what you claim, then surely this—” she threw the stone at the portal “—will tell us just what this is about.”

There was a great deal of lightning being discharged, and then the rock that Shadow threw disintegrated. While Vincent trembled at what this strange event implicated, Shadow could only stand looking confused. “W-we haven’t seen the end of this, have we?” he whimpered from behind a nearby boulder. When he stepped out from behind it, his legs squirmed like the last Thankstaking feast’s jelly. Shadow thought it would’ve been hilarious if she wasn’t dealing with the most bizarre case in 8 years.

Throwing her arms up in exasperation, Shadow looked back at the cringing Scout, and spoke in a most assertive voice. “We are going to need the Chronoweaver Elites. But not just anyone; we need someone who can not only figure out what’s going on, but also manage to prevent the forces behind this portal from escaping to our world. I have no idea how effective my own powers will be in this other world, but it’s clear we should send for someone with very few weaknesses; perhaps, someone with the powers of both Ice and Wind?”

Although it was unclear who Shadow was talking to, or whether or not she was talking to anyone in particular, but at that moment, the Chronoweaver Scout made a cautious reply, “But my Lady, there is only one man in the entire Chronoweaver Tower that has mastery of the storm, and let’s just say he’s an... ah... difficult person to work with.

This made Shadow stop and wonder. There should not have been such an anarchist in the Chronoweaver society, since it was only the Eilte who were allowed to work alone; Chronoweavers always had to start off as teams or partners. Either this person was a newbie, or someone quite different from the rest of the crowd. “Who is it?” Shadow asked Vincent. “I know most of the Chronoweaver Elites, but I have no idea who you’re talking about, this ‘difficult’ person. He is no newly-promoted member, is he?”

Vincent couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s no new recruit, ha ha ha, if I’ve counted right, he’s been with us for the same amount of time as you; more than me! I said he was difficult to work with, but not because he’s some kind of backwards warmonger (he’s pretty apathetic when it comes to wars, when you think about it), he has some flawed morality thing going on. Not quite good, but certainly not evil. He’s probably a good person at heart.”

This was a relief to Shadow, as the last thing she needed was some parrot or peacock interfering with her work. However, being both an Elite and supposedly having control over Ice, she could perhaps learn a thing or two from this hidden person. She didn’t count on it, though. “You haven’t given me his name yet. Shouldn’t that be of utmost importance?”

Looking a little caught off guard, Vincent smiled slyly and replied in a hushed tone, “You can find Erosion back at the Chronoweaver Faculties, teaching the new recruits about Chronoweaving. Nobody’s entirely sure why his lectures are so popular; all he does is provide somewhat helpful information, and then berate people who don’t understand his methods. It’s probably still really entertaining, though.”
“Then we’ve no time to waste.” Several pages were torn between the two entries, much to Raynor’s displeasure. The next few pages looked like they were in a “most beaten-up” contest, they were either torn, burnt, stretched from water damage, or had ink splattered across the pages, the text as shaky as possible while staying (barely) legible.

It was terrible. The titanic Temporal Archfiend was nigh-impervious to any attack our defenders threw at it, and most of the Chronoweavers seemed to have disappeared from the war. With a sweep of its clawed hands, entire sections of land became void. The situation was hopeless, and we knew we had to run if we did not want to be exterminated. Then undisturbed, it began tearing apart the terrain, possibly bringing it back to its own dimension. Its path of destruction was slowly reaching the town of FalconReach, and from then it was clear that the weapon needed to be ready.

We were at the end of our ropes. The Temporal Archfiend was about to direct its attention at FalconReach, already a shambles from the contemptible demonic army. It gave a thunderous roar, and was just about to rip the town apart when it was bombarded with several glowing orbs. The Chronoweaver high command had returned, and it turned out they were engineering a weapon; one that could combat the threat of a nigh-invulnerable titan with the power to rend space and time. Their creation, the Temporal Annihilator was just what we needed to fight back the boss behind the invasion. The inventor of the weapon, Chronoweaver Research and Development Department Head CR informed all of FalconReach that his armaments had the power to create a spherical field of time around the target, which would revert it to its original state, as well as remove any sort of magic that may have been affecting it. This was the decisive arsenal that the Chronoweavers brought back from the parallel world.

After explaining that it was Chronoweaver-created equipment that exploited parallel technology for its purposes, the townspeople were all tremendously happy at what we had created. One shot, and the Titan was reeling. Two shots and it could no longer stand its ground. As the energy bolts from the cannon hit the Titan, the afflicted areas peeled away, as if the Temporal Archfiend was actually comprised of layers and layers of lesser Time Demons. Fragments of its body that were affected by the Temporal Annihilator’s energy disintegrated, and much of the remains were collected to analyze. With its dying breath, the Temporal Archfiend gave a tremendous roar, and slammed one fist across the earth, taking many people of FalconReach with it. Immediately afterwards, it collapsed, exploding and sprayed the surrounding area with noxious vapors and slime. FalconReach had finally fought off the threat of the invading Time Demons, and yet there was no happiness. Many had fallen in fighting the waves of creatures; more had disappeared into the Demons’ portals, no one knowing where they have gone. The portal that housed the Temporal Archfiend had since closed, and so there was no way of even contacting them.

It then went on to list a large series of what happened next, followed by a wake, as well as a large list of people who perished in the war. Raynor finally returned to the page he previously found. Simultaneously depressed and infuriated, he burned the pages while they were still in the book and crushed the ashes into powder.
~~Same day, outskirts of FalconReach~~

The sound of heavy lightning rippled through the air as they reached the portal. The very air surrounding it was distorting in unpredictable ways. “We’re here,” the Chronoweaver Scout Vincent called back to Shadow. “No one can make heads or tails of just what this is.”

“Hmm,” Shadow replied, cautiously grasping a nearby round stone. “If this portal is what you claim, then surely this—” she threw the stone at the portal “—will tell us just what this is about.”

There was a great deal of lightning being discharged, and then the rock that Shadow threw disintegrated. While Vincent trembled at what this strange event implicated, Shadow could only stand looking confused. “W-we haven’t seen the end of this, have we?” he whimpered from behind a nearby boulder. When he stepped out from behind it, his legs squirmed like the last Thankstaking feast’s jelly. Shadow thought it would’ve been hilarious if she wasn’t dealing with the most bizarre case in 8 years.

Throwing her arms up in exasperation, Shadow looked back at the cringing Scout, and spoke in a most assertive voice. “We are going to need the Chronoweaver Elites. But not just anyone; we need someone who can not only figure out what’s going on, but also manage to prevent the forces behind this portal from escaping to our world. I have no idea how effective my own powers will be in this other world, but it’s clear we should send for someone with very few weaknesses; perhaps, someone with the powers of both Ice and Wind?”

Although it was unclear who Shadow was talking to, or whether or not she was talking to anyone in particular, but at that moment, the Chronoweaver Scout made a cautious reply, “But my Lady, there is only one man in the entire Chronoweaver Tower that has mastery of the storm, and let’s just say he’s an... ah... difficult person to work with.

This made Shadow stop and wonder. There should not have been such an anarchist in the Chronoweaver society, since it was only the Eilte who were allowed to work alone; Chronoweavers always had to start off as teams or partners. Either this person was a newbie, or someone quite different from the rest of the crowd. “Who is it?” Shadow asked Vincent. “I know most of the Chronoweaver Elites, but I have no idea who you’re talking about, this ‘difficult’ person. He is no newly-promoted member, is he?”

Vincent couldn’t help but laugh. “He’s no new recruit, ha ha ha, if I’ve counted right, he’s been with us for the same amount of time as you; more than me! I said he was difficult to work with, but not because he’s some kind of backwards warmonger (he’s pretty apathetic when it comes to wars, when you think about it), he has some flawed morality thing going on. Not quite good, but certainly not evil. He’s probably a good person at heart.”

This was a relief to Shadow, as the last thing she needed was some parrot or peacock interfering with her work. However, being both an Elite and supposedly having control over Ice, she could perhaps learn a thing or two from this hidden person. She didn’t count on it, though. “You haven’t given me his name yet. Shouldn’t that be of utmost importance?”

Looking a little caught off guard, Vincent smiled slyly and replied in a hushed tone, “You can find Erosion back at the Chronoweaver Faculties, teaching the new recruits about Chronoweaving. Nobody’s entirely sure why his lectures are so popular; all he does is provide somewhat helpful information, and then berate people who don’t understand his methods. It’s probably still really entertaining, though.”
“Then we’ve no time to waste.”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (1/23/2013 11:09:16)

Freezing

We have to teach the past to the future, because the present relies on the future's memory of the past.

~~Same time, Chronoweaver Faculties, Salvador Lecture Hall~~


“Welcome to Elemental Mastery 121, my name is Erosion, and I will be the lecturer for this course. As fledgling Chronoweavers, you’ve all learned about the basics of Chronoweaving. If not, you class is three doors down, to the right."
There were a couple of people laughing followed by two people sheepishly getting up to go to the other class).
"Following that, there is a second component to Chronoweaving that separates it from regular Chronomancy. While regular Chronomancy just manipulates time to solve problems, Chronoweavers are able to fuse elemental powers into their time magic. As a result, you need to be familiar with both Chronomancy (covered in Introduction to Chronoweaving 101), and elemental mastery, which is this course.” He stopped to give the frantic note-takers some time to digest that information, even though it had next to no use whatsoever. He didn’t expect for those individuals to get very far in the world of Chronoweaving.

One student stuck up a hesitant hand. “Mister Erosion, can you demonstrate what you’ve said for the past while? I can’t quite grasp what you’re trying to say, about fusing an element with Time Magic.”

“Excellent, I was hoping someone would ask so I could show you all just what I mean. In fact Sylvia, why don’t you come on down and be part of the demonstration? Now then, it would probably be convenient for people not to blink, or they’ll miss it.” He said with a smile. After Sylvia came down from her bench, Erosion walked slowly around her, miming a complex circular shape on the floor, its glowing runes appeared at the student’s feet as he passed by them.

“Now, the process of weaving elemental powers into standard time magic isn’t very difficult, but actually tying them in a functional ratio is the tough part. You see, if too much of the spell is used on elemental manipulation, the effects of the time magic wear off, spending insane amounts of mana and giving back little in return. When the amount of chronomancy magic is used, the element itself is overpowered and decays. Same result; more mana is used than needed to generate the spell.” He was almost finished the drawing. “When the proportions are roughly right, the element is amplified by the time magic. This allows it to have far more of an effect than using either of the two. As you can see around our subject Sylvia, the ChronoCircle I have used is light blue, indicating the element I am using is ice. When you freeze someone with conventional ice magic, their body is frozen, but their mind is not. When using regular chronomancy to freeze someone, the opposite occurs; their mind is frozen but their body isn’t. While they can’t think, their body still tries to go through with whatever it is that it was attempting to do. When both are used at the same time, a complete freezing of the target occurs. They are locked in both time and space; effectively being a form of suspended animation.”

Just as he finished his sentence, a massive column of ice erupted from the glowing circle, encasing Sylvia in a pillar of ice. “As you can see, there are next to no vital signs coming from Sylvia. She is now suspended in both space and time, and will continue to be so unless I disable the spell,” as he gave a snap of his fingers, the ice pillar shattered, and Sylvia, who was iced up in midair, fell to the ground, seemingly unharmed. “Although you can’t notice it because of how little time has passed between her freezing and thawing, Sylvia has not aged a single second, while you have all gotten a tiny bit older as the regular course of time passed. Although very people fully understood what just happened, everyone broke into applause at Erosion’s demonstration.

Just as he was enjoying the praise of a hundred students, the two Chronoweavers Shadow and Vincent showed up at the back of the class. “Erosion? We have a task for you, outside of dealing with these newbies,” Shadow said in a neutral tone. She had no intention or purpose of deriding the Ice Chronoweaver. “I’m sure you’ll find it... quite a bit more interesting than giving lectures.”

Erosion gave a wary glance, then raised his head to speak with his students. “Well class, that’ll be all for today. Be sure to go through Chapter 4 of your textbooks, The Principals of Elemental ChronoWeaving. We will have a test on it in a week, so use your time wisely, ha ha ha.” Nobody laughed.

“But we didn’t get any textbooks yet! This is the first day!” could be heard from several areas of the lecture hall.

“Check your bags, everyone,” came the reply, and to everyone’s amazement, each of their bags did contain a new (old) textbook. After his students left the room, Erosion adopted a different expression, as he became decidedly more serious. “So you’re telling me there’s an intergalactic portal to the west of FalconReach. It hasn’t done anything of worry, but you’re concerned that this may be related to similar events occurring over 100 years ago.”

“Can’t tell if it’s a permanent thing, or just passing by,” Vincent grunted, while squinting his eyes.

“Oh? Have you tried asking a ninja about it?”

“We checked with most of our allied factions, none of them know much about this whole portal-y deal, but we have one or two promising leads back at the ChronoWeaver Tower Library.” Shadow added with no particular inflection.

“Even my dog, Adeweiss was of no help. He’s probably too distracted by his skateboarding habit.”

“If all the research bases in the world belonged to us, we could probably look into ancient lores on what this might mean.” Erosion sighed, stroking the beard he never had.

“I think that’s enough for now. We should probably show you where and what this dimensional portal is, Erosion. Just muttering about like this will get us nowhere.” Shadow finally gasped, fed up with the nonsensical conversation that the other two were having. “Erosion, come with us to the portal. I can’t guarantee that it’s still there, but if it is, you should be able to figure out what it’s about better than either of us. I’m more of a doer, and Vincent here is more of a goer; you as a thinker ought to know what’s going on.”

It was close to evening when they were able to get to the dimensional rift after Erosion’s next few lectures (Consequences of Time Travel, Chronoweaver Rift Theory, and Arts & Crafts). Bringing his case of Chronomancy-assisted tools, Erosion set up a curious construct all around the portal. “While a bit unsightly, all this machinery will try to restrict the amount of growth that the portal exhibits. I trust that you’ve seen it gradually grow larger over the few days that you’ve known of its existence.” Both Shadow and Vincent nodded, fearing what it meant. “While it inhibits expansion, it also serves to analyze what’s happening on the other side of the portal. More and more information will gradually be detailed by the machine, but as of now, we can tell that the portal is not unlike the ones that Wargoth used to increase the horizons of his infernal armies. The only difference that I can tell is that it’s protected by a strong barrier of decaying Darkness and Nature magic. It’s clear that who – or what—lurks behind the portal does not want any intruders.”

The sounds of footsteps were heard behind the group of three, and they quickly knew who it was. Oscuras, who rarely ventured out of his chambers, plodded over to Shadow’s assemblage. “Erosion-boy here informed me of what you two were doing before leaving with you fellows,” walking around and surveying the area as well as Erosion’s construct, he took several minutes before speaking again. “So from what I heard earlier, Erosion said he was planning to use his powers of Ice and Wind to shatter the barrier, but I have a better idea,” he said as he walked right up to the portal. “You two share the power of Ice and an accompanying element, but my own powers are mostly unique. Although the elemental powers of Nature and Darkness are separate, I am one of the only ones who can combine them into the power of Decay. I’m sure each of you has your own versions of a ‘fused’ power, don’t you?” Raising his free hand to touch the barrier, there was another thunderous sound as the barrier itself became briefly visible. Instead of a lightning-filled turbulence, the boundaries of what was the barricade and what was the portal itself became defined. “As you can see, even magic can rot and wither away. However, nobody can destroy the time in the barrier; we all have to manipulate and remove it. ” The barrier protecting the portal turned into a stream of light, and disappeared within Oscuras’s hand.

The Head Chronoweaver licked his lips, and turned to face the trio, who were looking at him and him powers in wonder. “I have significantly decayed the force preventing us from looking into the other region. There’s no guarantee that the barrier won’t regenerate. However, there should be well over four hours to explore the other side. I’m sure that Erosion-boy here has other classes to prepare for tomorrow, and I still have... administrative duties... to finish. Perhaps you, Shadow and you, Vincent would like to perform this mission? Your other duties will be relieved for this period of time.” Oscuras waved a hand, and burst into a mass of black feathers. Erosion nodded, and disappeared as a gust of frigid wind blew past them.

Giving a glance to Vincent, then back at the portal, then back at the tower, and then back at the portal, Shadow took a few steps back, and then dived into the void.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (1/23/2013 15:50:06)

Surface

History is like a deep ocean; filled with mystery and the unknown, but diving too deep into it can make you a thing of the past.

~~Depths of Halcyon, Castle Kantniz~~

Diving through the portal was like entering another world. No wait, it was entering another world. It was like entering a different dimension.

When Shadow dove into the portal, she could not doubt the sensation of diving into an ocean. She didn’t think she could breathe, since there was nothing in this Other World apart from a boundless void. Then, Shadow swam upwards, still under full impression that it was impossible. After a few seconds of ‘swimming’, Shadow surfaced in the center of a ring.

Where am I? Shadow thought to herself, climbing out of the ring and brushing at her pants before looking around.
How can there be a floating castle in the middle of space? Although everything was quite dark, Shadow’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dimness. She fumbled her way through the corridor. Turning a bend, Shadow saw a faint light at one corner of the junction, and sauntered towards the source.

A few minutes afterwards, Shadow heard screaming coming from the room she leaved just recently. She thought it was a cowardly scream, one that could only originate from a person who was lost without any hope for escape. And then the cause of the shouting crashed into her. “AH! SOMEONE ELSE IN THIS NIGHTMARE! ANYONE? IT’S ME, VINCENT! LETMEOUTLETMEOUTLETMEOUTLETMEOUT!” A hand grasped up towards Vincent’s face, and wrapped over his mouth, silencing the noise.

“GAAAAAHHHHH IT’S GOT ME IT’S GOT ME IT’S GOT ME IT’S... oh, it’s just you. I knew you would be somewhere in this place, but I didn’t expect to crash into you... Er, I’m sorry?”

“Shush, you lark! We’re inside the fortress of some unknown enemy. It would be in our best interests to not make our location obvious! Now be quiet and come with me, I’m trying to look for something very important.”

~~Chronoweaver Tower, Oscuras’s Bureau ~~

“Wait! You can’t speak with Oscuras right now!”

“Nonsense. If he’s not lying around on the floor playing with his trucks, he’s lying to the audience with his own plans!” Erosion was getting angrier and angrier with the way the secretary was trying to stop him.

“He has important files to monitor!” the secretary was considerably frantic, attempting to stop Erosion from talking to Oscuras in any way she could.

“If you don’t step aside now, you’ll be frozen, and then I’ll converse with Oscuras!” he raised a blue-glowing hand, and was about to ice over the secretary when the large office door opened, and Oscuras stopped their fighting.

“We have far more important things to be doing than fighting amongst ourselves; I have received news from Shadow and Vincent,” he lied. “I’ll fill you in on the details later. You wanted to speak with me? Come.” With a sweep of his hand, he invited Erosion into the office. The secretary gave a sigh of relief at how Oscuras was finally doing something productive for once.

“I’ve been looking through the recent events, and I found something quite interesting. Around the same time that the dimensional portal showed up in Lore, the Book of Lore was removed from its resting place in the Guardian Tower.”

Oscuras turned a shade paler, and then shrugged it off. “I believe Vincent may have told me about this. We probably missed it because we were busy with our own things, as well as investigating the fissure. I’m sure we can get this all sorted out some other time,” Oscuras stood up again, and made the motion for his guest to leave, but Erosion still stood in his place.

“...you don’t understand,” he said. “I didn’t bring this up to tell you about something you already know. I’m telling you this now because the Tower itself is no longer secure. Sometime when we were at the rupture, somebody broke into the libraries and filched a certain important document; one that can have catastrophic repercussions if we’re not careful.”

Erosion flipped into another few pages of the file he was holding, inviting Oscuras to take his seat again. A minute or two later, he took out a dark sheet of parchment. “The party, or parties, have removed one of the folders from the archives. Of the sections we are currently cross-indexing and recreating, the most significant documents taken all involved the incident that happened some fifteen years ago.”

Oscuras tilted his chair back, trying to remember what was the event that occurred a decade and a half ago. “Ah, you must be talking about the Temporal Demons. How could it take fifteen years for something like that to resurface?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

Finally being frustrated enough with Oscuras’s unawareness, Erosion picked up the pictures and files and showed himself out. “Atoll fallout still exists after 60 years,” he mumbled under his breath.

~~ Castle Kantniz, Second Floor, Empty Observatory~~

Exploring a new world was difficult. It took Shadow and Vincent several hours to explore their surroundings, let alone map their path. After finding countless dead ends, inactive portals, and abandoned observatories, they finally found the stairs to the second floor. Immediately after stepping onto the second level, a wave of blue light washed over them. From that moment alone, Shadow realized that the glowing that she saw in the floor below it must’ve been connected to this new radiance.

After discovering the light’s location, Shadow came across the source, a tome as large as they came. Shadow ran her fingers across the volume, and discovered that the book was covered with glowing spores.

“Oh! How can this book be here...? What can this mean...?” A quick dust brushing over the cover of the book revealed that the spores only caused a small portion of the illumination. Even after the book was dusted of its powder, the light of the book itself shined brighter than before. The volume gave off the same discharge of energy as the portal that they had came through, yet this one was far less familiar. Neither Shadow nor Vincent had ever seen a book crackle with energy, yet it confirmed her doubt. It was the missing Book of Lore. And history was being changed as they stood.

“Shadow, what is the Book of Lore doing here? It certainly couldn’t walk itself over, so how can it be in an entirely different world?” Shadow tried to answer Vincent’s questions, but she was thinking exactly what he was wondering as well. Just as she tried to give a theory, the sound of heavy footsteps thundered about in the floor below them.

“WHO ATTEMPTS TO INFILTRATE THE CASTLE OF RAYNOR?”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (2/26/2013 22:10:17)

Convergence

It's not 'running to save your life'. It's 'running so you can fight another day'. Some call it cowardly to run away, but that is understandably the thought of those who do not know the horrors of death.

~~Two hours ago, Weaver Tower Archives~~

Raynor was out of breath. Not only did he have to refamiliarize himself with the altered layout of the Archives, he was constantly plagued by the incessant stream of researchers also attempting to find information from the records. Although it wasn’t particularly difficult, it was a hassle for Raynor to constantly switch between keeping his Time Escaper invisibility spell on or not. Luckily, he was able to capture the few files that he needed for himself.

Just as he was ascending the stairs to leave the glorified vault, he heard the din of clattering objects. Immediately positioning himself against a wall and activating the spell again, he overheard two harried scholars rushing down the corridor, just barely missing him.

“You were right there! How could you not see someone take important archive files out of the library?” The older of the two librarians seemed especially caught on this. “We’ll all be in big trouble if those get leaked to the public!”

“What, aren’t they just historical records? I don’t see what’s so dangerous about chronological data being unearthed for all to see...” like newbies in most professions; the younger of the two researchers did not see what was so dangerous about a few old files.

“Do you not get it, you dupe? The most dangerous thing that could be released out into the open is the experiments from the invasion fifteen years ago!”

“You have to be more specific, sir. We have close to seven invasions every single year! It’s as if giant swarms of monsters all decide to attack us every Friday the Thirteenth!”

Raynor cringed as he heard the sound of a stomach being punched, and took a few silent steps backwards. So the files that I ‘borrowed’ from these two buffoons contain data on what happened fifteen years ago. That’s when I disappeared into the Alternate Reality. They’re talking about information that could be dangerous if it’s leaked to the public. I wonder how bad it would be if it was used on the public...

It was difficult for Raynor to constantly weave in and out between locations in the massive Chronoweaver Tower, but it was necessary in order to prevent his discovery. His curiosity was also getting the better of him, as he almost disabled his ability when someone walked by several times. Luckily, Raynor was able to escape the fortress without being seen. Running heavily now, he ran outside of the FalconReach borders and headed for the Northern outskirts of the town.

Reaching the portal, Raynor suddenly stopped. The barrier that prevented other people from entering his gateway was shattered, and it was definitely not the kind of magical disintegration that occurred with the passage of time. Someone had clearly caused to spell to disable and entered through his gate. Something is wrong. How could my impenetrable barricade be so easily destroyed by the useless Chronoweavers? Blast it, I was too careless. The entire cord between my citadel and this accursed plane should’ve been sealed when I left it. These pathetic Chronoweavers better not have touched my belongings, or else they too may risk something terrible happen to the world.

Seeing how pointless it would be to cast the Time Escaper spell again, Raynor angrily walking through the glowing portal and swam (well, floated) as hard as he could to reach the castle entrance. Bursting through the doorway, he shouted in his loudest voice in an attempt to scare off the intruders.

Right after shouting mightily, he heard neither the sounds of rushed footsteps nor panicking trespassers. Guessing at what they were after, Raynor rushed to the map room. Expecting a legion of hardened adventurers, he instead saw a brown-haired woman and a jiggling pile of a person.

“...What? I assumed that the invaders would be a group of experienced adventurers, not a woman and a child –” Raynor was interrupted by Vincent’s grumbling. Noticing that the owner of the voice was a tall man in massive spiked armor, he quickly shut himself up.
Vincent realized it was meaningless to just sit and stare at this new enemy. “Wait! What is this about?! We are here mainly to research this new anomaly! What are you doing here?”

“Me...? This is my domain that you are defiling with your presences. You shall NOT escape!”

“Calm down, we are only here on an investigation. Do not let it turn into a forensic debacle.” Shadow’s tone was cautious yet decisive. Raynor knew that it was a risk, yet he pressed on.

“HAH! You treacherous Weavers kill as you please, not caring whether it is friend or foe! How many hundreds of people have you juggernauts decimated?” Raynor did not say anything else. He walked up to where Shadow and Vincent stood, and unsheathed the blade from his side. It made a vexing noise as it left the sheath, almost as if it was trying to escape from its restraints.

“Don’t blink, or you’ll miss it.” Before he even finished his sentence, he swooped at Shadow. She looked around frantically. Their assailant was nowhere to be seen. Out of nowhere, an invisible blade struck out at VIncent, knocking him to the ground and rendering him unconscious.

Hearing a footstep behind her, Shadow quickly unsheathed her own sword, and slashed at the source of the treading. Again, the new opponent dodged the blow. “Useless! My ability to warp time is impossible for you to stop! You cannot even harm me!” Striking back, Raynor quickly forced Shadow backwards. It took most of her efforts to knock aside his crushing blows.

Raynor raised his sword once more as if to attack the moon, swinging the blade down once again in a devastating sweep. The ground shook in the places where Raynor slashed. "This is the last act to this dreadful story. Begone and never return alive." Raynor tried to swing his sword down, but he quickly realized that it would not budge from its position in mid-air. "Arrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh! What magic is this, vile sorceress?! You dare retaliate even at the last moment?"

There was a bright flash of light at the other side of the room. A dark figure dressed in darker clothing stepped out from the radiance and into the castle's interior. "Hrm. This place really never changes. I'll have to commend those who took all that time to preserve it for keeping it in the state that it is in..."

"What? You...?" Raynor was at a loss for words. He had no idea why Oscuras had arrived inside his secluded fortress, even less reason as to why he was protecting the intruders.

"This isn't the right time for this. Disappear." pointing a finger at Shadow, then at Vincent, bright light enveloped their bodies.

"NO! What do you think you're doing?! They can NOT escape!"

With a bright flash, Raynor could not see a thing. When the flare-like luminance subsided, Raynor could find nobody else left in the castle.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (3/13/2013 21:54:28)

Questions

To call two events happening together coincidence only proves your own ignorance of fate.

~~Chronoweaver Tower, Oscuras’s Bureau ~~


There was a bright flash of light as Shadow, Vincent and Oscuras returned to the Tower. Out of breath, Shadow could barely ask Oscuras how and why he arrived to help them escape. "Haahh. I had a bad feeling about that portal. I followed behind you two, making sure not to make myself noticeable. When the brutish warrior had struck at you two; I knew that I had to intervene. He would have destroyed the castle itself in order to exterminate the three of us."

Walking up to the large window, Shadow brushed the curtains aside, bathing the room in moonlight. "I saw the missing Book of Lore in that room, along with several ancient artifacts that the Weaver Society's records claim to be missing," turning back to face Oscuras, she landed another question. "I do not think that someone like that would be able to pilfer dozens of important relics over a large period of time." What is that castle used for, and why is that man there?

Oscuras tried to look away, knowing that he was unable to hide the truth behind the anomaly. Finally, he paced back to his chair, and invited the others to do the same. He gave a sigh. "Take a seat. What I'm about to tell you is extremely restricted information. Under no circumstances should this be revealed to the other Weavers, not even the ones with your own rank." He looked around before conversing again.

"You are both aware that some time four years ago, the Rose suddenly rose in power. They had discovered the Lorian mana core. Soon after that (and I'm sure you remember), they had attacked our Tower. Even though some of the most powerful archmages were aligned with the Weavers, we were no match for the Rose's Antimana golems. After imprisoning many of our troops and draining the mana from them to fuel their abominations, they went after the Tower itself.”

Oscuras leaned back, knocking back a frothy mug of water. “When they arrived, looking to capture the stragglers they didn’t catch, they found nothing there. We had escaped with most of the important magical artifacts scattered in the tower catacombs.”

Another pause. “We had long since foreseen that the Rose would try to take over our organization. Some of our engineers developed a method to create tears in time to travel quickly through dimensions. That castle... was the result of our experiment. Most of our equipment was stored there. When the FalconReach rebel group defeated the Rose’s generals, our construction crews just turned time back for the Tower. Since there was not too much documentation from the evacuation (we were quite rushed), a sizable portion of our magical items were left behind. Since the portals were sealed afterwards, nobody remembered the missing objects. Luckily, the person who attacked you two managed to re-open one gateway between Halcyon and this world.”

“That doesn’t answer everything. That freak was a crazy person. His strength was unimaginable, and he completely overpowered me.” The agitated voice came from Vincent. “He claimed our noble organization was a disloyal group of brigands.”

Oscuras pulled out the pocketwatch from his armor, and announced the time. "It's getting late; you two should get some rest. I have a bad feeling about this new enemy..."

~~~~~


Shadow was just about to turn off the light when she realized something odd about what Oscuras said. Wait a minute. She thought to herself. If the Weavers were able to foresee the coming of the Rose, how could they forget the magical items still within the castle?

She tried not to think about it too much. Documentation getting lost in the mail might be an understandable occurrence, but for a clan of temporal masters to have lost it sounded a little bit strange. She decided to confront him about it tomorrow.

~~Next morning, Chronoweaver Faculties, Planck Lecture Hall, Advanced Chronoweaving Systems 291~~

“The next unit we will be exploring in the core curriculum is more of a practical component. I’m sure that with the heavy course load from some of the classes, you students can’t help but with you had more time to finish your work. Whether it is because you were occupied with goofing off, going to raves, or even because you just couldn’t finish in the amount of time allotted for the assignment (stop trying so hard!), well, there’s a method to do just that! Many of you may have encountered some of the faculty members and third-year students moving large distances while appearing to move very slowly, that is the Time Escaper at work.

“Watch, as I begin to appear to move faster and faster...” soon, the class found that their professor, Erosion couldn’t be seen moving constantly at all.
After a period of time (nobody was certain just how long it was), some of the apprentices discovered that their possessions were missing, only to find that they were on the table at the front of the hall. “As you all have just seen with your own eyes, or rather, haven’t seen with your own eyes, I appeared to be moving faster, even if your senses did not change. Yes, your mental activity stays relatively unaffected when affected by Rift. Distort and Break both have drastically different effects on both the mind and body, one slowing down everything whilst the other shuts down movement entirely.

“Now, you may also think that this causes tremendous amounts of mental strain, but the real danger is in physical weakening. Since time flows relatively normally for the user, they are aging at a faster rate than the other affected individuals,” Erosion opened a satchel and removed a faintly glowing yellow stone for all to see. “This is a Timestone. People who use the Time Escaper power often know that it is a necessity to keep at least one of these on their body at all times. By draining time from certain entities and objects, it is possible to coalesce them into a solid substance; the Timestone.”

While reading the related textbook pages, one student from the back of the lecture hall raised his hand. “Professor! The textbook talks about a legendary giant Timestone! Can you explain some more on that?”

“Ah yes, that Timestone. I assume you all have some understanding of the Temporal Invasion some decades past?”
All but a few heads nodded, the ones that didn’t were searching the textbooks for the event.

“Well, during the final moments of the Temporal Archfiend’s assault, the ChronoWeavers had assembled a weapon capable of tearing apart time to isolate the target. By ripping the Archfiend to shreds, the townspeople were freed from the threat of the Archfiend tearing up the last bits of FalconReach. However, the time torn off the titan had to go somewhere, so the Research and Development bureau sealed the essence within a stone; the Omega Timestone.

“Nobody knew what to do with such a large Timestone. It was too unwieldy for any conventional purpose, and it was too much of a hassle for any of the High Weavers to use effectively. Soon after, it was discovered to be powerful enough to warp dimensions with its massive strength.

“Several attempts have been made to break it down so it could actually be usable, but no attempts worked. The only thing that resulted from people trying to diminish its power was disappointment. It was inevitable that some villain would discover it and use it; so under the supervision of then-Head ChronoWeaver Solanis Ceibre, we moved it into the most remote location that we could think of: the Lorian Magma Core.”

“But sir! It’s not remote at all! Nearly every day, hundreds of people with Aeris PvP Battlespire memberships spar down at the magma core!” one student shouted.
Erosion just stared blankly at the apprentice who made the outburst for several minutes.

A small amount of time into the unannounced staring contest, another Weaver Scout entered the room to mercifully break the silence.

“Erosion, Clairce Louise.” The courier pulled a messenger bird out from her carrier sack and unravelled the letter tied to one of its legs.

“…couldn’t you guys just get the bird to fly to me this whole time?” Erosion asked.

Feeling embarrassed, Clairce explained that the janitors would flip out if they found out one of the messengers let a bird fly through the dusty corridors.

“What? You guys don’t use owls to transport your letters?” a bespectacled transfer student called out from the back.

“Owls delivering letters, what’s with that? What wizard school did you come from?!” another voice chimed in.

“I transferred here from Boarboils Institute of Magic And Wizards…” the first student replied.

“Boar boils! Isn’t that some kind of pig disease we should be alarmed about?” a third person enquired from the front of the room.

“A swine infection? Ha! We don’t need to worry about something like that for a few centuries!” a passing-by instructor answered. By then, the conversation was derailed so many times over; nobody really knew what was going on. He walked away sheepishly.

“Students! Try not to bother Clairce any further. Just… go study more on practical applications of ChronoWeaver technologies. We’re having a test on that in a few days’ time anyways.”

As Erosion lead Clairce out the room, there were groans and complaints (mostly aimed at the Boarboils transfer student) about how their bit of fun cost them their weekend.

“So what did the letter say?” Erosion finally asked, getting out of earshot of his students.

“Oscuras has discovered something quite disturbing. It turns out that the realm that Shadow discovered a while ago has been acting strangely again. He fears that something has escaped the portal once more. Regardless, he has asked for your attendance at the Magma Core entrance. Someone has shattered the protective barriers guarding the Omega Timestone.”

“Keh, and I was just talking about that thing with my students. There’s no way there can be a link between the two events.” Erosion muttered.

“There are no coincidences in the world.”

~~Same day, Lorian Magma Core Entrance~~

Oscuras and Shadow were standing at the entrance of the shattered gateway.

“We arrived as quickly as we could. What’s the situation?” Erosion called out from behind.

“The man from the other day has returned.” Oscuras said flatly. “We do not have specifics on how or why he broke into the Magma Core. We fear the worst.”
Shadow looked into the vault, seeing nothing. There were thunderous clangs happening from far below the surface. “I’m going in.”
With a leap, Shadow dropped into the empty magma chamber.

“Wait! We don’t know what’s going on down there! Wait up!” Vincent called after her. Seeing that she could not hear him, he sighed and followed suit.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” somebody’s laugh echoed around the large volcanic chamber. “So you thought you could stop me?!” Shadow looked for the source of the voice, and discovered that it was none other than the man from the castle ruins, Raynor. “So you’ve returned? You won’t be so lucky this time… Not when I control the Omega Timestone! Watch, as I take all its power for myself! AHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Jumping onto the large circular platform, Raynor slashed at the final barrier, splintering the obstacle and revealing the stone.

“It’s… it’s massive!” Vincent exclaimed. “What… how powerful can that thing be?”

“Our last fight was only a warm-up… this time, YOU’RE HISTORY!”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (3/30/2013 13:08:35)

Division

To put yourself before others is not selfish. To give priority to others before yourself is to not know the value of your own life.

Bounding onto the colossal Timestone, Raynor drew in its power to perform a summoning ritual. Three angry red circles materialized on the lava lake below them, and three golems leaped out of their volcanic prisons.

“Haaaaaah! My powers have amplified significantly!” Leaping atop the largest of the three monsters, the other two slipped out behind Shadow’s team.

Where are those two going…? Erosion thought to himself. “Wait a minute…! You fiend! Those two are headed for FalconReach!” Erosion leapt backwards, rushing to climb out of the chamber to stop the pair of golems. “I’ll be back once I stop the immediate threat!” he called back to Shadow and Vincent.

“And you think you can stop them? I shall reconstruct the landscape if I require! The secrets that you have hidden… the things your vile faction has taken from me… I’M TAKING IT ALL BACK!” Raynor made an uppercut motion and the golem followed suit, instantly destroying a pillar supporting the cavern. Immediately, sections of the ceiling started to cave in.

Vincent felt more and more unstable. “You’re insane! Even if you intend to keep us trapped in this chamber, you’re not safe from it, either! Your alignment to fire won’t save you!” he shouted back at the intruder.

Raynor stared impassively at Vincent’s emotions. “What made you think that I have fire-based powers? It may take a pyromancer to create lava golems, but you don’t need to turn your skull into charred cinders to control a few. I, Raynor Veritas Sanning, am a CLAY wizard!”

“…What? Then how…?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, fire is still displaced. One would be a fool to side with an element whose avatar could be so easily swayed. Now, practically anybody can manipulate fire elementals, even your own pitiful excuse for magical power could suffice.” The chill in his voice was palpable (even though he wasn’t sided with ice, either). “Yesss… keep wasting your time here! Your non-interference will allow my golems to cause less harm to the landscape...”

The thuds of rocks splashing into lava became a constant stream of mayhem.

~~Outside of the Magma Core Caldera, edge of FalconReach~~


Oscuras ran after Erosion, both with the goal of preventing Raynor’s machinations from coming to fruition.

The two lava golems slithered across the land, incinerating everything that they rumbled over. Luckily for Erosion, the two elementals were as slow as their components. Although a sizable portion of the forest was reduced to ashes, no irreversible damage was caused.

“Hmph. If they’re just advanced fire elementals, it’ll be a quick job for me.” As Erosion was chasing after the two shambling behemoths, several blue-green circles appeared around him. An updraft sent him hurtling through the air.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" he exclaimed. The circles surrounding him opened up, and bolts of ice shot out of them in rapid succession. As the condensed shards of arctic struck the two targets, patches of frost bloomed on the skins of the golems.

Suddenly stopping their advance, the two creatures turned around, flinging globs of lava in all directions. “It’s useless, hahahahahahaha!” Erosion declared to the world. While he was howling at the skies, frigid ice water gushed through his ChronoCircles, freezing the two magma golems in place. “No mere fiend of fire can possibly stop me! One touch of my power, and they fade away like the dying flames they are!”

Fires created by the two golems were quickly quelled by the flick of a finger, as a different set of ice pellets touched the licks of flame, freezing them into icy caricatures of what they were before.

Just as Erosion turned around to rush back to the magma cavity, there was an unpleasant groaning noise; the sound of ice being crushed under extreme pressure. He spun around. “...What? No! He... he couldn’t have! Damn it! I’ll—” the sound of hardened clay crashing down on the terrain was deafening.

~~Lorian Magma Core~~


Shadow jumped around the falling pillars of the cave. Though it would’ve been easy to use the Time Escaper ability to prevent the falling rocks, there was no telling just what Raynor would’ve done using the Timestone. She needed to make sure that he made no fast actions.

“Stay where you are!” a voice full of malice commanded. “It will be less painful if you just accept your fate! Die!” She dodged another blast of magma.

While it took a lot of concentration to evade the attacks of her enemy, Shadow was busy thinking. Wait. She thought to herself. Erosion doesn’t know that Raynor is a clay wizard. He still thinks that the golems are fully lava! Oh... that means that he’ll be in trouble after they freeze... “Vincent!” she called out to the Weaver Scout.

“Yes!” Vincent was running around in the other side of the cavern. Most of his effort was spent trying to dodge Raynor’s attacks when he turned around to attack him instead of Shadow.

Shadow explained what she was thinking by shouting over the sound of falling boulders. “He might die if that is how he finds out! Go! I can take this guy on!”

“Gotcha. I’ll be back when he quells the golems. Stay out of harm until I can return with the blizzard sorcerer.” Vincent nodded.

“Hah! You… you dare challenge me while alone? Remember how your so-called strength was so useless against my own powers. This time… I control a time-scarred golem. You think you can take me on, one on two?!”

“Nobody said it was one on two.” A rime of frost rimmed its way around the pillar that Shadow was standing on. There was a flash of blue light, and a beam of cerulean radiance shot out from under her. “I told Vincent to go to Erosion’s side rather than stay by mine because it was unsafe for him.” A calm and collected voice echoed. The constant splashing of rocks dropping into magma was nonentity compared to the chant of the summoning spell. “Seiryuu… enter this domain and lock this world in an icebound prison!”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (4/10/2013 18:12:06)

Icebound

Rot, return what was once dust to dust again. Things cannot live forever, so break them down, so they can be used again in the future.

~~Outside of the Magma Core Caldera, edge of FalconReach~~

Ice was strewn all over the ground, as if an ice age had suddenly overtaken all things in the land. Outside of the blast’s radius, everything was as normal as it could be in a spring that hesitated to make itself become summer. Inside the circular discharge, it was as cruel as a thousand blizzards.

Though it sparkled like a winter wonderland, there was nothing marvelous about what had happened. A thick sphere of ice was located at the center of the explosion, and it was connected to the ice sculpture of a golem. Another one of the ghastly boulders was positioned a far way off, still inside the circle of frost.

Vincent dashed over to the icy battlefield at a ridiculously high speed. The instant his feet started touching the ice, he lost his footing. Being unable to get up (the ice was on top of an already flat plains), Vincent just slided across the ice. He reached the frigid bubble, and tried to use it as a handhold so he could get up. When he placed his hand on the icy sphere, it began glowing with the intensity of a white-hot star.

Fragments of the shattered orb fell all around, making it possible for Vincent to get up. A figure stepped out of the splintered ice with a pant.

“Haaaaahhh...” Erosion stood up. What used to be sweat had long since frozen over to become lines of ice on his forehead. “That was close,” was all that he could say. “Had I not noticed that the golems were not constantly dripping lava, things would have been much worse for me.” Erosion brushed himself off, making sure that there were no more traces of frost clinging to his body.

“Amazing,” Vincent exclaimed, looking at the tundra-like expanse that now made up the plains. “So this is your power. It is more glorious than I could’ve ever imagined.” Although his intention was to look around aimlessly, he discovered that his sight had locked onto the golem that was frozen off far from the epicenter of the ice blast.

It was shaking ever so slightly.

The ice that locked its body shattered and its maw reverberated with the only kind of guttural noise that a being with no mind could make.

“Feh,” Was the only thing Erosion could say. “I thought I eliminated that one long before this one.” He looked around. “Or do you think that it’s up for a second serving of pain?” Erosion lifted his hand to aim his palm at the golem. “Enough. I’ve not nearly enough patience to put down creatures that don’t know when to stop.” Another updraft sent Erosion soaring.

“They say that when water gets into a crack in a stone and freezes, it will grow, larger and larger, until the rock splits apart. Even you simple rock elemental should be able to comprehend that. It’s a fact of existence, not some high-level concept.” Erosion landed on the golem’s chest area, and a white bolt of ice shot through the centerpiece. The monster froze over almost instantaneously, and toppled.

Vincent had finally snapped out of his bewilderment. “We need to return to the Core,” he said. “I heard a loud explosion coming from the Core when I came to find you; I worry for what has happened back there.”

~~Lorian Magma Core, same time~~


Ice-filled roars echoed around in the caverns. What was once fire had became ice, and the crumbling chamber became encased in a glacial prison. While the source of this new chaos was clear, its own form was impossible to discern. Shadow’s dragon might have been concealed from view, but the fear on Raynor’s face could not be hidden.

“This cannot be!” he shouted in ire. “You were powerless last time we battled! You cannot! There is no way that this can be—”

A blast of icy water shot down from the ceiling. When the water splashed against the molten floor, a chilling vapour streamed upwards, chilling the mount that Raynor was riding.

“No! No, no, NO!” Raynor roared in fury. He leapt off his crumbling monster and landed on the Omega Timestone. “I control the power that transcends all others! You cannot defeat me!” The stone glowed, and suddenly, the iced up Magma Core began to shake violently. Seven more of the infernals burst through the ice, only to be converted into statues almost instantly.

“Im… impossible! You who control nothing should stand no chance against my power, yet you swat my elementals away like gnats?!”

“We fear what we cannot see. It appears that you cannot comprehend what has just happened.” Shadow remarked coldly. “Even though you are closest to the Omega Timestone, remember that it has been in this Magma Core for a long time. Its energy has seeped through everywhere, so just standing on it and shouting makes no difference than if I were to do… this!” a handful of water droplets coalesced to become shards of ice.

“I’ve been saving this for a special occasion,” she continued. “What I have here is something quite special. I’ve had the Research & Development group create something that I can use to dispatch enemies of the society with ease.” There was a crystal of purple-blue ice floating in a capsule.
“This is Viral Frost. Whenever it comes into contact with water, it instantly freezes, turning everything into an icy cage. I believe that Cysero has a few weapons of a similar nature, but those were mere experiments. They contain a fraction of the power that is sealed inside this capsule.”
She flung the capsule of death at Raynor, and it shattered on contact.

But Raynor did not freeze up instantly. He did not freeze up at all. The only thing that Raynor was hit by during this moment was dust. It was a dust of aging.

A writhing maelstrom of darkness had captured the container, and disappeared.

“Hahahahahahahahaa! Excellent! I had intended for you all to separate in order for me to defeat you all more easily, but it could not have worked out any better!” A figure wrapped in a dark cloak stepped out of the cavern mouth from one wall. “You foolishly allowed that Scout to go after the other one, meaning nobody will ever know that you died, much less by my own hands!”

Both Shadow’s and Raynor’s eyes opened widely in disbelief. The man in the dark cloak was none other than Oscuras.

“You… you vile… what is the meaning of this, you traitor?!” Shadow shouted in rage.

“Reaper! Here is the Omega Timestone! Its power is incomprehensible! Finish this woman and give me what was promised to me!

"What?” Oscuras’ face was bunched up in feigned incredulity. “There was no deal. I removed you from a certain death, and before even thinking about the weight of my stipulations, you blindly accepted what I asked for! Your selfish wishes could never have been granted! Your self-centered desires will destroy the world!"

Raynor was furious. He had accepted the tasks Oscuras had given him as if fate itself had presented them to him, but he was no mere game pawn. “You tricked me! I labored to find the Omega Timestone! I was the one who infiltrated the Archives and destroyed all the information on Castle Kantniz! I am the one who was almost killed to fulfill your foolish plans! Now you try to kill your loyal subordinate, and that person?! I don’t care for your plotting anymore! If you want to exterminate me to further your scheme, you’ll have to slay me to do it!”

People say silly things in the heat of the moment, Shadow thought to herself. "…um, that’s what he’s planning to do; kill you? If he eliminates us to advance his plans, then he can't kill you again…?"

Raynor made a gurgling noise, but it was one of embarrassment, not sickness. "Eurgh... ...why are you doing this to me?"

“Enough!” Oscuras shouted. “My original plan ended with me letting you running away, after which I would declare a search for you, but never actually proceed to hunt you down.” He disappeared, and rematerialized on the Omega Timestone. The ground he was standing on began turning into dust. “Really, it’s rather unfortunate that you would come so far for me, and then refuse my last offer. Very well, I’m not foolish enough to send you back into the past where you can damage my plans, but I can lock you into the future!”

Reaching with a hand to grasp at Raynor’s throat, there was a shimmer of light. “Ugh... you... I’ll get you back for...” the light in Oscuras’s glowing palm became unbearable.

"We will not meet one another again." Was all that Raynor heard.



Raynor disappeared.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (4/25/2013 19:25:42)

Closing The World

Close your eyes, because it's the only way to not see the evil I have done to you.

Shadow wondered when Oscuras changed from the kind person he was into this monstrosity. “You won’t get away with this,” Shadow said coldly. “He’ll be back. You won’t be able to hide this from the Society forever.”

“Hah! Who do you really thing that the denizens of the society will believe more, me, or some underling that barely knows the taste of battle? Which person in the Weaver Society could possibly refute and stand up against my plans? Do you really thing Erosion and that little scout of yours can turn the world against me? You’re alone right now. There is nothing you can do to stand against me. You’ve seen how easily I banished Raynor. I’m in a completely different league than you and your little allies.” Oscuras stepped off the Timestone, and there was another flash of light as his hand clasped down on Shadow’s neck.

A frigid wind blew through the already glacial cavern. Bolts of ice shot out at the spot where Oscuras was standing. He was not there to take the attack. Shadow looked behind herself while clutching at her neck, and found Erosion and Vincent stepping into the grotto from the cavern entrance.

“Hmph. We’re not some bright-eyed children that you can deceive and then leave behind. We will expose your vile plans, Oscuras!” There was no wavering in Erosion’s voice. “We will stop you, Even if we have to sacrifice ourselves to achieve it!”

“Haah… hah hah… if that’s your wish, then I’ll reduce you to dust! You’ll be banished, just like Raynor!” Oscuras cackled. "He was a fool, and if you want to follow in his footsteps, I'll send you away, right away! Ahahahahaha"

“Why?” Shadow asked softly. “Raynor thought of you as a savior, only for you to banish him into the future?”

“People like him are the reason why this campaign of mine exists. People like him, who are offered the slightest kindness, go and take it too far. When their benefactor decides to cut them off, they grow furious at their sponsor, then move on to do something dangerous! It’s ridiculous. I’m going to prevent this kind of nonsense.

“I might as well tell you what I’m preparing for, since we’ll never meet again. Look at Sepulchure’s five-year project. Look at the Mysterious Stranger’s millennia-long mission. Look at Wargoth. Even the Rose. All of those people and organizations have caused immense amounts of trouble for everybody. It might’ve appeared easy for the ordinaries, but after the heroes defeat the evil, we are the ones at the end who have to clean up afterwards. Everybody causes too many problems for everybody. That’s what I’ve been preparing for, what I was fighting against, this entire time. Now that I’m armed with the Timestone, I can finally make that a reality.

“The Rose was arrogant. Did they really think they could destroy the Mana Core? For one thing, it would only amplify the strength of those aware of it, and second, it’s unbreakable. Even the avatars are unable to even damage it.

“True, it’s unbreakable, but that also works to my advantage. I am going to control the core! Never again will this useless fighting occur! It’s all about equality. This world would finally be at peace. Isn’t that what we’ve all been fighting for?” Though his ambition was contemptible, there was no denying that

“But this is wrong. What’s the point of achieving freedom from strife if it’s artificial?” Shadow exclaimed. “If this peace is created from you controlling everybody’s minds, then it’s wasted!”

“We must hold no measures to keep the peace. That fool might’ve been thoughtless enough to ask for my help, but Raynor’s desire to get back what had taken from him by the regime has brought me right to the stone. Ah ha ha haaaah!”

“You can’t keep on doing this indefinitely.” Erosion remarked from the back. “Now then, I don’t really care whether your silly objective is ethical or not; I’m looking at it from a viability perspective. Your goal is so insane; the only person crazy enough to follow it would be you yourself. People simply don’t live forever. Your oppression will end the second your dying breath leaves your body.”

Oscuras breathed one word, and Erosion’s eyes widened. “Wrong,” he sneered. “Oh come on, don’t look so surprised. You’re a Weaver Society Scholar. I can’t believe you have no understanding of Timestone utility.

“A long time ago, the Timestones were created by individual Chronoweavers who knew there was not enough time in the world. The original creations granted their users extra lifespan, giving them more time to use from themselves, but not necessarily extra time.”
Oscuras’s form withered, as skin loosened on shriveled limbs. “As the science began expanding rapidly, more and more efficient Timestones were developed, until using the Escaper ability while using the stones could turn one second into several. Expanding on this, Weavers began slowly developing their powers, eventually converting a tiny amount of time into a massive quantity.” Oscuras threw a stone at the ceiling, where it was stuck mid-air. “Even though I can make it appear frozen, give it a century, a millennia, an immeasurable amount of time, and it will eventually come back to me.

“Soon afterwards, the original lifespan-extending ones were banned from production, since it is clear that somebody would be able to exploit the older stones by using their own powers.” Oscuras grinned with malevolence.

“Are you implying that you are the only person capable of pulling off this amalgamation of coincidences?” came an inquisitive response.

“I am implying nothing. It is plainly the truth. As it turns out, the power of decay works hand in hand with this. It has not been a long time; remember back to what has happened a few days ago. The power that I had taken from the barrier had to go somewhere, and I was the most suitable outlet at the time. You may not have noticed, but I was healthier after I shattered the rampart. I had turned the time that made up the barricade into my own.

Shadow threw an enchanted blade at Oscuras, who caught it before it could touch him.

“That’s enough. I haven’t the patience to deal with you insignificant souls any further. Time may be on my side, but it’s still of the essence. You know too much. I am going to destroy you all.”

He vanished. Shadow felt the same sensation as when Raynor used that trick. It was the stark acknowledgement that their assailant could defeat them all at once, but was merely looking for the best method of doing so. She gave a nod to Vincent, who understood what she meant immediately.

Vincent started radiating an intense white light. Just as his spot of light was about to reach Erosion, a darkness-swathed hand wrapped itself around his leg. “It’s over, tachyon boy. Your ability... seems most dangerous to me.” Although his voice was composed, there was no mistaking the agitation in his voice. “Even if it will cause no large reaction, you’ll be able to plant seeds of doubt into people’s minds, and I can’t have that.”

Even though there was a glowing palm clasped around his neck, Vincent did nothing but observe. He looked around for the signal, and he saw a figure nod behind Oscuras.
There was no panic in Vincent’s voice as he delivered the news. He whispered. “It’s not so good to be so focused on one thing.”

Oscuras didn’t hear the sound of energy surging behind him. Frantic, he looked down at his feet. There was a blue circle, flaring intensely. A beam of white ice shot out of the circle, trapping his limbs and body. Shadow appeared before him, and took out a second capsule. “I didn’t think that you would destroy the first one. Whatever, it’s a good thing I prepared enough for an arsenal.” She held the container in one hand, and flicked it at her former director with her other.
“Ugh! You...” A circle of ice completely enveloped Oscuras’s body.

Erosion stepped out from behind the ice pillar, breathless. “That was close. If I was not careful, we would not still be standing here. It was a good thing that you had the guts to make that kind of a bluff. A moment sooner or later, and one of us would not be standing here alive.”


He turned towards the entrance. “The ice that encases him is the creation of several different aspects. It should be a long time before even someone of his caliber can escape. I didn’t think that that would stop—”

“—would stop me?!” A voice that echoed in their minds interrupted them. Erosion didn’t need to pick up where he left off.
The viral frost that they believed would imprison Oscuras for eternities lasted only a second. “Hmph. You as a skeptic, you of all people, should know that it is still too early to believe. Forget it. It’s pointless to drag this out any longer. I have all the time I want in my hands, but you’ve already wasted plenty. Die.”

Tendrils of darkness leached out from below him. What was once ice that was once magma had become reduced to nothing other than darkness. “Glub!” a muffled voice shouted. At the spot where Erosion was previously standing, there was nothing but empty space.

Vincent looked around, and he too plunged into a dark void.

“It’s over. You three may still believe you have the slightest chance at defeating me, but it’s useless. People needn’t concern themselves with fights that are impossible for them to win.” Oscuras reappeared behind Shadow, and gave one last insult to injury. “But don’t worry. I can wait for you three to improve. It’s not like my time is limited. Hahahahahahahaha!”




Shadow’s sight faded to black.


And the world closed behind her.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (5/15/2013 22:21:42)

Relight

I cannot heal all others in the world, so I must protect the ones who've been harmed because of me.

~~Unknown location, unknown time. ~~

How long has it been? A voice murmured in the darkness. Where am I? The voice grew frantic, as if it had something important to take part in. Oh no… I hope we haven’t been distanced too far between each other… Wait. Am I even alive?

The whispering stopped, as if the owner of the voice was looking around at the disembodied silence. It was cold, but it was not the cold of ice.

Nor was it the coldness of death.

I…

I am alive.

Shadow opened her eyes, and the world returned to her in a bright flash of light.

“Ah. So you’ve finally awoken,” a voice whispered. It was the cold, calculating voice of a scientist, but not one that she knew. “I was wondering when you would regain consciousness.”

“Where… where am I,” Shadow whinged. The laboratory looked several decades ahead of the technology they had. The machines in the room were magical, unimaginable, indescribable, but most of all, extremely advanced. Their power sources were not coal, nor steam. Her next guess would’ve been mana, but she doubted her judgment because of what had recently happened.

The scientist looked at her as if she was a medical oddity. “You… you’re not of this time, are you?”

Shadow was tentative. She knew that this man was a scientist, but she knew next to nothing else about this world. If he was on the side of the enemy, it would be foolish to reveal where she had come from. “I… I do not remember.” She said, hoping that the man would not make a big deal about it.

“Ha ha ha. Your journey here must’ve damaged your memory.” It was the laugh that a parent would use when listening to their child’s idea.
“You are hesitant; hesitant to answer because I might be an enemy. You have nothing to fear; I am not your enemy, at least, not for now. Go ahead, ask away. If I was an enemy, I wouldn’t offer the opportunity to have any question within my power to be answered.”

Shadow felt a bit more confident with that. “Who are you and where am I?” she asked.

“My name is Helios. I am one of the researchers here at the Energy Grid Labs.” Shadow relaxed a little. An enemy wouldn’t be so kind as to give an important piece of information such as their affiliation so nonchalantly. “Our location is deep underground frigid tundra. This is one of the few places where we as people are still able to survive.” Helios opened what appeared to be a pressure-fortified skylight, and the blinding light of endless arctic flooded the room. Luckily, the porthole was strong enough to prevent the arctic itself from flowing into the room.

“Officially, we are workers employed by the Dark Emperor to use both magic and science to stop the Rebel Legion. Technological developments created in the Grid are sent all over what’s left of the world to use in battle. The funds that we scientists receive in exchange are used to create more weaponry for the rebel army.”

The next sentence Helios uttered made Shadow certain that he was not an enemy, but more so uncertain of his intentions. “But we are not just puppets being used by that shadowed ruler.” Helios pressed a button, and a formerly seamless wall divided up into an enormous arsenal of half-magical, half-scientific weapons. “More than half the weapons we actually develop into a usable state are secretly sent to the Rebels. The Emperor’s troops usually get the flashier weapons, but it is only the radicals who can cause major harm in this war.”

“We are revolutionaries!” He declared. “Our enemy is the Dark Emperor, and the goal of every person in the Grid is to destroy him!”

“Now now, I’ve just recovered from being unconscious, and you’re telling me that you want me to join your rebel army?!” It might not have been unreasonable to expect compensation for having to deal with a comatose body, but Shadow was definitely not going to dive right into something massive that she wasn’t involved with.

Helios did nothing but smile. “Relax,” he said in a tone that was far from assuring. “I’m not forcing you to do anything, but if I was, I’m sure I have some information that would make you instantly join my – our – campaign.”

Shadow flinched. Either he knows something about me or something useful for me. She thought to herself. I can’t really risk either of the two possibilities. “I… I’ll join your fight, if you can tell me what’s going on.” She finally said.

“Excellent.” Helios flashed a smile. This is definitely big. Shadow thought to herself. What could he possibly know that I don’t? Other than, well, where I am, what these Rebels are doing, and a lot else, but that’s not the point!

“We are not such ignorant fools to not know where we stand. You do remember what you were up to, before you regained consciousness in this lab, didn’t you?” Shadow nodded cautiously.

“Yes…” Shadow murmured. “I… I was in a battle. There was a man… he banished me to this time…”

“Ah! So you are likely linked to the founder of our movement.”

Something fishy was going on. For Shadow, the journey had only taken a few minutes. How could it be possible that she was linked to the Rebel Army’s methodology?
Oscuras certainly wasn’t the person responsible for this faction, so it had to be… “It’s not possible! I had only blacked out for a few minutes! The drifting… the colors… I know nobody who could be leading a group to overthrow a tyrant! For that matter, a tyrant doesn’t exist in my time!” Shadow wanted to suppress it, but both
she and Helios knew what this meant. Of course. There was no other plausible answer.

“You have not, in fact, been moved to a hospital ward.” That much was obvious. Shadow didn’t need a stranger to tell her what she already knew. “It appears that Oscuras’s plan was to send you so far into the future, that it would be for you to communicate with the leaders here, let alone get back to your time.”

How did he know who Oscuras was? Was the only thought racing through Shadow’s rattled mind.

“You probably predict that you have… surfaced merely twenty or seventy years from when you belong.”

Seventy?! “That’s insane!” Shadow found herself without control of her voice. He said ‘a mere seventy years’. What does that mean for this place, how much longer can it possibly be?! “You offered to answer where I was, and who you are. You haven’t yet told me when I am.”

“Ha ha… I thought you’d never ask.” Helios flashed a grin of omnipotence, and the associated emotions of ‘I know something that you don’t’. “Judging from your reaction to our leader, as well as the information that you have absorbed from this conversation, it would be safe to say… you are somewhere around six hundred years from when you originally were!”

Six hundred. The thought was unbelievable.

“That cannot be possible! If I was to have moved six hundred years into the future, why did it only take an instant?! Why does this world exist the way that it is?!” she could not be more surprised. It was big enough of a shock to discover that she had been sent to a different time, but to find out that he was leading this group of rebels? It was too much information in too little time. “When can I see them again? I feel horrible for getting them involved, I need to return to that time!”

“I’m sorry.”

What?

There was no need for words during this time. Helios immediately knew what Shadow meant. “It’s unfortunate, but we simply don’t have the supplies to send a person several centuries back in time.”

So then it was useless. Shadow let out a cry of anguish. It wasn’t the sound of disappointment; it wasn’t even the noise of a great tragedy befalling somebody who thought they were in the clear. This particular cry of torment could only be expressed by the mouth broadcasting the sound of the mind caving in on itself. “No! No no no no! Stop this! Stop it all! End this! End all of it!”

Despite this dishevelled chaos, Helios remained calm. “Shut up.”

Shadow took her hands off her eyes to see five swords of blazing firelight surrounding her. “Enough of this farce. I didn’t wake you up to see you tear up my lab. If you’re done crying, it’s time to start acting. If you want to go back, you have to work for it. ”

"The rebel army may still be strong right now, but what we need is resources. Not only has recent retaliations commenced by the government crippled our resource flow, but we are lacking in trained troops. I will teach you all that you need to know another day. Right now, I can show you what your comrade Erosion left for you.” Shadow knew that it was not the best trade for her, but her chances were better with Helios than anybody else in this frozen netherworld.

Helios pressed his hand against a panel, and a locked door opened to reveal flight of stairs leading downwards. “Get up. I’m sure he… has quite a few words for you.”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (6/10/2013 21:28:49)

Presence of the Past

People are simple. Always believing that they cannot die, cannot grow old and sick. Deceiving themselves that they are the smartest, strongest creatures in existence. Never grasping the fact that time stops for nobody, and even the strongest of men will return to the dust that they once were.

~~Energy Grid Labs sub-floors, a few minutes later. ~~

The constant hissing of steam no longer surprised Shadow. Nothing could change anything anymore.

Irritated by the silence, Helios gave a half-hearted “Cheer up”, as if trying to pretend that a phrase that simple could solve things. “Since it was transcribed with the phrase ‘not to be read by anybody who does not know of the conspiracy’, even very few of the higher-ups have seen what you’re about to see.”

Their descent to the Energy Grid Lab’s subfloor was brought to an end. “We’ve arrived.” Another of locked doors opened themselves, and so Shadow stepped into this new room, blinded by artificial light emanating from monitors on all sides of the otherwise dark space.

Helios flipped a switch, and every light other than one circle in the middle of the room dimmed.

There was an audible dissonant static. Shadow winced out of not hearing anything loud for a significant amount of time; six hundred years, apparently. “*bzzzztttt* Sh…Shadow, can you h-h-h-h-hear me?” There was no doubt to which person the voice belonged to. “After our defeat… I couldn’t find your whereabouts. I assume that means y-y-y-y-you were banished to the future…” There
was more static, and then the blurry mess of image fragments coalesced to form one coherent picture of Shadow’s ally.

“Vincent has switched allegiances. After we tried to recover from our losses, he was approached by the forces of darkness. They convinced him that their methods were better than anything we could possibly think of. He is no longer on our side. Roughly t-t-t-t-t-t-two days from this recording, my squadron and I will stage another attack on Oscuras’s domain. He can’t have transported the Omega Timestone very far, so we plan to intercept him to recapture the stone.” The representation of Erosion fished something out of his pocket, and motioned as if to have a viewer closely examine just what it was.

“Remember the viral frost capsules you brought during your fight against Raynor? I managed to create more of them to use during the final battle. They're also a lot more potent than the ones you made, so should I fail in my mission, it can be expected for a whole bunch of disasters to happen and whatnot.”

Shadow spun around and stared through a window. Outside the metallic bunker, everything was the same frigid tundra. Shadow had a bad feeling that Erosion was somehow involved with the whole “frozen wasteland surrounded by strife” thing.

The voice started up again. “Should I fail, I will make it impossible for Oscuras to recover anything. All the time that he has spent planning for his takeover of the Mana Core will come crashing down on him.”

It’s not true. It will not happen. He cannot defeat him. He did not defeat him. Shadow knew that it did not happen, because that tyrant was clearly still in power.

The transmission ended, and the memorandum crumpled back into its projection stone.

Shadow came to a realization. “So... all of this was caused by him. He was why this barren tundra even exists!” Anger began to consume her mind. “Argh! Why why WHY WHY!”

She wanted to rebuke Erosion for going off and doing something so rash.

She detested Vincent for changing allegiances so easily.

She hated him for leaving Erosion to do everything by himself.

She despised Oscuras for believing he could put an end to all conflict with his plan.

She abhorred him for what he had done to the three of them.

She loathed him for banishing her into the future, believing that could stop her.

But most of all, with a white-hot hatred that trivialized all else, she hated herself and her mistakes.

“Agh! That explains everything! How could I be so blind?!” Shadow coughed. An opaque dark fluid splattered on the floor, and she collapsed, and the shouting ended.

“Excellent. You’ve finally began to calm down.” So that was why you didn’t stop me. Shadow thought to herself. “It would have been unwise if I tried to restrain you while you were seized by rage. It was so much more convenient for everybody that I waited for your own body to tell you to stop instead.”

Well, it made sense in a bizarre sort of way. When people have been taken over by hatred, it was next to impossible to stop them.

“So where do I go from here?” Shadow asked, wiping a dark stain from the corner of her mouth. “I’m trapped six hundred years ahead of my time, and I have no way of getting back.


It took only two syllables to get Shadow out of her slump. “You do.”

“How? It took the strongest man in the Weaver Society to send me forward here, what can your group of scientists do to send me back?”

“I really don’t like to repeat myself,” Helios gave a melodramatic sigh of exasperation. “I already told you. Officially, we are scientists. In reality, we are rebels. Do you not believe that we have plans on how to take down the Dark Emperor, rather than just talk about it aimlessly?” It appeared that he was irate from Shadow’s derision. “The plan is for us to return to the moment that Oscuras became the Dark Emperor, and stop him from creating... well, whatever we have now.”

“I thought you said you didn’t have the resources necessary to send a person back several hundred years in time.” She caught him there. It was either a lie, or something that Helios didn’t want Shadow to know.

“My apologies. What I meant to say was that we didn’t have the resources necessary to send several people back several hundred years in time yet.”

And then there was hope.

“But.”

Then along came a condition.

“The Dark Emperor has many treasures locked away in his vaults. A large number of those are magical items we could use against him. Most of the vaults are heavily guarded, but in one of them, a massive orb of enormous power is hidden away, capable of fulfilling our goals. Our strategists were tearing their hair out at the prospect of finding some way to infiltrate those catacombs to get to the weapons, but now you have arrived.”

So that was the price.

“So you’re asking me to risk my life in order to return to my life?” Shadow asked the question indignantly, but she already resigned herself to the answer.

“I’m letting you choose between your future and this future. To me, your answer has no real meaning. It’s up to you how you wish to spend the rest of your life.” Helios closed flicked another switch, and an absence of light seeped into the room. “We only have a few things left to do. Please make yourself useful during those times. Otherwise, you may use our facilities in the period of meantime.”

Helios stepped out of the room, and turned around to make one last remark. “Do keep in mind, should we fail, you will be trapped in this timeline forever.” He walked off, inevitably to contact his associates about their newfound ally.

Though Helios left the door open, Shadow could only see trouble approaching her from every direction. The only way for her to return to her own timeline was if she chose to fight alongside the rebel army, but in doing so, there was also a massive risk that she would not be able to return anywhere at all. On the other hand, if she decided to work it out on her own, there would be a significantly lower chance of her succeeding in her goals.

Clenching her fist, Shadow steeled her resolve.

Picking up the projection stone, she muttered to herself. “I’m coming for you, Oscuras, and you’re going to pay for what you’ve done; to me, to Erosion, to Vincent, to everyone.”
In order not to leave any evidence, Shadow crushed the stone in her palm, and it shattered into countless shards of mana.

She was briefly reminded about the way her own life has fragmented by the one person everybody looked up to.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (7/8/2013 21:54:40)

Every Stone has a Story

The outcome of my actions justify my methods.

~~ Energy Grid Labs, Summit Spire. Legion Operations Room ~~


“Our preparations are complete. The only thing we are waiting for is that damned experiment of yours,” a man sneered, tauntingly. “You know we don’t like waiting, Helios. For somebody who acts all high and mighty, you sure are slow at completing tasks.”

“Oh come, now. You know as well as I do that this simply isn’t something you can rush.” Helios replied to the darkness. “If you prefer, I can let you take the reins and run this entire operation aground. Wouldn’t you like that, ‘Rumble Boy’?”

“Sh-shut up!” ‘Rumble Boy’ grew flustered. “I’ll crush you where you stand, Candle Head!”

“Is that a challenge?” Helios posed the question calmly. The room suddenly became silent. “You know that my powers are far superior to your own. You can’t even scuff me at your current level.”

“Both of you, stop fighting. Cut it out or I’ll atomize you both.” Both Helios and the other Legion member froze. It appeared that this third person had power over them both. “Helios, I approve of your plan and I shall grant you one month. If this succeeds, you will receive glory, but if you fail… you already know what happens when you waste our time.”

“Excellent plan, sir.” Helios gave a bow, and dashed out of the chamber to deliver the mission.


Helios found Shadow in the lab room that they first found her in. “I know it may have been a week since we last talked, but as of now, my higher-ups have an assignment for you. I assume you’ve familiarized yourself with our surroundings, yes?”

Shadow nodded, not knowing what task they could possibly ask of her to accomplish.

“Yesterday, research discovered a deposit of Ice-Ten in a nearby ice cavern. I’m sure you’re informed about what Ice-Ten is.”

Shadow knew that Ice-Ten was the substance that R&D used to create the Viral Frost capsules that she had used against Raynor and Oscuras. There was no mystery as to what Helios was planning to do with it. “Why me? You should full-well know just how dangerous Viral Frost is, don’t you?”

“We know exactly how dangerous it is, and because of that, we have taken special precautions.”

“…like using an outsider to do it for you?” irritated, Shadow responded with mild hostility.

“Now now,” Helios explained patiently. “We’re letting you handle this one because you have experience handling the substance in the past. We’re not like the Dark Emperor; we’d prefer having somebody knowledgeable handle this rather than have a group of people go to bungle it up. I’m sure you understand.”

“…fine, I’ll do it.” Shadow said after a few minutes of internal debate. As she turned around, intending to find some equipment to ward off the biting cold of the outside, Helios handed her a synthetic bag. “Inside that, you’ll find cold weather gear as well as containers to hold Ice-Ten. Try to return with five filled capsules.”

~~ Ice Caverns, unknown location~~


Though it wasn’t particularly surprising to Shadow that there would be monsters lurking within the ice cavern, she did not anticipate that they were much stronger than she herself was. It appeared that golems were beginning to crawl out of the depths, and Shadow was taken by surprise and overwhelmed.

Agh! She thought to herself. I’m still drained from appearing in this time. I’ve got to finish this quickly. Brandishing a staff from the bag Helios gave her, Shadow realized that she could use it to amplify magical power. Wielding it, Shadow was able to melt the golems coming towards her with little difficulty, but more and more of them were coming towards her.

“You’re not going to get very far just melting them one by one, will you?” echoed a voice from near the opening of the cave.

Suddenly, many of the golems sunk to their knees and fell upwards, pinned to the ceiling of the cave. A man wrapped in an Energy Grid Lab Cloak walked in from the direction of the voice, walking so heavily icicles were knocked from the roof of the cavern.

“You… what did you just do?” Shadow called out to the figure.

The man paused briefly, and chuckled.
“I just made them fall up,” he stated in a tone that the answer was obvious.

“…You can’t just saw something like that and assume that your answer was easily understandable!” It was a confusing conversation to Shadow. “You can’t make things fall upwards, that contradicts the laws of gravity!”

“Not for someone who rules over gravity.” As he walked closer, Shadow saw stones and pieces of ice trail behind him, like pieces of metal attracted to a strong magnet. “My name is Quake. I, like Helios and the others, am a member of the Energy Grid, as well as the Legion.” He flashed a badge, as if intending to use that as proof of his allegiance.

Shadow rose to her feet, and looked around. “So if you’re here, then Helios must’ve…”

“Yes,” Quake replied flatly. “I’ve been given all the details by Candle Head, and so I’m here to help you retrieve the Ice-Ten.”


Nodding in understanding, Shadow cupped her ear to a wall and listened for the sound of rushing water.

Kneeling, she took the capsules out of the bag. “Okay. He told me that the Ice-Ten was found in a glacial river flowing beneath the cave. It should be right below this place.”


Gripping the staff that she received from Helios, Shadow stabbed the pointed end into a corner of the cave and channeled magical energy through it. In a few minutes, there was an opening large enough for people to crawl through.

As Shadow had predicted, there was a luminescent floe of ice flowing deep beneath the ground.


Stepping near the “riverbank”, Shadow peered into the flowing ice and saw the familiar purplish-blue tinge of Ice-Ten stain the bottom of the embankment.

“Since glaciers flow fairly slowly, you can probably dip the capsules right into the ice and get to the deposit,” Quake called out from behind her. “Watch out though, you’re probably very aware of what that stuff can do to a person.”

Doing just as he described, Shadow took out a pair of gloves made specifically for the occasion, collected the Ice-Ten residue into the capsules, and sealed them.

Shadow put her weapons and equipment away after motioning to Quake that she was going to leave.

As Shadow was about to head back to the Energy Grid, Quake bumped into her from behind, forcing her to reach out with her hands in order to break a fall. Catching herself on a side of the cave, Shadow felt her hand brush up against something far colder than the rest of the stony walls. In an instant, Shadow’s arm was encased in a thick layer of Ice-Ten.

Quake laughed out of surprise. “Well, oops! I told you that stuff was dangerous! Now then, do you know how to get yourself out of this, or should I give you a hint?”

The Ice-Ten crawled across her shoulder. “I don’t have time for joking around!”

“Oh come now, you’re aligned with Ice. It shouldn’t be too difficult for you to get out of this by yourself.”

It felt as if it was freezing and crushing her arm from the inside out.

"Just tell me what I need to do!” The irritation in her voice was beginning to go past the tolerance point. “It’s been a stressful time for me, but if you want to be a part of it, I can have that arranged!”

Quake nodded. “Okay, to unfreeze yourself, you just need to do what this cave did. Heat up, and force the Ice-Ten out with regular ice magic. It’s a lot deadlier, but it’s not exactly colder.”


Shadow calmed down and took the advice. Taking the staff out again, she cast a simple fire spell to thaw the frozen arm, then a medium-complexity ice spell to keep the Ice-Ten from touching her skin. Wiggling her fingers and rubbing her shoulder, Shadow could barely believe what she had just managed. “…How did you know that would happen?” she asked.


Quake gave a knowing sigh, and pulled a thin book out of a side pocket. Flipping to the back, he read out what appeared to be a first-hand recount of a previous Energy Grid researcher’s notes.
“Though it’s far more potent than regular elemental ice, Ice-Ten melts more easily than regular ice. This means that if there is regular ice already in place, the Ice-Ten cannot freeze over it. This very reason is why the Grid is not that afraid of engineering weapons with Ice-Ten, since it could never spread outside of one lab or two. Anyway, since the Ice-Ten in this cavern did not originate here, it means someone brought it in. As demonstrated by the traces of Ice-Ten running along the walls, it can be deduced that this entire passageway was at one time filled with Ice-Ten. A sudden increase in temperature followed by true ice flowing into the cave is likely the answer to what we have seen here today.”

“So that means… I did this…?”

Quake could hardly contain his amusement. “It appears that destruction follows you wherever you go! Are you sure you’re not some patron saint of misfortune?”

"I'm not like you revenge-obsessed warmongers! This entire time, I've been this way and that way by people who I believed I should look up to! What can you who know nothing but war understand that pain?!"

Quake's smile slowly faded to apology. "Of course we can understand what you've gone through. It is the same reason that has caused our leader to form the Legion. Earlier in history, we too were betrayed by the man now known as the Dark Emperor. Some of our less ethical experiments were leaked to the public, and we were met with a massive uproar of outrage. We were cast away and treated as criminals, our experiments and technology seized in the name of "justice". Needless to say, the person responsible for this was he. The Grid was backstabbed by one whom we considered our own. We had to hide in the shadows, never letting the ignorant surface see us when we were shattered by the conspirator. Now, we have returned, it is our turn to fight back."

It was at this moment that Shadow had seen Quake's true face. The members of the Legion were not anonymous emotions seeking destruction. "...Tell..." Shadow mumbled.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that..."

"Tell me more. It was wrong to assume you all were just members of a faceless rebel army hell-bent on toppling the throne. You each have your own story to tell about how you reached your place."

Quake was content to see that Shadow had seen past the shells that Helios had made her see. "Perhaps another time. We should head back; Helios will be angry at us if we delay his elaborate plans for the invasion."



"Oh, that won't be necessary." A familiar voice greeted them from outside the cavern.

“…You. What are you doing here?” Shadow asked him.

“Don’t be so cold, I have been ordered to drive you far away from the Energy Grid Labs and take the Ice-Ten from you,” Helios replied, voice full of malevolence.

“…Hey!” Shadow exclaimed. “Didn’t you say that I could stay as long as I was useful to the cause?”

“…Oh dear, was that what I told you?” Helios asked in feigned surprise. “I really don’t know how to explain what my superiors told me in a way you’ll take well.” Holding out his arm in a grasping motion, a brilliant blade of fire swept across his outstretched palm. Gripping the blade of fire, Helios rushed at Shadow, smirking. “No hard feelings, I’m only following orders.”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (7/22/2013 8:12:23)

All your Powers Combined

When everyone is depending on you, what choice do you have but to battle on?

“...What?! This is... this is insane!” a voice shouted furiously to the darkness. “How can you suggest I do that to a guest? Are you not worried about the consequences, should this gamble fail?”

“It’s not like you to be so kind, I wonder what has happened?” Quake smirked. “I thought you were a man with a heart of stone, are you not? Or, has your little experiment grown on you, do you suddenly attached, do you feel like you're responsible for her?”

“I don’t have a brain of stone like you do,” Helios retorted. “Unlike you, I consider the negative effects that a stunt like this can have. If her growth does not reach the expected level by the end of this, it’ll be highly likely that she will die.”

“Hmph,” it was the third voice again, the one who was never named, yet had the most pull in the group. “If you believe in this Shadow, then you will end this today. If she lives, then we can consider her a member of our cause. If not, then she probably didn’t have it in her in the first place. Is that understood?”

He sighed. “I’m really being pushed into a corner by you guys, would it kill you to give me some help instead of deriding my ideas?”

“If we the collective didn’t believe that you would be able to pull this off, you would not be breathing now, upstart. Just get the deed done, our invasion can wait no longer.”

“And don’t go easy on her, either,” Quake added. “The path that we’re trying to forge isn’t one that can be walked by restraint and indecision.”


“He who hesitates is lost! Stand your ground and fight!!” Helios roared. Swinging suddenly, Shadow mustered all the strength she could to move out of the way.

Tumbling into a snowbank, Shadow could only stare at the destruction that the scientist was capable of.

There was a deep gash in the ice, carving a massive gash into the side of the mountain.

Standing up straight to prepare to strike again, he charged at her once more.

Dismayed at his sudden change of heart, Shadow knew that she would have to fight. Thinking about what Helios had just done, she held her hand out to see if she had the same power.

Nothing happened.

Cursing softly, Shadow could do nothing but run as Helios slowly converted the mountainside to rubble.

With no other options, Shadow made as much effort as she could to keep dodging Helio’s swings. Ducking, jumping, moving backwards, Shadow managed to keep just out of his reach.

Slowly, Shadow’s energy began to fade from her body. She had only accumulated scratches after the first few minutes, but she was quickly running out of breath.

“What are you running for?! I'm respecting you as an opponent, yet you can only show me your back!” he taunted.

Helios made a sudden lunge and sliced Shadow’s arm, sending droplets of blood spatter on the white snow and forcing Shadow down on her knee.

I have no choice.

Rising to her feet again, when Shadow raised her arm with the intent to fire bolts of ice at Helios using her ChronoCircles, a large pile of icy snow rose and splattered Helios’s cloak. “What… when did I…?”


“Excellent!” Helios bellowed, wiping the frigid snow from his armor. “It wouldn’t be fair if I was the only one to use my secondary power!”

Secondary power? So that must mean manipulating fire into weapons is not the power he was originally given...!

Gathering the strength to get up one more time, Shadow leapt out of the way of the next attack.

Wait! He mentioned that I was using my secondary power, too! But what does that mean, was I not meant to have power over ice and water?

Using much of her rapidly dwindling energy, Shadow tried to find Quake. Since he seemed to be Helios’s equal, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that he knew how to get out of this mess.

It was useless to hope that Helios would lose sight of her, so she could only gamble on one of them showing up faster than the other. “Quake!” she shouted. Thinking quickly, she cast a few delayed ChronoCircles, with the idea that she would be able to catch Helios off-guard if she was in hiding. The sound of footsteps gradually became louder, so Shadow mentally prepared herself in order to land the final blow.

She saw a glimpse of Quake’s visage, but it was already too late, her attack was going to harm him instead! Noticing the glowing ice, Quake reached out with his hand, as if to catch it before impact.

His power kicked in, and Quake was able to easily divert the enchanted ice. He used his free hand to blow an entrance into a nearby cave in an attempt to camouflage them to Helios.

Staring at him blankly, Shadow assumed that he would try to strike back at her when he shoved his hands in his pockets and murmured just loudly enough for Shadow to hear over the howling wind. “I know what you’re thinking, and I can tell you right now that you’ve got it all wrong.”

“If you know what I’m thinking, then don’t try to stop me! I’ll knock Helios back to his senses; back to the person I met when I first arrived here!”
Quake unceremoniously walked up to Shadow, and gave her a shove. “I’m telling you, at your current level with your current skills, you couldn’t hope to beat Helios in a thousand years! It’s futile to even try.”

Shadow was about to get up and slug him back, when she quickly realized that he was being deadly serious. She grew solemn. “You said that I wouldn’t be able to win at my current level. Then tell me what I need to do to defeat him. I’m running out of energy now, and unless you show me something quickly, it’s going to be the end for me.”

Quake stopped to think about a good answer that he could give her. “That’s exactly what you won’t do.” He replied. “Run out of energy, I mean.”

“I’m literally on my last breath, and you’re telling me that I can’t run out of energy? I don’t have time for your riddles, you good-for-nothing whelp!” Shadow’s frustration grew to a white-hot intensity. “You already played a silly little game back at the caverns, I don’t want to see you pulling this crap again now.”

Quake reached into a pocket, and tossed a small book at Shadow. “Helios is not the first person to have those powers. It might have been one hundred years after the time that you were banished, but this is still applicable.”

Shadow stared at Quake quizzically. What are you blathering on about now? Can’t you see that I don’t have the time for this?

“You won’t have enough time to read the entire book, so I’ll just tell you its meaning in one sentence. In brief, elements can be combined to create new powers.”

“W-what? That’s absurd! None of the people in my time have ever heard of such a –!”

“Just listen,” Quake said hastily. “While it may not have been a large priority to Weavers being trained in schools, it’s quite possible to accomplish this feat, and I wouldn’t be wrong if I said that many of the people you knew were capable of such.”

An image of Oscuras briefly invaded Shadow’s mind.

“Ugh great, so what does this have to do with me?” Shadow finally asked. It was one thing to get a history lecture now; it was another thing entirely to apply that lesson to battle.

“You have access to the powers of Ice and Water. That’s why Helios let you go alone in order to find the Ice-Ten deposit. He knew that you would be safe, since your natural powers would be able to cancel it out and negate its harmful effects on the body. So now think! What can you use both Ice and Water to do?”

Shadow racked her brain. There were very few things that Ice and Water had in common, other than being the same substance at a different temperature. “I’ve got it! Both are able to slow things down and protect against them! It hurts less to dive into a body of water than on plain land, and the Energy Grid Lab being surrounded by ice is what’s protecting it from the outside world!”

Quake smiled. “So that’s your answer, now go! Go and use it to settle this fight!”

Shadow nodded and sneaked out of a different cave entrance. Spotting Helios far off from behind, she tried to use the falling snow as cover for a surprise attack. At the last second, she lost her footing. Both mind and heart racing, her heart sank as she saw Helios turn around to face her.

My bones are screaming and my legs are threatening to collapse from under me. It’s taking the last of my energy to stay standing. I can hardly move a muscle.

Defeat Helios? It’s impossible.
I can’t. I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t I can’t.

Helios held his sword high above him, and gave a mighty bellow. “It’s time to end this, Shadow! I gave you so much time, and yet you’re left here, crumpled on the floor! You couldn’t quite make it, so you’re no longer useful to us! I’m going to destroy you so you can’t be of trouble to us!”

As his glowing blade descended upon her, everybody she knew flashed in front of her eyes.

I regret, Oscuras, for not being able to bring you to justice.
I regret, Quake, for wasting what you’ve taught me.
I regret, Helios, for failing your expectations.
I regret, Vincent, for not bringing hope back to you.
I regret, Erosion, for not returning and helping you in our battle against evil.
I’m sorry everyone, for letting you all down.

Goodbye.

Helios’s firebrand shrieked as he brought the blade down.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (7/22/2013 8:21:35)

Nightmare’s End

Deception burns away at the sight of true reality.

“Now you’ve really done it!” Helios exclaimed. “Splitting a mountain, almost killing Shadow, it’ll be a wonder for her to not destroy us all! You don’t know it, but inside that person is a reality-warping Weaver power. If we’re not careful, there will be no rebel invasion!”

“Calm down. Our situation looks dire, but look at it this way; her only other option is to go to the Dark Emperor for help, and we all know how that will turn out. She’ll be more loyal to our cause if she’s thirsting for revenge, especially after she finds out the true identity of the Dark Emperor!”

Helios shuddered. And that is why the Legion was lead by this person; no other being in this realm can match Boss’s expert tactics.

“Just bide your time for now, we wouldn’t want to be hasty in this decisive moment,” Boss suggested, flashing a smile.


Clang.


Shadow expected it to end there and then, but life did nothing of the sort. When she opened her eyes, a round blue barrier separated her from Helios’s blade.

“What... is this my...?” There were no sentences, only words of bewilderment.

“I was growing impatient!” Helios exclaimed, “I waited an eternity for the opportunity to see your first stage power, but how magnificent it is!” he gave a few more swings of his sword to further his point. “I can’t even cut it with the blade that’s rumored to be able to cut through anything as if it was butter! Splendid, bravo, it was worth keeping you around after all!”

The barrier faded, and Shadow felt a sudden lightness in her body. Without thinking, Shadow stood up with renewed vigor, and took the capsules out of her bag. In an act of what appeared to be defiance, she let Helios get a good, long view of the containers that she had expended such effort to collect, and crushed them in her palm. The Ice-Ten crystals started to mix with the blood dripping from her hand, and she let the mixture trickle until it coagulated into a blade large enough to encase her arm. Screaming with a deafening fury, Shadow cut a slash across Helios’s abdomen.

With the sudden strength leaving her body as quickly as it came, Shadow sank to her knees, mind swimming. There. That’s it. I can do no more. Shadow’s legs gave out from underneath her, and the last thing she saw before her eyes shut themselves was Helios trudging towards her.


Helios spoke a few words in a labored voice, overtones of both respect and disdain wrapped in his words. “You... you’ve given me enough trouble. I didn’t expect you to accept the Ice-Ten, but you should take pride in it. With that little trick, you’ve managed to harm me to an extent that very few could boast about. Alas, you’re down for the count already! You didn’t have enough ti—”

The Ice-Ten in the gash running across his body spread suddenly, and in an instant, he had as much mobility as Shadow did.

“Eurgh, you…” Helios froze over, and Shadow could do nothing but watch as the Ice-Ten began to devour the person who tasked her with finding the substance. Cruel irony found him iced up in the same post that he was in when he intended to slay Shadow, but he literally could not move a muscle.

He... he’s gone. Shadow thought to herself. I... I defeated him.

Then she was hit by a new realization. Now there was nobody left. Helios was the only one who understood her situation; as his superiors appeared to only care about how they would be able to use her in the impending battle. It was going to be even more difficult to return back to her time now.

Lost in her own thoughts, Shadow didn’t notice the ice prison that held Helios captive starting to melt. The ice didn’t even become water; it sublimated and disappeared without a trace. From the ice emerged a being of radiant fire. What was once armor was now flame. He brushed the last pieces of ice off his armor with an expression that was not quite astonishment, and not quite disdain.

“Perhaps that’s a little more than necessary.” Helios grumbled, as he weaved a sign in midair with his finger.

It’s coming. She thought. I only scored a lucky hit. His powers far outclass mine.

“I don’t like repeating myself, so let this serve as a permanent answer! Minions of darkness burn away in the presence of a being of light! Let the bones of truth expose themselves from the shroud of night! Awareness Sigil!”

With the flick of a finger, the mark crashed into her. Shadow felt the scorching heat of a dying sun etching itself into her forehead. There was a sensation of pain that appeared to last for an eternity, but at the end of it there was understanding. Resisting the sting of Helios’s magic, Shadow uneasily stood up, swaying slightly.

“Ugh! What… oh,” the symbol on her head disappeared, but the realization was still there. “So that’s what this is about. You’ve got some ‘splaining to do, Helios.”

Throwing away his weapon, Helios took a knee. Remorsefully, he explained the reason behind his sudden aggression. “I’m sorry I had to use that method to evoke your power. You were building resistance to Ice-Ten while in the ice caverns, so I needed to push you into enough of a corner that you would try to weaponize the Ice-Ten that you were carrying. Even though the experiment was successful, it’s quite obvious that you have been harmed from accepting the Ice-Ten a second time. Fortunately, we should be able to restore whatever was lost by using your power to regenerate yourself.”

“...regenerate myself...? What do you take me for, some sort of lizardman?”

“I can see how you’d assume that, but that’s not the case. To put it simply, you have the power to ignore stimuli. You can block things happening in the present, and you’re able to erase negative events that happened in the past. You were able to render my attacks completely useless. You’ve also been using your power unconsciously, look; even after 600 years, you’re not a day older. When Oscuras sent you to this time, he didn’t care what people you would meet; he assumed that the bodily damage of instantly moving through such a period of time would be enough to destroy you before you could get any help.”

“Well, some use this power is then, it’ll save me from death, but I’ll still be stuck in a ridiculous solution because it didn’t accomplish anything.” Shadow grumbled to herself.

“Not at all,” Helios replied firmly. “If that ability triggered itself in a situation, we can train it to activate even in less dangerous situations, and finally get it to work before such an event even happens. If we can bring it up to a conscious level, instead of the random occurrence that happened last time, its use could well exceed many Weavers’ powers.”

That’s right! Some of the Weavers in my time used abilities that weren’t quite part of the eight major elemental aspects!

She tried to pry into the subject further. “What kinds of powers are you talking about?”

“My!” Helios exclaimed in genuine surprise. “Didn’t Quake already explain this to you? When I overheard your conversation, I decided not to step in, so his idea could sink in. Oh well, I suppose this works, too.”

Just as he was about to draw up another fire sign, Shadow knocked his hand down with her own.

“With words this time, getting branded once is already more than I ever wanted to experience.”

“…What, fine.” Shadow could’ve sworn she heard Helios grumble under his breath. “Each weaver can use all 8 of the major elements, but many feel affinity to one specific element. While it’s not necessarily rare, of those who can control two aspects, they all have the potential to combine them into a new, related power. For example, my own powers of Fire and Light are used in tandem to create all forms of Illumination, mental and physical. If Quake is any bit as competent as he claims to be, you would’ve already known this much, do you not?”

Shadow tried to recall the battle against Raynor and Oscuras. It doesn’t make sense for the power to create barriers being Ice and Water. Clay is not one of the major elements and neither is decay, but both of those make logical sense as powers. “But... just blocking things with barriers doesn’t make sense to be a power created from Ice and Water, is there more for me to discover?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I never once stated that your power was to create barriers. I said that it was the power to counteract negative events, meaning the dormant power within you is stasis. By ignoring stimulus, you have the ability to reject phenomena. I was able to convince my allies that you would be extremely beneficial to our cause, and now you have just the thing to prove it.”

As Helios began to walk away, Shadow ran after him.

“Don’t. I know what you’re going to tell me; you’re going to say that you’re fine, but you aren’t. You may think you’re fine right now, but you’re a wreck, and if I try to evoke the slightest power from you, you’re actually going to die. I don’t mean like what happened just now, I mean for real. Just get some rest, and your health permitting, I’ll see if we can do anything about it later.”

The accuracy of what Helios predicted was frightening, so Shadow could do nothing but concede and return to the Energy Grid glumly.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (8/1/2013 6:58:38)

Fear

We fear not failure, inadequacy, the unknown nor death. We fear our own hearts, and we hate each other because of how we think of each others' petty problems.

“What is wrong with you, you traitor?!” Helios shouted at the top of his voice.

Only silence was brave enough to face him. He then turned to face Quake, quivering with anger. “What the devil do you think you were doing, summoning those Ice-Ten-infected Elementals?
Those monsters were locked away in the Energy Grid’s subfloors for a reason! ”

“You’re so boring, Candle Head. I just wanted to liven things up before the main event. Besides, boss ordered me to help her out, so I did. She needed to be pushed to her limit for her power to activate, didn’t she? Stop acting so high and mighty, we both know that what I did was for the greater good.” Quake got off his pillar, and began to walk off. “And besides, I took care of it all in the end. You should stop being so agitated; you’ll shorten your lifespan.”

Nobody laughed.


~~Throne room of a castle forgotten by time, Halcyon, Deep Void, 600 years in the past~~


In the midst of the ambience of the Void, a book was being carefully digested by the ruler of the fortress. “Ha ha ha, excellent, excellent! I knew I could get results from him, but I never expected something like this!”

A messenger burst into the throne room, chest heaving. He was wearing a tattered Weaver’s scarf, and he was grasping an enchanted scroll in his hand. He sidled up to the throne, and sat on one of the armrests.

“Banishing Shadow to the future was ingenious, she can’t harm any of your plans and she’s likely too shattered to be able to interfere further!” the messenger leaned in closer, revealing his true motives. “Now, when do we perform the ritual to overtake the Mana Core? I can barely wait for you to take command of this war-torn universe!”

“Patience, V— Vendetta. I need a bit more time in order to finish up the preparations. I need an army to quell those who oppose my views, and I know just where to get them.” He picked up the book on the other armrest, and flipped to the back, revealing a series of names to his visitor.

Vendetta’s smile quickly changed to frowning. “But isn’t that unwise, Oscuras? First of all, you’re planning on using people who’ve failed in their plans as henchmen, and second, they’re all out for revenge; you will be the first to get hurt, should the opportunity for that to happen.”

Oscuras laughed in amusement, placing his arm on the messenger’s shoulder. “I have already made plans for that occasion, should it happen. Believe me, there is no way and no place that I can fail.”


Right as Vendetta was about to leave, the head of the ChronoWeaver operations remembered one more thing to mention. “Oh, and I am no longer Oscuras,” he said with a perplexing tone. “I have surpassed that barrier. I no longer need a name, for I shall be the one who rules over everything, akin to a god. Now, I am... the Dark King.” He paused, unsatisfied with the title he gave himself. “...Perhaps ‘King’ is too small a title for what I will become.”

Vendetta gave a wry smile as he unlocked the door. “How about ‘Kaiser’, if that’s good enough for you?”


~~ Energy Grid Labs, Summit Spire. Legion Operations Room, a few days after the battle~~


“Legionnaires, this is the Shadow that I’ve told you all so much about. I’m sure some of you are dying to satisfy your curiosities about her power.” Helios stepped aside, and let his superiors see just who was going to put the rebel army at a severe advantage.

For a few minutes, nobody made a sound. It appeared that nobody wanted to ask the first question, lacking an example of good tact.

A voice from the back of the room mercifully broke the silence. “Quake told us that you are aligned with Ice and Water. We know that Water and Wind combine to become Pressure, and Ice and

Darkness make Invisibility. Explain how you will be able to help our invasion.”

Shadow took this as a challenge upon her worth. “Well for your information, it was remarked that my power is one of the strongest combinations in existence! I can—“

Right as she was about to reveal the true nature of her ability, Helios’s words echoed into her mind. Not everybody in the Legion is your ally. Don’t tell them everything you know, only mention what you can accomplish. It’ll be easier on me, and it’ll be easier for you to prove. Say nothing about the Ice-Ten.

After pausing for a bit, Shadow gave a cough, and continued. “I have the power to create barriers. I can repel the enemy’s forces as well as protect our own. With fewer casualties, the war effort will be far easier on us than the Dark Emperor.”

The man who asked the question appeared pleased with the answer, and Helios gave Shadow a nod of approval.

A few questions and introductions later, Shadow was dismissed alongside everybody else. Seeing Helios leave through a different exit, she prepared a few questions of her own.

“You told me not to reveal everything I knew, what was the reason for it, was not everybody in that room allied towards the same cause?”

Helios gave a long sigh, and slowed his walking pace to match Shadow’s. He lowered his voice to the point that it was barely audible. “It has been suspected that there is a spy in the Legion. In the past, our infiltration missions would go by with utmost success, but during recent missions, the enemy has been able to stop us with uncanny accuracy, as if they were informed of our battle plans. When I approached Boss about it, I was told to use misinformation to fight back against the defector. Since we downplayed your power, it’ll give us an advantage during the battle. Right now, we have not pinned down who it is, only the inner group of myself, Boss, Quake, a few others, and now you, know about this. Again, do not breathe a word about this to anybody except the few I directly named just now. This is crucial, especially since some of the people you interacted with today openly distrust you. They are jealous of how quickly you’re gaining power in the Legion, and if you were to reveal information about a spy, there will be no end of trouble for all of us.”


Arriving at his destination, Helios punched a set of numbers into a door panel, and a series of double-doors lead them outside the base again.

“It’s been close to a week, so we still have half a month to help you perfect Stasis. It won’t be easy, but if you can manage to call up your barriers on demand, we will be ready.”

“...How can I do that?” Shadow asked. “The last time it happened, you knew I was desperate. The same trick isn’t going to work twice, so I don’t see how you’ll be able to force me into getting it to work.”

“Oh, I’m not going to force you to do anything. You’re going to have to evoke your power by yourself, and you’ll manage that by coming to terms with your situation.” Helios took a disc out of his pocket, and tossed it on the ground. The disc glowed dark purple, expanded, and a visored man stepped out from it. He bore a ragged cloak of opaque black, and his messy hair flowed wildly behind him. His appearance was fairly chaotic, but somehow, there was a sort of harmony about it.

“I got the message a couple of minutes ago. I was gathering the materials necessary for the ritual,” turning to face Shadow, he extended a gloved hand. “The name’s Lothyn. I weave with minds, and I’ll be helping you unlock your powers.” Dripping dark ink on the icy ground, Lothyn readied the substances for the ritual. “You really needn’t worry about my personal agenda; I’m very serious about my work. I’m not going to pull something crazy like Quake and Helios here.”

Embedding three colored stones into his right glove, Lothyn asked the piercing question. “So, what’re you afraid of?”



Shadow froze, as if the question itself was as intimidating as its implications. “I... I have nothing to fear,” she said with uncertainty.

Lothyn gave a knowing laugh. “It’s not so good to keep lying to yourself like this, Shadow. There are things you’re afraid of, and you just can’t accept them. If you continue to try to suppress these emotions, you will be met with no end of trouble. Come on, inadequacy, failure, loss of control, these are all human fears, and this would go by much easier if you just name one.” He looked at Shadow expectantly. “It can be anything, an event, a friend, an enemy, a place, just say something that I can work with.”

Every word Lothyn used stabbed at Shadow’s mind. Struggling to calm herself down, she replied in a constrained voice. “There is nothing I need to fear but fear itself.”


Lothyn scowled. “Oh come on, I try to help you with your powers, and all you can give me is that tired old cliché? What are you, 600 years old? ...Oh, right.” Turning to notice Helios cover his face with his palm, he grew more annoyed. “Forget this, if you’re not going to say anything, I’ll just get your mind to tell me by itself.” Covering Shadow’s eyes with one hand, Lothyn muttered an incantation as two green circles obstructed Shadow’s vision.

Sight returned to Shadow’s eyes, and she found herself in another icy cave. “Where... where is this now?” she asked out loud, in hopes that somebody could hear her.

“This is your unconscious psyche,” Lothyn’s voice echoed in her mind. “Since you didn’t want to tell me what you were afraid of, I had to kind of pry it out of you. I hope you don’t mind.”

Though annoyed that he could see everything going on in her mind, Shadow saw that it was necessary, because of her own self-esteem. She looked upwards to see Lothyn peering into her mind from above. “I know that I’m in my own head, that much was obvious,” she called back, assuming that Lothyn would hear her one way or another. “I meant to ask where this place is.”

“You should know that it’s the remains of the Lorian Magma Core,” Lothyn replied. “I don’t know for sure because the only information I have is based on what I was able to extract, so why don’t you look around.”


Stupid cave. Shadow grumbled. This is the third time I’ve been here now. This is just getting old. Why am I even here, it’s not like I’m afraid of a freaking cavern. Seeing a pool of chilly water in the corner of her eye, Shadow walked up to it, questioning why she didn’t notice it when she was collecting the Ice-Ten.

A figure appeared in the water when Shadow looked into the pond. What was surprising was that the image was not a reflection. It looked different, somehow both familiar and alien at the same time. It wasn’t a distorted, carnival funhouse-style person; there was a certain murkiness about the person that made it difficult to tell their identity. The individual lurking in the pond was wearing an enormous armor of dark crimson, making it difficult to even tell the gender of the intruder.

Suddenly, a heavily armored hand burst out of the water and dragged Shadow under.

Caught off guard, Shadow scrambled to climb out of the frigid water, trying to clear her lungs of the freezing liquid.

When she stopped coughing, Shadow noticed that the person that was previously standing in the water had also climbed out, and was now staring at her. There was something haunting about the armaments that her assailant was wearing that made Shadow uneasy. They reminded her of a terrible foe, but it has been so long now that it became difficult to remember her life in the past.


“Ha ha ha!” it laughed scornfully. “I expected more from you, Shadow. How pitiful for such a simple maneuver to catch you by surprise!”


Shadow became frustrated and embarrassed. Yes, she should not have fallen into the lake from a straightforward pull, but getting gloated at because of it was just insult to injury. “Lothyn! What is this freak doing in my mind?” she demanded.

Lothyn paused, unsure of how to describe the situation from his position. “Something has gone wrong with the ritual,” he answered flatly. “I intended to bring you here to battle your nightmares, but this is... different. After a quick memory scan, I can guarantee that you’ve never met this person in your life, it is impossible for him or her to be somebody you’re afraid of. That means, this person is—”

“I can introduce myself,” the mystery person interrupted. “To put it simply, the only things you should encounter here are your inner thoughts.”

The fogginess that covered its face faded. Shadow’s eyes widened, inhaling sharply at who the stranger was.

“That’s right, Shadow. I am your enemy; I am the one you hate the most,”

The cloudiness subsided, and Shadow found herself staring at her own face.

“I... AM YOU!”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (8/1/2013 7:03:21)

Self-Loathing

We return to our past in our memories, for they cannot be erased. Whether or not we want to relive our nightmares over and over, forever locked in battle with ourselves and our regrets.

“Are you sure this is going to work, Helios?” a voice asked. “I mean, I’ve mulled over your descriptions of what has happened a little while ago, and it’s clear that she is her own enemy. Everybody I’ve previously observed self-destructs when they try to face themselves in battle. We’ve already made this much progress, I don’t think it would be wise for us to throw it all away on this gamble.”

“I’m being pushed into enough of a corner as it is,” Helios sighed. “I know I’m gambling with borrowed luck, but I don’t have much of a choice. We just need to hope that this insane gambit works.”

“There’s such little chance for this to work that I should be weeping. This is going to fail because she’ll never figure out the answer.”

“Our entire existence was a gamble, and there’s not much reason for our luck to run out now. I believe that Shadow will be able to pull this one off like she has all the times before,” Helios answered firmly.

“The god of randomness is going to have your head when all the dust settles,” the second voice remarked.

“Nah, Alazar still owes me one for that cursed firebrand I found in the Magma Pond.”

“Eh? You still have that useless thing?”

“Let’s just say that there are times when we need to be able to not cut through everything.”


“There’s no way for the person I hate most to be myself,” Shadow declared.

“Ahahahahahaha! Who else could there be? Erosion? Vincent? Raynor? Oscuras?” the cackling of Shadow’s double filled the cavern. “It’s time to face facts, other self, there’s nobody for you to abominate other than yourself!”

Shadow seethed. Her blood boiled at the prospect of what her malevolent clone was suggesting. “How dare you suggest that I hate myself alongside Erosion and Vincent! They’re my allies, and I’d never see them as my enemies!”

“Your naivety is charming,” the Shadow lookalike interrupted. “You still think Vincent is your friend? After what you’ve done to him and his life?” Shadow paused, unsure of what to say after hearing this again. “Erosion’s message really did fall on deaf ears, such a pity,” she smirked, putting just the right emphasis on her words to make Shadow squirm.

The words gnawed at Shadow’s insides, burning away at her composure. “I’ve done Vincent no wrong,” she asserted. “I am powerless to what happened to him after I was banished.”

“You might have been powerless, but does that make you guiltless? After you disappeared, Vincent was apprehended for treasonous behavior as well as assisting a radical.”

“But... but... the only person with revolutionary plans for the world was Oscuras! Vincent was helping us, not him!”

“Obviously, you dimwit, you were framed by those stronger than you. You needlessly brought Vincent into this, and now he’s suffering for your problems. He lost everything; his title, his possessions, his prestige. He hates you, and so does everybody else you’re involved with.”

“That can’t be! Erosion understands what happened, and that’s why he left that message!” Shadow became unsure of what she truly felt. She knew what really happened, but was everybody else seeing a different story? “Why are you guilt tripping me like this, shouldn’t you just skip to the part where you say ‘and this is why you hate yourself, too!’?”

Her alternate sneered. “Isn’t it obvious that I haven’t gotten to the good part yet? Erosion didn’t know if you were really still alive or not, so that message to you was more to calm his nerves than to actually help you! He’s enduring his own pains, fighting alone. Sure, he had his students, but rarely were they truly loyal to his cause, many of them were following him in obligation for what he did for them. Eventually, he too was quashed by Oscuras, wondering why you didn’t return to fight alongside him until the very end. Do you think he still wants to look at you as an ally?”

The words of her ersatz sunk into Shadow like the fangs of a ferocious beast. “But I... I intend to return after the battle here is finished,” she murmured.

Shadow’s foil chortled again. “Do you really think your little ‘intentions’ are going to solve anything? There are a lot of things we all intend to do, yet they never pan out! You promising to ‘return to your own time to battle Oscuras’ has as much relevance as me claiming my goal is to become the savior of Lore! It’s not going to happen the way you are now, and if you keep walking down this path, it never will!”

Shadow’s opposite moved in closer to throw another low blow. “And of course Oscuras hates you, he told you his plans because he believed you were going to perish, and yet you didn’t; you survived against all odds. Word will eventually get back to him that you’re alive, and then he’s going to hunt you down again to kill you off for real. Don’t forget that at your current state, you’re going to be completely destroyed by him, no matter what you try to do to stop him.”

“You’re lying, you imposter,” accused Shadow. “Everything you’re telling me is a lie, because you’re trying to fill me with negativity; getting me to give up on my mission, vile charlatan!” Despite what she told herself, Shadow was unable to convince herself to disbelieve what the duplicate was telling her.

Her reflection laughed. “Ridiculous! What makes you think you’re in the right, Shadow?”

Taken aback, Shadow tried to list how she was better than her facsimile. “I am an esteemed ChronoWeaver who works for the Society. Just as with my allies, I work to protect the peace of the land following the heroes’ efforts. I am nothing like you, you fake!” she snapped.

The duplicate’s eyes flickered, and it found a new way to torment her. “Ha! You’re nothing more than a hired hand, a mercenary that goes around, cleaning up after the real heroes! Look at you even now, you’re working with the rebels! They’re the ones trying to topple the current government, you sightless wretch!”

“That’s not true!” Shadow insisted. “They’re fighting to stop the Dark Emperor, the tyrant of the land! We are the good guys here!”

“Who’s this ‘we’? You’re not one of them; you’re just being used by this Legion just as you have been by Oscuras and everybody else!” The copy noticed Shadow about to refute this, and it struck right where Shadow was about to. “And don’t give me any of that ‘they’re helping me by training me!’ garbage. If they truly were honest people, they would’ve taken you in and helped you without having to almost kill you to prove that you were worth the effort!” she walked up to Shadow, placing a hand on her shoulder to assume a mocking leaning pose. “You’re a hazard to anybody who helps you, and you’ve got a power that makes you an unstoppable killing machine! The rebels want to work you to death before offing you, and the Dark Emperor wants you dead even more!”


“Where did you get all of this information?” Shadow asked finally. “You’re just a replica of me; you shouldn’t know anything that I don’t.”


“Truth is, your heart already knows all of this; if your friends had succeeded, this war-torn universe would not exist! I as your internal antagonism am just spelling it out for your defiant mind, so you should be thanking me! Let’s not defer this any longer; you’re public enemy number one, and even you hate yourself!”

“Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Shadow shrieked back at the other Shadow, slapping her hand aside. “I don’t need to prove myself to you, you fake. I was brought here to vanquish my subconscious, and I think I’ve found just what I need to eliminate.” Recalling what she did with the Ice-Ten capsules, Shadow cast enchanted Ice around her arm, forming the unforgettable blade again.


“Ha! You still think I’m some fake, so I also know you think you’re stronger than me.” Vice Shadow snapped her wrist, evoking an even larger version of Shadow’s Ice Blade. “If I can’t show you reality with words, I’ll just have to use actions!”

Vice Shadow charged at Shadow and swung upwards, knocking her to the ground.

Picking herself up to prepare a retaliatory attack, Shadow was suddenly struck again from behind. No matter how she tried to defend herself, Vice Shadow was constantly able to beat Shadow down. "It's useless! Don’t make me waste my energy needlessly!” Vice Shadow shouted as she threw Shadow against a wall.

It was an odd sensation, getting beaten by herself. Shadow noticed all sorts of techniques and combination attacks that she herself would’ve been too tentative of to even attempt to train.

Vice leapt into the air and fired bolts of ice at her, and while Shadow was trying to shield herself from the ice shards coming down from above, Vice already landed, casting a new spell to unleash a massive spine of ice to injure from below.

It was a beating far worse than anything Helios ever gave her. Vice Shadow knew her weak points, and was not holding back at all. The instant she noticed an exploitable flaw, Vice relentlessly attacked her there, leaving Shadow dazed and shattered.

She noticed that Shadow could not handle repeated attacks very well, so Vice Shadow repeatedly attacked from the back and then the front, and vice versa. Even though Shadow could also use this information to take advantage of her doppelganger’s weaknesses, she was unable to use them, because she was too busy futilely trying to defend herself from Vice’s attacks.

Having been battered around so many times, Shadow slumped down against the cave wall, bruised both mentally and physically.

Seeing that her ‘lesson’ was finally ‘sinking in’, Vice Shadow trudged towards Shadow once more. “Do you know why it’s impossible for you to beat me? I am you, so why are you getting destroyed, shouldn’t you be able to at least match me?”

Shadow wiped the side of her mouth, repulsed by the new color on her wrist. She tried to say something in answer to Vice Shadow’s challenge, but no words left her mouth.

Vice Shadow cut off her train of thought. “I’ll tell you why,” she interjected. “You weren’t wrong when you said I was evil. To be precise about it though, I am your aggression, the one thing you hate most about yourself. You can’t beat me for as long as you live, because you waver, restrained by your childish morals.”

Shadow was about to get up again when Vice Shadow’s Ice Blade cut into the cavern side by her head, deliberately missing, but close enough to touch Shadow’s ear with her blade. “Just give up, there’s no way you can defeat me and I’m not going to give you the reins to unlock all of your powers this easily. You can’t even overcome me, so there’s no way you’ll be able to defeat Oscuras or the Dark Emperor. Just concede, you’ll still be able to live a meaningful life in this timeline.”


“No.”

“That wasn’t a suggestion,” Vice Shadow declared. “This is an order. Give up, or I will destroy you from the inside out.”

“I’m not going to get pushed around by myself,” Shadow retorted. “If you want to stop me, you’ll have to stop me first! ...Er...

“I know what you are trying to say. This is unnecessarily confusing for everybody, but since I’m you, I know what I -- you -- are trying to say. Uh... never mind.”

Seeing an opportunity, Shadow used her own weapon to bat away the blade near her face. Jumping back to distance herself from herself, she dared her doppelganger. “Enough self-referential philosophic confusion! Let’s settle this with our weapons instead of words!”

“Hmph, you came here for a fight, so now I’m going to bring it to you!”


Without another word, Shadow and Vice Shadow dashed towards each other again, blades raised with the intent to end the battle.

An instant before their weapons were about to cross, Shadow swung her arm to the side, leaving Vice Shadow with an open shot at her.

“What the... what are you doing, Shadow?!” Lothyn called out from the sky-ceiling. “Taking the attack? What are you planning to accomplish with this?!”

Vice Shadow’s blade pierced through Shadow’s side, but she resisted the pain. “Vice, you told me to give up trying to fight you, now I understand what you meant. I’m not supposed to try and defeat you, and I couldn’t overcome you by lying to myself. I needed to admit to my worries and acknowledge them.”

“I knew that you would be able to figure it out,” Vice smiled. “After all, you’re me!”

“The solution was for me to accept the ghosts of my past, the bad alongside the good,” Shadow explained to Lothyn, even though she realized that he knew all along. “My doubts about my identity were holding me back, and now that I’ve come to terms with my emotions, they can no longer suppress my powers.”

Vice slid her blade out of Shadow’s abdomen, and embraced her. “Go and give Oscuras the what-for for us, me.”

Shadow returned the bear hug and replied, “I will, Vic— ...me.”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (8/6/2013 7:34:56)

Darkness Approaches

We know that it is impossible for us to change our destiny, yet we fight it like flies trapped in a spider's web, struggling ever more frantically as the jaws of death clamp down upon our still-thrashing bodies.

~~Summoning Chamber, Castle Kantniz, 600 years in the past~~

Twenty-nine candles in a circle being lit was the only thing being heard during that time of night. The hooded figure lighting the candles tore a page out of a heavy leather-bound tome, and carefully placed it in the center of the altar. Plumes of black smoke spiraled out from each of the lightless wax sticks, and the trails leading to the chamber’s core began to glow a flaming red. A circular flame coalesced where the piece of paper was previously, spewing out more intense billows of choking black fog.

Fulsome eyes of fire pierced through the thick smog. “HAH! Who dares summon ME out from the realm of fire?!” it asked impatiently.

The infernal’s gaze fell upon the man who summoned it, who hurriedly took off his hood in respect. “You are Wargoth, are you not? My name is Oscuras, and I want to conscript you to my army. I need powerful individuals who can aid me in my quest for the end of all wars.”


The infernal’s thunderous laughter boomed around the massive chamber. “Are you an idiot? You want a demon to help you achieve world peace? How about I help work in a paper factory, or look after your children and pets, or harvest your farmers’ grain – AAAAAAHHHHHAAAAHHHHHAAAAHHHH!”

Though peeved at his taunting, Oscuras pressed on. “So do you want to help me or no? I know about your mana generation trait, so I have a preposition for you.”

Wargoth grew tired of his incessant solicitation. “A preposition, hm? Are you addled, you uneducated lout? I TOLD YOU, I’M NOT GOING TO WORK AS A MINION FOR A MERE MORTAL LIKE YOURSELF!”

“When I said ‘preposition’, I intended to use ‘preposition’; you’ll be working under me. Join my cause, and I’ll give you a use for all that excess mana that you create when you fight. Your existence will be sufficient to fuel my forces for an eternity!”


Though he detested the thought of having to work for this person who was weaker than himself, he became amused at the idea of this little man being able to expend all of his generated mana. “So if you’re going to use the mana I generate, you’re saying that we’ll both find benefit, correct?”

“Absolutely,” came the reply.

The billowing smoke surrounding Wargoth started to subside. “You see, that offer sounds tempting, but we have one little problem.”


Oscuras grew suspicious of his tone. “And what might that be, Wargoth?”

“Well, if you were going to use all of the mana I’d generate, I’d first have to produce some,” the hazy smoke that concealed his body completely dispersed to reveal that he was several hundred times the size of Oscuras. “AND NOW I THINK I KNOW JUST WHAT I’M GOING TO USE IT ON!”

A massive fireball narrowly whizzed past Oscuras’s head, scorching the tips of his hair, and now it was Oscuras’s turn to get angry. Furious that his rather fair proposal was met with such opposition, he muttered a spell under his breath, transforming his cloak into a shadowy mass of writing tendrils.


“YOU THINK YOUR LITTLE ENCHANTMENT IS ENOUGH TO RESIST MY BALEFIRE?!” Wargoth shouted as he fired a concentrated beam of fire at the man who summoned him.

Raising a hand, a sickly green circle appeared in front of Oscuras, shielding him from Wargoth’s ray of destruction. The shield absorbed Wargoth’s energy, and Oscuras began to expand.

Wargoth was surprised at the fact that Oscuras was not at all harmed by his attacks. Even though he was not yet intimidating to the infernal, it was frightening how he sponged all of his attacks without harm and kept increased in size. “YOU... WHAT MANNER OF SORCERY IS THIS?!” he howled wrathfully. Wargoth created another compressed ball of balefire in his right palm, and flung it at the upstart, but Oscuras just wrapped a few tendrils around it and absorbed it into himself, causing his mass to escalate further. “NO! YOU CANNOT! YOU SHALL NOT!”

Oscuras laughed cruelly, like a man who knew a secret that the other man didn’t. “It’s incomprehensible, isn’t it? Of course you cannot understand, you who charges in blindly like a boar caught in the hunter’s trap,” he said, brandishing a sinister black scythe as he leapt upon Wargoth’s head, still several times smaller than the infernal. “It’s the overwhelming difference between demons and gods!”

“YOU, A GOD? WHAT CAN SOMEBODY LIKE YOU BE SOVREIGN OF?!” Wargoth laughed maniacally, still defiant. He swung his arms wildly, frantically trying to pull the little man off his head.

“Hah... me? I am a god who rules over creation and destruction! Someone like you could never comprehend it!” slashing with his scythe, Oscuras kept his footing as Wargoth shook violently from him injuries. “Come on now, it’s useless to resist,” he said calmly. Wargoth suddenly felt life energy drain out of him. “Don’t you know that if you can’t beat them, you’ll eventually join them?”

His body fracturing, Wargoth started to shrink, being reduced to his original size. Now, it was Oscuras who towered above him. “What... what did you do... you... peon...?” he asked weakly. One look into Oscuras’s crazed eyes caused him to experience the sensation of dread for the first time in centuries.


“There, it’s done,” Oscuras puffed, drained from the experience. “Don’t act all surprised though, dear infernal. I really must thank you for your contributions to my cause.”

“WHAT...? I NEVER AGREED TO HELP YOU!” Wargoth shouted. “RETURN WHAT YOU STOLE FROM ME, YOU PARASITE!”

Picking up one of the candles surrounding the altar, it burned down instantly, its ashen wax seeping into the cracks of the floor. “Now then... begone!” With a clatter, Wargoth disappeared. Discarding his charred cloak, Oscuras left the summoning chamber. “You won’t be the last, but relish this,” he said while licking his lips, almost taunting the remains of Wargoth’s influence. “Assimilation magic is a pain to use, so you should celebrate that you were the first success,” he laughed. Taking the Book of Lore under his arm, his right eye began to flash the same furious red of Wargoth’s eyes.

“One down, seven to go. Time to collect the powers of those who came before me.”


~~Inside of Shadow’s mind, outskirts of the Energy Grid Labs, relative current time~~


“The next time we meet, I may not take this form,” Vice explained to Shadow as she began to disintegrate. “Don’t feel sad though, as long as you exist, so will I. I’ll return again should you need my help.”

Even if it might not have been useful, it was reassuring to Shadow. She nodded, and the world inside her mind began to fade away.

The eyes on Shadow’s corporeal body opened up. She found herself lying on the ground in the middle of the ink circle that Lothyn drew, so she got up and brushed the icy snow off herself. “You,” she said, pointing at Lothyn. “You don’t need to explain anything, I understand why what has happened happened. You chose not to tell me the answer to my internal battle, and I know why you did that, too.”

Lothyn’s eyes lit up. “W-well, I... I had to—”

“It’s okay. If you just told me how to finish that battle, I would be relying on others for everything. I needed to come to that solution myself, or I would not gain anything from it,” Shadow explained, recalling the challenges that Helios and Quake posed. “Just like the two before them.”

Breathing a sigh of relief, Lothyn gave a bow and turned to leave. “My work here is done. Good day,” he said simply, almost running back to the Labs.

Noticing that Shadow was feeling downcast, Helios tried his best to cheer her up. “Don’t worry, you did well. We were prepared for the other end result, but I’m glad that we didn’t need to follow through with it.”

“But... is what Vice said true?” Shadow asked Helios, still unsure of herself. “I might’ve acted strong about it, but what she told me was disturbing, particularly the things about the Legion.”

Helios too was unsure of what to say. Finally, he came up with an idea on how to dodge the question. “I can’t speak for the others, but I’m trying to keep you safe here, especially because of all the things that have happened in your past. We should head back now,” Helios suggested, placing his timepiece back in his pocket. “It’s time for us to rid this world of the Dark Emperor.”


~~ Aircraft Hangar, Energy Grid Labs~~


“We have some of our best pilots managing the Legion squadrons,” Helios explained as he and Shadow walked down the corridor of the hangar. “Though the bulk of our air force left before we returned just now, I believe you have the means to catch up to them and fight alongside us?”

It completely slipped her mind because she never had an opportunity to call on her dragon. Even though she lost the weapons in her bag, everything she had on her when Oscuras banished her to this time was still in her possession. “That’s right, I still have my Dragon Amulet... but will Seiryuu really return? It’s been centuries since I’ve seen my dragon, and I’m not sure he wants to see me back.” Shadow felt forlorn. “Perhaps Vice really was correct. Perhaps I really am alone here.”

Helios turned around, and gave a sigh of irritation, followed by an attempt at what he assumed would be a reassuring statement. “It’s still too early to say if Vice was correct there or not, but she was right about a different thing; you second-guess yourself too much. Really, don’t worry about it, just act upon it. If he heeds your call, he’ll come back. If not, we have different work that you can manage.”

Preferring for Helios to not elaborate on what he meant by that comment, Shadow pressed her Amulet against her head and tried to find out if Seiryuu was listening. “Are you there, Seiryuu?” she asked. At first, there was silence, nobody even tried to answer her question.

Finally, a voice echoed through her mind, using the Amulet as an amplifier. “Who are you?” the voice demanded.

“...Yes! It’s really you! It’s me, Shadow, Seiryuu! I can’t believe you’re also in this time!” Shadow was overjoyed, but that happiness was short-lived.

“Of course I'm still alive,” the Amulet rumbled. “Dragons live for thousands of years; a brief period of time like six hundred years is comparable to adolescence.” Shadow’s Amulet buzzed again. “What do you want this time?” it finally asked, with a voice as cold as the air outside.

“I'm going to war and I want your help,” Shadow answered resolutely. “The rebel army, the Legion, believes me to play a critical role in winning this war, but part of using me requires you as well.”

“Hmph,” the voice from the Amulet grumbled. “What’s to say you’re not going to call on me, and then disappear, stranding me in this time?” it was clear that her dragon had not recovered from the scars inflicted on him by the past few centuries. “It may have felt like mere adolescence to me, but it was painful. I was on the run for much of that time, until I found sanctuary.”

“I'm sorry,” Shadow pleaded. “I know you don’t want to believe me, but I need you here. Even if you don’t trust me, I want you to lend me your strength. I can earn your trust back afterwards, what do you say?”

Shadow could feel her dragon try to resist smiling. “It’s alright, I believe you,” Seiryuu whispered. “Perform the summoning procedure, but make sure you’re in a large room. I've grown quite a bit in the time we haven’t seen each other.”

A tear of joy rolled down Shadow’s cheek. So I'm really not alone, she thought to herself, cheering up. Entering the takeoff area of the Energy Grid’s hangar, Shadow marked a section of floor for her summoning procedure. “Seiryuu... enter this domain and lock this world in an icebound prison!”

With the chant completed, a dark blue circle tattooed itself on the ground. It shimmered radiantly, and Shadow’s dragon clawed its way out of the floor of the hangar.

Shadow’s eyes lit up with real joy for the first time in a very long time. Running up to Seiryuu, she wrapped herself on one of the dragon’s massive legs. “I really missed you,” Shadow said softly, letting her true emotions escape from her icy exterior.

“You seem to have matured significantly,” Shadow commented contently.
“As have you,” Seiryuu replied, noticing somebody darting up and down her back. “Now then... who’s this, running around taking my measurements?” he roared.


Helios stepped out from one of Seiryuu’s wings. “Sorry,” he explained. “It’s been a really long time since any of us have seen a living dragon, since the others retreated just like you did. The only other dragon in the Grid would be Boss’s own dragon, but it’s pretty obvious that we’re not allowed to collect research using it as a guinea pig.”

While mildly irritated that the scientist was implying that he was fair game as a test subject, Seiryuu tried to not let it anger himself too much. “Alright, now I'm here. What did they enlist you to do?” he asked Shadow.

“We’ve gone to war with the Dark Emperor, the current ruler / tyrant of this realm,” Shadow described. “Most of the pilots have already left to launch an assault on his fortress, but if we leave now, we’ll be able to catch up to them soon enough.”


“The Dark Emperor, hm?” Seiryuu wondered to himself. “Hah... it’s really Oscuras, isn’t it?” Shadow nodded, having ended up at that conclusion herself. “Excellent!” Seiryuu jumped up, dislodging part of the ceiling (much to Helios’s resentment). “We’ll finally be able to get him back for what he’s done to us all! We’ve both grown, and we have new allies now, we’re sure to defeat him!”


The ceiling rumbled again, and a thunderous explosion shook the entire hangar.

Helios was just about to berate Seiryuu for tearing up his building when an urgent intercom message interrupted him. “INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” it shouted at the loudest volume possible. “SEVERAL UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS ARE HEADED TO THE ENERGY GRID LABS IN EXACTLY... NOW!”

Chains of darkness wrapped around Seiryuu, immobilizing him. “What... this better not be yours, librarian,” he said, glaring at Helios.

“N-no! We were too careless!” Helios cried in distress. “The Dark Emperor knew that we were going to attack today, so he brought his army to us!”

“HA, DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU COULD ESCAPE ME?!” a voice bellowed down from the skies above them.

“He’s here,” Helios gasped, mentioning what didn’t need to be described.

A gaping hole was torn from the roof of the launch ramp, and a man with mechanical wings descended through the opening. Several more people, assumed to be his guards, soon followed him through the fissure, quickly outnumbering Shadow and her allies.

The Dark Emperor made a three-point landing, and revealed a face that Shadow didn’t want to see.

“You really think you can beat me now? Don’t forget, I too have evolved in these past 600 years, isn’t that right... Shadow?!”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (8/8/2013 7:15:24)

Judgment

The time has come for the gates of Hell to open, and for judgment to be passed upon all foolish mortals who believe their pathetic lives are significant to the universe.

~~Second Summoning, Castle Kantniz~~


Lighting the twenty-nine candles in the dead of night, Oscuras took another page from the stolen Book of Lore. Even though it was the same tribute that he used last time, the center of the altar sputtered. Seeing that the offering was insufficient, Oscuras opened a locked chest, tossing a dusty crown of gold and precious stones on the altar.

After a few precious seconds passed, the crown fell to pieces, turning into sand that was swept away by a sudden desert twister.

“Where are they?!” a crackling voice rasped. “I will drain them dry, that damned Magus Hansa and the hero!”

“Eheheh,” Oscuras snorted, “an old, rusting vampire, thirsting for the blood of the one who slayed him.”

The sandstorm turned its attention towards his summoner. “So who might you be?” it asked. “Don’t dawdle, answer me, for an emperor like me has no time for your loitering!”

“How appropriate, I am an emperor, too,” Oscuras smirked. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Sek-Duat; the people you’re trying to hunt down are long gone. You’re in the future now; you withered antique. Think of how valuable you are as a historical treasure!”

Sek-Duat was furious. It was one thing to be called an old, rusting vampire (which in all honesty, he pretty much was), but it was offensive for a man in a fancy cloak to describe him as an object fit to be presented in museums. The whirlwind subsided, and a decaying cadaver adorned in a brilliant armor woven of pure light stepped out of the tempest. “Shut your mouth, boy. I might be decaying, but you’re not suitable material for a ruler, either.”

“I might not be good enough to be a ruler, but I am a god! Weak entities like you, whose glory days have long since gone and left have no influence on me!” Oscuras jumped to stand near Sek-Duat, and he pulled a blade of darkness against the zombie’s neck. “You have a power I want, and I'm going to tear you apart to get it.”

Knocking the blade away with a gold-encrusted arm, it became Sek-Duat’s turn to boast. “Haaaahhh... if you are what you claim to be, then let today be the day that people around the world discover that Sek-Duat has killed a god!”

Summoning a chakram of light, Sek-Duat’s skeletal face formed a wicked smile. “If you’re so powerful, I’ll be taking your life force as payment!” Leaping back a significant distance, he flung the circular blade at his new enemy.

Oscuras batted it aside easily, causing it to smash into and fizzle out against a wall. Aiming a massive blast of fire at Sek-Duat, he knocked him off his feet, causing the light emperor to crash against the back wall of the room.

Rubbing his head and trying to get on his feet, the rotting emperor of the Sandsea found that he couldn’t stand up. Looking down, he screeched in horror as he found that his legs turned to sand. He then turned his head, and saw Oscuras standing over him with an air of superiority.

“Are you afraid yet, bloodsucker? With nobody to steal life energy from, you’ll wither away and die, like the lich you are! That attack to your legs was only a warning shot, if you don’t obey my commands, you’ll lose your ar—”

A radiant pillar of light broke its way into the chamber, demolishing the floor Oscuras was standing on, causing him to fall into the subterranean vault below him.

Amused at the realization that the so-called god could be so easily slain, Sek-Duat raised a hand, attempting to regenerate his lost body parts. “You called me a leech, a bloodsucker,” he called down to the hole, giddy with pride. “If I'm the vampire, then you’re the victim! How arrogant for a boy like you to call yourself a god, even though you lost to an old man such as myself!”

Dark energy swirled around his arm, much to the decaying pharaoh’s surprise. The arm crumbled, just like his legs. “...What?! No! I won, why am I the one suffering?!” genuine fear wormed its way through his exalted voice.

“I told you, your time has long since gone and passed. Don’t resist the wheel of fate as it falls upon you.” Swinging a blazing scythe at Sek-Duat, he sliced the lich in two, across his spine. “You’re done for, there is no one here that you can steal life energy from,” Oscuras laughed menacingly. “The undead can’t regrow body parts without outside help, so a skeleton like you will never be whole again. You’ll fester in decay, and you will be permanently erased, being a lich will do nothing for you as you crumble away.”


“You... I’ll get you back for this, you child! I will be the one waiting for you at the gates of Hell!” the bifurcated corpse snarled. His corporeal body started burning away from the still-smoldering abdomen, and his voice drifted away like the sand he was. “Ahahahahahahahaha!” Sek-Duat laughed, his voice drifting away like the grains of sand that made up his body.

Oscuras picked up a gleaming scarab-shaped ornament made of gold. “You’ll be waiting for an eternity,” he said solemnly, as he pushed the beetle into his eye socket.

“I needed to pick up the demon’s power first so I could control the others, but you, your power had so much potential.”

Choosing to experiment with his new power, Oscuras returned to FalconReach, and broke into a barn. Finding a healthy rooster, he grasped its neck in his hand. The rooster squawked once, glowed brightly, and then it disappeared, causing Oscuras to feel renewed with energy. “Shame it was wasted on a dust-covered carcass that still thought it was a man who could never wither away and die.”


~~ Aircraft Hangar, Energy Grid Labs~~


“How nice to see you again, my former subordinate. It’s been so long, how pleasant that you haven’t changed a bit,” the voice coming from the hood mused. The invader lifted his hood, and revealed the visage of a man who appeared to have not yet lived three decades. His right eye no longer resembled anything close to a human’s eye, as variety of colors thrashed about violently inside the crimson orb.

“A-ah, Emperor!” Helios bowed, feigning loyalty to his enemy. “How nice of you to join us, the weapons you had us create are in the other room! Follow me and— agh!” An explosion flung Helios against a wall, causing him to scatter tools all over the floor.

“Spare me the sarcasm,” Oscuras commanded. “I know that you’re not my ally, and I've known that for a very long time.” Walking up to the scientist, four circles appeared in the air behind him, each depicting Helios in a different stage of life. “I've known that you would betray me since you were even born!” he bellowed. “But I needed you to keep believing that you were in a position of power, so I let you conduct your business as you saw fit. Unfortunately for you, your supremacy no longer means anything!”


“What... how can this be possi—?”

Oscuras interrupted Shadow’s mumblings. “How is it possible for me to not look any older than the day I banished you? How I don’t seem to have aged in six centuries?” he laughed again, certain that he knew everything that they didn’t. “That’s a secret, but you have a former enemy to thank for it,” Oscuras explained, the color of his eye shifting from crimson to a gleaming yellow.

The fetters binding Seiryuu began to fracture. The thin chains were only able to temporarily stop him because they had the element of surprise. “Don’t think I've forgotten everything that’s happened all these years, Rot-Boy,” Seiryuu snarled. “Dragons have a sense of memory that puts gorillaphants to shame, so expect me to pay you back for everything.”

A psionic wave rippled from Oscuras’s right eye, stunning Seiryuu. “Payback? You?” Oscuras mused. “Sorry hatchling, no returns!” he quickly drew several lines in the air with one finger, and after a brief second they turned into molten shackles.

“No! Seiryuu, get back!” Shadow shouted, but her dragon was too blinded by rage and a thirst for revenge to react. With a flick of his finger, the chains clung to Seiryuu’s skin, branding glowing dark grooves into his scales. Being aligned to ice just like his master, the lava manacles broke resolve, even though he was not at extreme risk of dying.

“You’re... not going to win... you... insane little...” Seiryuu moaned as he fell to the ground.


Suddenly, a surge of heavy footsteps moved closer and closer to the hangar. The commander of the Legion’s forces stormed into the room, bringing many officers along. “I've assembled all the men we’ve got left still in the fortress,” Boss explained. “Most of the people who attend the assemblies are here, but we’ve still got a few unaccounted for, likely having gone ahead to spearhead the attack.”


Oscuras’s eyes flickered in surprise. “Well, if it isn’t Tarlias!” he exclaimed in mock elation.

“There is no one here who goes by that name,” the leader of the rebels spat back. “So you’ve arrived. I thought it was too easy, being able to pull the wool over your eyes for these past years. I came prepared; you’re outnumbered and outgunned.”

“It must’ve been a decade already; you’ve become a fine young lady,” Oscuras continued, paying no attention to Tarlias’s battlements. “When I first met you, you were just a little girl, abandoned and dying in the icy environment. You should be thanking me for saving your life, instead of having run away to battle me. Such a pity.”

“I have nothing to thank you for,” Tarlias seethed, ignoring the probably-backhanded compliment. “I was not ‘saved’ by you, your so-called surgeons modified me, taking away my humanity,” her voice crackled, and electricity discharged, sending literal pulses of energy running across the floor. “I ran away because I hated that place, I hated the people, I hate you for what you’ve done, and I will not be at peace until your last breath leaves your body!”

“Such hostile words for your savior! You were like a daughter to me, I was the father you never had, and yet you treat me like this!” Oscuras said, using a finger to trace the path of an imaginary falling tear.

“A callous monster like you can know nothing about human emotions like that.”

“My heart is crying inside,” Oscuras said with a sneer, bearing fangs.


“Let loose the hounds of war.”


Every gun in the Energy Grid was pointed at Oscuras. Immense explosions rocked the base, knocking Oscuras’s guards off their feet.

“Was... was that it?” one of Tarlias’s reinforcements asked. He threw down his weapon to celebrate, when a massive ball of fire destroyed his armor, causing the metal to eat into his roasting flesh.

“It couldn’t possibly be that easy,” Helios wheezed. “That man... he has copied... no, stolen the powers of those who came before him. It’s too early to tell just how many or how potent the stolen powers are, but he could be virtually invincible.”

“Attack again!” Tarlias shouted. “Even if he’s slightly vulnerable, we will find that weakness, and we will destroy him!”

Just as Tarlias was about to attack Oscuras a second time, his right eye flashed a bright blue. A rumbling storm of electricity swept through the room, disabling their artillery.


Coils of energy ran out of Tarlias, who was trying to re-enable all the weaponry that Oscuras just rendered inoperative.

“There is no victory for you here,” Oscuras declared pitilessly. “Retreat now and you will at least have the dignity of a person who knows they were outmatched.” Looking around to taunt Tarlias some more, she was nowhere to be found.


Suddenly, Oscuras felt something jab into his spine, and he heard Tarlias laugh triumphantly.

“Why should I retreat when I've won?” in the corner of his eye, Oscuras saw that the object poking into his back was Tarlias’s hand, index and middle finger outstretched while the other two fingers were pointing back at herself. “Feel sorrow, for creating a half-human, half-elemental chimera! Destroy all obstacles in your path, and reduce this world to ashes, maximum power, Plasma Ray!”


A stream of compressed lightning burst out of Tarlias’s fingertips, blowing a hole through one side of the hangar. Snow drifted into the hangar, quickly enveloping a corner of the storage with ice particles.


Oscuras was sprawled on his back, a dark red pool of blood seeping out from underneath him.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (8/12/2013 17:48:39)

Shattered Bones

I did not lose when you decimated my troops, I did not lose when you captured me. I lost my battle when you shattered my fighting spirit into countless pieces, as if it were as fragile as belief.

~~ Castle Kantniz, past timeline~~


“Master Oscuras, how do you feel? You’ve been writhing in pain for the past few days, and it’s definitely because of this crazy experimentation of yours,” Vendetta commented, while preparing a variety of elixirs on one side of the room.

“I... I need to make sure it works on myself before I can try it on others,” Oscuras replied. “But don’t mistake this for morals, I just can’t have my minions self-destruct on the battlefield.”

“You’ve absorbed four powers now, and I'm concerned that even someone like you trying to control all of them will lead to disaster.”

“I... I’ll be fine,” he gasped. “My chest feels like it’s going to collapse inward upon itself, but that was foreseeable. The third entity I absorbed was from the Deep Void, I wholly expected it to have an adverse effect on my still mostly-human body.”
Oscuras reached for the Book of Lore on a shelf, and opened it up to the last section. “By the time I collect the next power, that void should stabilize.”

“You’re really pressing your luck, I don’t think time alone will cause a black hole to calm down,” Vendetta remarked.

“Who said I was just going to wait it out? No... the next power I'm after can turn order into chaos, and light into darkness.”



~~ Aircraft Hangar, Energy Grid Labs, current time~~


Tarlias fell to the floor, breathless. The ray that she used to attack Oscuras drained a significant portion of her energy, and she was suffering the consequences of her act now.
“There, it’s been done,” she puffed. “That beam disintegrates anything it comes into contact with. He can’t have possibly survived, but if he did, we’re all doomed,” she laughed. It felt good to laugh, the pent-up rage she felt towards Oscuras was finally released.

Alas.


Oscuras’s right eye opened, and it flashed with a golden yellow.

“Ahaaaahhhhhhaaaaahhhhh! Even if my corporeal body didn’t survive your feeble ray of destruction, I will still persist, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” Even though he was flat on his back, the look of insanity never faded from his eyes. “Ugh... that hurt, but pain is meaningless when it leads not towards death!”

Oscuras climbed to his feet, and smugly displayed the wound. There was a gaping hole on the left side of his chest, tendons and bones wobbled in the yawning cavity. In the space that should’ve been occupied by a human heart, there was an ominous black emptiness.

“I've nearly reached perfection, I’ll show you right now why it’s futile for you to try and battle me.” The void in Oscuras’s torso bubbled, and writhing tendrils of darkness shot out of it, indiscriminately attacking combatants from each side.

There was a relentless stream of screaming, followed by the sickening crunching of bones.
After the guards were devoured by the abyss, the gash closed up. “Ahahahahhaha. The mummy and the cosmic horror had such wonderful powers, but it is only I who can use them to their fullest extent!”


Something’s severely wrong, thought Shadow. A person can only achieve mastery over two, maybe three aspects at best. Oscuras used the elements of Darkness, Nature, Fire, Light, and Void without any difficulty.

“I have total control over any power I possess because of the enchantment I placed upon myself,” Oscuras explained, without anyone asking a question.

What... my mind...!

“That man... – Helios, was it? – He’s correct, but only for a few more hours. I'm only missing a few abilities now, after that, I will be completely invincible, and lucky for me, everything I need is right here!”

Ensnaring Shadow, he was able to just walk up and pluck Shadow from where she was standing. Throwing both Shadow and Tarlias down next to his feet, coiling darkness trapped them as Oscuras took the form of a massive black-feathered roc. “You two have some of the last powers I need to become indestructible. But don’t feel so melancholy, I need you both alive for now,” he cawed.

Shifting the two to his talons, enormous wings wrapped around Oscuras. With one great wingbeat he took off, flying through the giant ‘skylight’ he ‘installed’ mere minutes ago, scattering black quills everywhere.


“You haven’t... won...” Tarlias gasped in the freezing air. “You left most of them alive... the ones who escaped will be... back...”

Oscuras gave a large cacophonous laughter that shook Tarlias and Shadow in his claws. “Oh, will they?” he squawked. “They will have nowhere to return to!”


Having the invasion fail was one thing, but for her enemy to go after her subordinates while she was being captured? It was blasphemous. “Answer me! What did you do to my –?”

A cluster of faraway explosions caused Tarlias’s and Shadow’s bodies to tremble violently.

“It’s them!” Tarlias exclaimed, losing control of her emotions. “The Legion will be coming after you, we will not forget this embarrassment!”

Oscuras made a crude approximation of a smile with his beak. “Is that what you really believe the blasts were? You were right that the explosion was from the Legion base, but it was not of Legion origin!”


Tarlias grew pale. “...! The black feathers...!”

“Correct,” Oscuras said with scorn. “They were quite perfect bombs, inconspicuous enough to be dangerous, yet obvious enough to be lethal! I'm very pleased with what I took from the Soulsmith, combining my spirit and my power with my identity is an amazing power. Hahahahahahahahaahahhhh!”

A boiling rage took control of the Legion commander’s body as her face contorted with fury. “You... you b—”

“Tarlias, no!” Shadow shouted. “He wants you to lose control! Blinded by rage, you’ll be much more vulnerable,” she said, recalling what happened when Helios let her learn the consequences first-hand.

“Shut up! This villain is going to die, and that will be because I killed him!”
Aggravated by her ceaseless thrashing, Oscuras shook Tarlias with his talon furiously.
“Please don’t distract the driver while the bird is in flight,” he mused. Tarlias was knocked out, wracked with pain and confusion from the pummeling.


They continued flying for hours, and the ground below them changed from icy mountains to desolate wasteland.

“Where are you taking us?” Shadow asked, bracing herself from the airborne dust. “It probably wouldn’t make a difference, so you might as well let us know.”

Oscuras weighed his options, and yielded, seeing no threat in answering the question. “We are heading into the Deep Void. It was a pain to do, but there’s a stronghold there, so I thought ‘why shouldn’t I keep that as my headquarters’? Besides, a portal was already made to access that place, so it’s not like I had to waste my time taking what wasn’t mine.”


A portal that already accesses that stronghold...? Something that was already his... No... it can’t be. The thought wormed its way into Shadow’s mind. Wait a minute, wasn’t the Castle Kantniz portal located outside FalconReach... that means...!

“Devastating, isn’t it?” Oscuras asked, again by plumbing into Shadow’s mind. “How quickly a millennia-old lineage can be shattered.”

Using what was formerly the Guardian Tower as a benchmark, Shadow quickly scanned the vicinity. Though it was unreasonable to expect familiar landmarks to still be around 600 years past their time, this was a bit too exaggerated.

Everything familiar to Shadow had been erased. There was no Inn, no statues, no anything. Barren desert had encroached upon everything and reduced it all to dust.

Flying in through the ruins of the tower, Oscuras landed, pressing Shadow and Tarlias into the jagged ground.

“Isn’t... the portal... back... that way...?” Shadow asked, winded from the impact.

“Have you learned nothing?” Oscuras asked, still not releasing them. “When you snuck into Kantniz last time, you entered the void, not the castle itself. Raynor had actually created two gateways into that world, one of them outside and the other in the Tower Catacombs, just as I commanded. If you became lost wandering the Deep Void, I would win. If you found it anyway, Raynor would’ve had plenty of time to intercept you two.”


Throwing the pair against a wall, Oscuras gasped suddenly as his wings wrapped around his body. A mass of dark energy enclosed him, causing a dark glow to emanate from the void in his chest.

“Do something!” Shadow whispered to Tarlias. “If he’s taking this long to transform this time, he too must be worn out! Strike now, and fire your plasma ray!”

Tarlias nodded, still a little dazed from slamming into the wall at high speed. Placing all of her remaining energy into her hand, she fired another beam directly at the emptiness that was Oscuras’s chest.

The bubble surrounding Oscuras shook, as streaks of throbbing red shot through the sphere.


The surroundings were bathed in a sick red light (and toileted with an acrid red stench) as the sphere thinned out and expanded. The dour odor of burning flesh permeated the Tower as Oscuras drifted back to where he threw the pair.

“Useless!” he buzzed. “I commend you for trying to strike while I appeared vulnerable, but it’s futile!” stretching out his hand towards his prisoners, vines of darkness ensnared them, moving the two closer to the Dark Emperor.

“Enough waiting, I'm going to take the one power that hasn’t surfaced in an eternity,” Oscuras declared, walking down the steps of the Tower ruins. Though Shadow tried to struggle against the wispy darkness, Tarlias was unable to even resist, the second plasma ray robbing her of what energy she had left.

“This is the beginning of the end for you two,” Oscuras announced as he brought the three of them through the basement portal.


~~Experimental Overlabs, Castle Kantniz~~

Sparks ran down clear tubes in all directions as electrodes flashed with electrical power.

Imprisoning Tarlias in an electrified cubicle, Oscuras gave a smile of triumph as he hooked several nodules to various parts of the commander’s limp body. Flicking a switch, Tarlias shrieked in agony as heavy electrical current passed through her, taking even the smallest quantities of life from her as she just regained.

“Tarlias!” Shadow shouted. “Stop this, Oscuras, you’ve already done enough! Her power’s already been taken, so let her leave!”

“I can’t believe someone as childish as you made it that far into the ranks of ChronoWeaving,” Oscuras replied coldly. “Of course I'm not going to let her escape back to her army. So what if I've already taken her power? She will suffer until I wrench the last spark of life from that body. I saved that girl from death, so I have final say over where she extended life can end. That’s how it’s been during the years that she was under my control, and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

Tarlias was right, Shadow thought. He didn`t save her out of anything even close to kindness; she was a weapon, and that’s how he’s going to use her. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she thought about the kind of horrors that Tarlias could have experienced.

“I’ll... be fine...” Tarlias moaned weakly. “This is nothing.”


“Such gallant boasting from a child on her last breath,” Oscuras said insultingly. Transporting Shadow to the summoning chamber, a dark gout of flame erupted near his hand as he brandished his sinister scythe.

Smothering black fog filled the room as the floor burned with countless candles. “It’s a little different with somebody alive,” Oscuras stated, again intruding into Shadow’s mind.

“Stop reading my mind,” Shadow said angrily. She was unsure if he was able to see everything, so trying to think up an escape plan was out of the question.

“Why should I?” Oscuras asked rhetorically. “You’re not better off than Tarlias, you can barely stand. I'm saving you time and energy by answering your questions before you ask them, shouldn’t that make you feel grateful?” the sarcasm in his voice was palpable.


Shadow leapt back, trying to get out of the reach of the giant scythe. “I'm going to stop you right here, right now,” her voice rumbled, as Vice’s deeper voice filled her throat.

“I was wondering what that interference was in your mind,” Oscuras gurgled, seeing the answer right in front of him. “It was foolish to tip your hand so easily,” he sneered. “Now I know what caused all of Shadow’s sudden increases in power level. Absorbing you will be much more worth it than just her!” Oscuras roared, jumping off a wall to hurtle right towards Shadow.

Seeing the blade come near her head, Shadow blasted Oscuras with bolts of ice, forcing him to cover his eyes. Shadow narrowly missed the razor edge of the scythe, as Oscuras grimaced in anger. “Stop resisting, your powers are as good as mine!” he shouted. Landing behind her, he knocked her to the ground with the back of his weapon.

His reach is massive, Vice thought to Shadow.

We need to stop him from swinging that thing everywhere, got any ideas? Shadow asked back.

Break it. Vice shouted suddenly. We have our own elemental blade, if you can break his scythe, then he won’t be able to use that against us!

Shadow compressed the shards of ice on the ground into a weapon, encasing her right arm in a blade of elemental ice.

“So this what you choose to fight me with? Do you not see the overwhelming difference in power between our two weapons?” Oscuras taunted.


Undaunted, Shadow dashed towards Oscuras, crouching down to keep it hard to swing at her. Swinging her arm, a thin layer of ice started forming on Oscuras’s abdomen. “I see,” he commented, casually breaking off the ice that encrusted his stomach region. “With a smaller weapon and frame, you think you’re more agile than I am. Let’s see you try that again,” he goaded.

Rushing towards Oscuras again, Shadow aimed her blade at the scythe itself.

Noticing her aim, Oscuras held it in front of him in a blocking stance, almost encouraging Shadow to try and break his weapon.


Shadow jumped, bringing her blade down in front of her as she landed before Oscuras. The scythe rippled, and was then fine. “Why would I need a regular element-infused weapon to fight?” Oscuras asked, viciously slashing the blade diagonally across Shadow’s body.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (9/13/2013 23:36:47)

Bringing Light to Darkness

Let us break the chains of hatred together.

It was all manner of dreadful sensations at once. Shadow’s eyes glazed over as a deluge of cold sweat soaked her armor. She felt like she was losing consciousness as the feeling that she hadn’t eaten in weeks crawled through her mind.

What in blazes was that?! Vice shouted in Shadow’s mind. You’re blacking out, I can feel it, stop! Stay awake, Shadow! If you go comatose now, you’re done for!


Clutching at her shoulder, Shadow could’ve sworn that a deep gash was running down her torso, but no wound was to be found.

Vile black ichor dripped from Oscuras’s scythe blade, which he consumed as if it were a delicacy. The liquid resembled the one that spewed from her mouth back at the Energy Grid Labs.

“You lose,” Oscuras declared. “I've taken your power and you’re too exhausted mentally and physically to do anything that can stop me.” Picking Shadow up with a tendril, he brought her to a heavily locked vault. “The Ice-Ten that Weaver R&D was developing had no use before, so we stored it for a time that we would need it. I think I will use it now.”

Throwing Shadow into a hollow space in the mound of Ice-Ten, Shadow immediately felt the frost biting into her cuts and scrapes.

“With no energy left, you won’t be able to escape the very element you’re aligned to. Within the hour, you will be preserved like our ancestors! Don’t you feel proud, knowing that you’ll be useful for an eternity?”

Shadow said nothing. Her mind was still being torn apart as her thinking processes were being rent apart by the remains of Oscuras’s mind scythe.



“Now then, there’s something else I have to take care of, I don’t suppose I’ll be sticking around to see the ice take over everything you are… ha ha ha…”

Suddenly, an explosion originating from a different part of the castle shook the fortress on its foundations. “What the... Tarlias is still conscious?! That little...” Shadow didn’t hear what other words Oscuras had for the commander as her glassy stare followed him out the door.





A humming in Shadow’s ear caused her to snap back to attention. Shadow... a voice in her head echoed. If you can hear me, let me know...

It wasn’t Vice yelling at Shadow to wake up (even though that was probably also happening), so it had to be Tarlias. Mustering her strength, Shadow tried to communicate back with Tarlias. ‘What happened?’ was the first question she could think of.

I was exaggerating, Tarlias answered. Oscuras might be able to break into people’s minds now, but he’s not able to stop you from deceiving yourself. I kept telling myself that I was shattered, and that’s what he heard. I caused a few explosions in the room that his electrical machine was in, so I have a few minutes to find you.

Shadow tried to move, but the Ice-Ten had already covered everything up to the shoulders. I’d wait for you, but I'm uh... kind of stuck here myself. Shadow thought to herself, assuming that Tarlias would hear.

I already know, she replied. I can tell that you’re trapped in Ice-Ten, so do what Quake taught you that other time.

Shadow felt queasy. Tarlias just told her something that was impossible for her to know. Damn it Tarlias, I'm not a freaking open book. If I needed you to remind me how to get out of Ice-Ten, I would’ve asked. Tarlias was the fourth to root around in her mind, and it was getting more and more unpleasant.

Okay, jeez, sorry. I need to run off now, so let’s meet up at the portal as soon as possible. Tarlias said hurriedly as she broke the mental connection between the two of them.



Okay... now how do I do this...? Shadow thought. The last time, it was just one arm that was splashed with Ice-Ten, so she was able to use her other arm to cast a fire spell. How was it going to be possible with both arms locked? I'm about as far away as fire-aligned as possible, how can I possibly pull this off without a conduit...?

The Ice-Ten ate into her again, and she yelped as it caused bits of her skin to tinge blue with frostbite.


It’s too cold, Shadow thought to herself. Wait a minute, ‘too cold’, that’s it! Fire isn’t the only thing that can melt ice, water at sufficient temperature can do it, too! Staring at an overhead pipe, Shadow tried to impose her will upon the water inside of it, increasing its temperature to the point that Ice-Ten wouldn’t be able to freeze it.

Bringing a globule of hot water close to herself, she dropped the bubble on the Ice-Ten covering her left arm, freeing it.

Wiggling her fingers, Shadow quickly conjured a fireball to prevent the arm from getting refrozen again.



After repeating the process many times, Shadow freed herself from the Ice-Ten, causing it all to melt away. “I've got to find Tarlias, and quickly!” Shadow told herself, glad that she regained control of her body. Clutching her Dragon Amulet and the remains of her identity, Shadow made her way back into the labyrinthine castle complex.


Even though she had explored the castle previously, Castle Kantniz was massive, and it was clear that the little section that Shadow had previously seen was nowhere near the extent of the fortress. A long time had passed since Shadow left the Ice-Ten room, and she began to have the uncanny feeling that she was walking in circles.

Running her hand along the wall to keep balance, Shadow tried to find a way to leave the massive citadel.


Suddenly, Shadow heard footsteps followed by clattering.

With barely enough energy in her body to move, Shadow was left with only a simple dagger concealed at her hip. Unsheathing it and holding her breath, Shadow leaned against a wall as she waited for the source of the noise to move nearby.

A weak glowing slowly became blinding as a head popped out from behind the corner.

“Agh!” Shadow exclaimed, throwing the dagger at the person.

“Woah!” the other person cried out, moving a glowing hand up to block the blade. Shadow’s target looked up, noticing who was attacking before she moved to counterattack. “…Shadow!” Tarlias smiled. “I was planning on diverting Oscuras before finding you, but it looks like you’ve did that part already!”

Before Shadow could celebrate, she realized that their staying on one place was unsafe. “Let’s get back to the Energy Grid,” she suggested. “If you’ve been leading Oscuras on a wild goose chase, he’ll be here soon.”

Tarlias agreed, but suddenly a thought caused color to drain from her face. “When we were brought here it took hours, how can we possibly get back to the Grid, if we don’t even know which way and where it is?” she asked, disheartened.


Shadow’s Dragon Amulet suddenly started glowing, causing a bright patch to appear inside of her battle-torn cloak. The echoes of a voice that sounded like rocks rumbling and earth shattering filled the hallway. “It’s Seiryuu,” Shadow affirmed, starting to move towards what she assumed to be the exit out of the castle. “We’re going to fly back, but since my dragon can’t enter the castle, we need to find the secondary portal.”


Eventually blowing a hole in one of the castle walls, Shadow and Tarlias found their finish line underneath the main floor.

The descending hallway opened up to a large open chamber, where there was a massive glowing altar surrounded by the burnt-out remains of candles strewn across the floor. “It looks nothing like when I last came here,” Shadow mumbled to herself. “Come on, if my guess is correct, we’ll be able to get back quickly, Seiryuu is waiting for us.”

Their own footsteps were drowned out by the stomping of someone behind them. “What do you wretches think you’re doing?!” the voice echoed from the other side of the passageway. “Did you actually think your little trick would work, child?!” came another shout.

“Run!” Shadow shouted, dragging Tarlias to the top of the already-primed portal.


Oscuras ran into the room, just quickly enough to see Shadow and Tarlias disappear from the castle. There was a brilliant flash of light, and the pair vanished, causing the portal to return to an inert state.


The Dark Emperor cursed his overconfidence.

“Damn it! No!”


After another slew of curses and expletives, he regained enough sense to calm down. “You two are just like flies trapped in a web,” he fumed, “you can try to struggle and get away for now… but you’ll never escape!”


~~Barren remains, Falconreach…?~~

They broke through the gates holding them in the castle. Shadow and Tarlias tumbled out of the portal, returning them to the barren wasteland that was formerly called ‘home’.

Shadow knelt in front of what the assumed to be the remains of the inn, trying to recall what had long since disappeared.

Staring forlornly at Twilly’s stump, three voices rang inside of Shadow’s head.

It’s time to stop looking at the past, and to stare forwards at the future.

It’s no use crying about what we have lost, we must stand strong to fight back for everyone.

Come on Shadow, we need to hurry up and take Oscuras dow— ahh what the heck why is there a dragon here?!



The third voice broke Shadow’s concentration, and the image of Vice in Shadow’s mind scrambled. Looking behind her, Seiryuu had landed, much to the surprise of Tarlias.

“I’ve been waiting,” Seiryuu rumbled. “We should be able to get back to the Grid within a few hours, there’s no time to waste.”

“Hang on,” Tarlias said back to the dragon. “The Energy Grid labs were destroyed. Why are you telling us to head back there?”



Seiryuu laughed, a deep resonating sound that shook the earth in his revelry. “You should know your friends better, the hangar might’ve been ruined, but the Grid itself is very much alive. In fact, that Helios of yours, he— woah what why can you understand me?!” he didn’t even notice it during their conversation, which surprised Shadow even more.

Just as Tarlias was about to answer, an ominous black pillar erupted from the apex of the ruined Guardian Tower, blasting the ruins even further. “So there you are!” Oscuras shouted, taking flight.

As Oscuras flapped his own set of giant wings, quills of darkness struck at the earth below Seiryuu’s feet.


Recognizing what they were, the pair rushed to climb onto Seiryuu’s back. “Come on!” he bellowed, flapping his wings in preparation.

Scrambling, Tarlias and Shadow clambered onto his back, letting Seiryuu take off as the ground collapsed from beneath him.

Innumerable black feathers rained down upon them, each causing explosions as they narrowly missed the dragon.


Letting a feather whizz by just by his head, Seiryuu landed his gaze back on his master. “There’s one trick I’ve been using to survive all this time, and I think you’ll be pleased with this, Shadow.”


The dazzling blue Primal Ice runes etched into Seiryuu’s scales flashed brightly, turning pitch-black after the glowing subsided.

Just as another flurry of feathers was about to rain down upon them, Seiryuu disappeared, letting the feathers fall through empty space.

“No!” Oscuras exclaimed furiously. “How dare you try to get away from me this late into the game!” he shouted, flying off to find the meddling dragon.


“Does he not see us going off in a different direction?” Tarlias asked, after making sure that they were out of earshot.

“Nobody can see us right now,” Seiryuu stated. “I was able to avoid capture by staying invisible. We’ll still be heard, so it’s not exactly a useful ability in combat, but this was a perfect way for us to get away from someone already thrown for a loop.”


Flapping his wings steadily, they made their way back to the Energy Grid.


~~Somewhere near the ruined Energy Grid Labs Hangar~~


Touching the mountainside ground, Seiryuu went right ahead and started making conversation. “You’ve got a resourceful team of people behind you, er…”

“Tarlias,” she answered, assuming that the dragon did not yet know her name. “I know not why Oscuras chose it, but that’s the only name I know. It’s the only thing I can ever be grateful to him for.”

Seiryuu looked a little uncomfortable, unsure of whether or not he opened any wounds. “Uh, anyway, remember the ice cavern Helios made you explore, Shadow?” she nodded in affirmation. “They moved most of the things they could salvage into the second layer you found, something about it being extremely convenient due to already having treasure troves of resources in certain chambers.”

Shadow remembered that the ice golems she fought were streaming out of what appeared to be only one place, but she paid it no mind. There must have been a reward for someone foolish enough to try and enter that hollow.


“You’ve returned,” a voice from behind them announced. A gate opened, and Helios walked out to greet them. “I’m glad that you two were able to make it back, a few of your underlings began to lose hope after the first week.”

“Week…? We were gone for a day, maybe two days at most!” Tarlias objected, trying to find reason for Helios’s outlandish declaration.


“It must have appeared to be mere hours to you because of the strange way the flow of time bends in the castle. Yes, I’m sure of it, Castle Kantniz was a Weaver stronghold after all, there is much reason to believe that time slowed down around it.

“We discovered that his goal was to absorb both of your powers, so it would be impossible for anyone to stand against him. Fortunately, you two were able to escape with your abilities intact. He’s still missing pieces to his puzzle, so we shouldn’t need to fear him raiding our fortress again.”


Pressing a button on a sideboard, another entrance large enough for Seiryuu opened to reveal a blinding gateway. A place extremely different than the Energy Grid tundra was on the other side of the gate, causing Shadow’s eyes widened in disbelief. “That…! That’s…!” Shadow stammered, unable to finish her train of thought.

“Another thing we discovered was a way to return to your time. We will battle the weakened Oscuras in that time, ensuring the end of this war. A few platoons have already crossed the time stream to that timeline; I don’t suppose you won’t be joining us?”


Tarlias brought her own dragon through the portal, leaving Shadow to prepare her own path through.

Suddenly, a blast of darkness struck the machine, causing the portal to flicker erratically. Helios turned around, taking his eyes off the controls. “Who…!” His eyes widened at the sight of the saboteur.

A man in a tattered black cloak stepped out of the shadows.

“Lothyn!” Helios shouted angrily. “What is the meaning of this?!”

“I… I’m sorry for everything that I’m throwing away,” Lothyn said, a twinge of genuine remorse in his voice. “But my mission is more important than my emotions.”

An ominous swirl twirled around his arm, and a black ball of energy erupted from his fingertips.

“My deepest apologies.”



The image in the portal started wobbling, and a row of threatening red lights ran down the side.

“Shadow!” Helios said, quickly discovering Lothyn’s intent. “We don’t have much time, go through the portal now, we have no time left!”

“But you will be trapped here!” Shadow protested. “How will you be able to join us in our final battle?”

“I’ll be fine. Now go.”


Without a choice, Shadow closed her eyes and dived through the portal again.



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (10/9/2013 20:37:12)

Fallback

We look at the people of the past as primitive and brutish, totally incapable of accepting that our descendants will look at us the same way, with disgust and morbid curiosity.

~~ Void ~~


“It’s… time.” Oscuras breathed.

“I thought you said that everything was already in motion. What has to happen now?” Vendetta asked, suddenly wary of Oscuras’s plans.

“Nothing has changed from my original plan. Preparations are almost complete for the total destruction of this world. I shall return it to the dust that it once was.”

Vendetta grew apprehensive. “But… you told me that you would rule this wretched place! While you played god, I would be a king, you gave me your word!”

“Hold your tongue if you wish to keep it,” Oscuras snarled, pushing Vendetta aside. “I’m not sure how exactly you led yourself to believe that I would rule over this world, but I might as well make it clear for you; everything will cease to exist after I am finished with this.”

“I can’t let you do that,” Vendetta whispered as he drew something from the side of his leg.

Oscuras immediately turned around, to find that ice began to spill out of Vendetta’s dagger. “What, are you so angry with the change in plans that you’re going to slay me? Are you going to try and rule this worthless world with your own meager powers?” he made no attempt to block the attack, paying no heed to something he thought was trivial. “HAH! You try to resist me now? Don’t make me laugh.”

“I’m not going to let you reduce everything to nothingness. If you want to destroy this world, you’ll have to go through me.”


“Your meager powers can do nothing to me. What can you possibly do to make me need to get through you?” Oscuras taunted.


Suddenly, a bolt of pain shot through Oscuras’s eye. “Agh!” Oscuras yelled, clutching at a throbbing pain in his head.

“Oh? What’s the matter?” Vendetta goaded. “I thought you said you were invulnerable.”

“It’s… it’s my eye, it’s starting to lose its light!”

“Didn’t you expect that eye to get infected, having crammed so many foreign objects into it?” Vendetta asked, mocking Oscuras’s entire mission.

“You…! What did you do, swine?!” he shouted furiously.

“Your powers will destroy you as much as they have brought you to where you are,” Vendetta explained coldly. “You’ve absorbed too many powers. You’re going to be torn to pieces by the very stream of time you thought you could oppose.”


“Torn apart…? Ahhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!” Oscuras laughed, causing Vendetta to freeze in place. “I don’t care about what happens to my eye anymore. This ridiculous mission will soon be over. Soon… ha ha ha… very soon, there will be very little cause to be concerned about anything!”


Vendetta thought he was on guard before, but now his back arched instinctively, ready for battle. “What are you planning…?” he asked, eyes narrowed to slits.

“This world isn’t possibly enough destruction,” Oscuras seethed. “Yes… this entire universe shall be devoured by my hatred!”


Oscuras could barely see, but the sound of Vendetta’s footsteps gave him away. “There!” he shouted, striking Vendetta with a burst of dark energy.

Vendetta knew what was going to happen, and he kept calm. “It’s useless, you don’t have total control over time anymore. You can try to blast me into the future, but I’ll go nowhere!”

“I’ll take my chances,” Oscuras retorted as Vendetta faded from view.


He became one again, one with the universe, one against the universe.


~~New Energy Grid Labs, Teleportation Room~~

“What do you think you’re doing, Lothyn?” Helios asked, accusingly. “I’ve always thought of you as a bit of a loose cannon, but a spy?!”

“My mission is to stop your mission,” Lothyn explained blankly. “He is trying to rebuild this universe, and we cannot allow you to interfere.”


“Huh, interfere? That’s a colorful way to put it.” Helios extended his hand, and a golden halberd wreathed in blinding white fire erupted from inside his palm. “Looks like I need to knock the cobwebs out of your head.”

“How appropriate for a man of light to talk about reality when the real truth is presented right in front of him,” Lothyn retorted, pulling two black daggers out of the air.
Parrying the first blow, Helios narrowly dodged the second blade. Taking a step backwards, he swung his glaive, carving a line of fire between him and Lothyn.


Just as they were about to trade blows again, darkness began to crawl out of Lothyn’s eyes and mouth. An eruption of darkness knocked Helios backwards.

Lothyn was no more, his body reduced to a dark splatter on the floor and walls. His body split in two, causing another entity to leave the bifurcated shell. What was formerly Lothyn’s body melted into the inky darkness.


There was only one thought racing through Helios’s mind. Oscuras. Standing guard, Helios readied his glaive for another attack.

“Enough!” the voice commanded, causing Helios to freeze in place. “You. Scientist. Bring me back to the same timeline that Shadow and Tarlias are in.”

“And what if I say no?” Helios asked with an extreme air of defiance.

An invisible force threw Helios against a wall. “You may be a fool for trying to stand against me, but I can wager that you’re not suicidal. If you refuse my order, than I will rip the knowledge right out of you.
If you want to live long enough to give your little rebel faction the slightest speck of a chance of standing against me, you will obey me now.”

Helios was cornered. If he let Oscuras through, there would be no end of trouble for Shadow and Tarlias. If he refused, Oscuras would tear him apart and get to the answer by himself. “I… I accept,” he finally answered, deflated.

“Ahahah! Excellent!”


Returning to his workstation, Helios rapidly tapped out a sequence of commands, trying to rebuild the portal connection.

“I don’t have time to waste here,” Oscuras sneered. “You’re wasting precious seconds of my time.”

“I can take hours from you if I feel like it,” Helios snapped back.


After an hour, the connection was rebuilt. “It’s done,” Helios declared, wiping sweat from his brow. “Now leave.”

“Do you take me for an idiot?” Oscuras asked, causing Helios to inhale sharply. “I know that we’re on opposite sides of this war. I did not for a second believe that you would willingly betray your comrades.
You’ll be the first to cross this portal, you little sneak.”


“Ah…! That’s unfair of you, Oscuras,” Helios stammered, trying to bump into a button behind him without causing suspicion.

Trying to keep his gaze locked on Oscuras, Helios slowly walked towards the portal. “I wouldn’t dare do something like that,” he said with a smile as he fired two firebrands at the ceiling before disappearing into the void.


The cavern began to rumble. “You rat,” Oscuras cursed, barging through the flickering portal.


~~Outskirts of Falconreach, 600 years ago~~

Falconreach was burning. Shadowy parodies of men were invading, tearing up everything in sight. Although many heroes of Falconreach were fighting back against the army, it was clear that it was a losing battle.

Even with the many recent developments, they were being ground down by the sheer amount of umbral darkness.
Suddenly, a dark gash opened in the sky. Countless dragoons streamed out from the dimensional fissure, bringing the chaos to a fever pitch.


This is wrong, Shadow thought to herself. We should’ve reappeared around the same time that Oscuras banished me, why is this happening now?


A scout barged into the Generals’ meeting, gasping for breath. “Sir! It appears that the invasion is nearing the conclusion, more advanced enemies are coming from the sky now!” he declared, losing his balance as he relayed the information.

“Eridias, where are they?!” Veinn demanded. “Gather the troops. I’m heading out!” he shouted as he slammed the door behind him.

A vase toppled, shattering as it slammed against the floor. “He never listens,” a different Guardian sighed. “They’re coming from the ground and the skies. What should we do?” standing up, he too donned his helmet.


“Where are you going, Seyles?” a voice called out from behind him.


“We have to call in the DragonLords, Eridias. The army flies, we’ll be eradicated without their help,” he answered as one of the stablemasters released a gryphon.


“I pray for your swift return,” Eridias replied.

Unfolding a spyglass from a pouch, Veinn surveyed the invasion from the safety of the tower. It was as the scout reported; flying enemies really were streaming out of a portal in the sky.

Moving his line of sight, something peculiar caught his attention.

“Eridias! Come see this!” he commanded.

Taking the spyglass and looking in the direction that Veinn pointed, Eridias saw a familiar sight. “Why… isn’t that… Shadow Dragonsvain, the Weaver who disappeared a while ago? What’s she doing…”

“What she is doing is unimportant. What is important is that she is the enemy,” Veinn responded firmly.

“This is irrational!” Eridias declared. “No prophecy has been broken, it’s not a Friday the Thirteenth, we’re not celebrating any holiday, and it’s not the dead heat of summer! Shouldn’t we try and get her to explain this?”

“No need. From the recent internal conflict from the Weaver tower, it’s clear that we’re dealing with a traitor. She ran away before, but she’s back with an army. It’s up to us and the defenders of lore to stop her. Now then, it’s time for us to bring the Firespewers back into battle.”

“The Firespewers? Isn’t that a little dangerous, with nobody evacuated yet?”

“I’ll consider it,” Veinn replied dismissively.



Catapults were being fired at Shadow’s group. “Don’t they recognize us?” Seiryuu asked furiously. “They can see that we’re here fighting off Oscuras’s shadow army just like they are, can’t they?”

“They recognize you all too well,” Tarlias replied in Dragonic. “They’re attacking because they know who you are. If I have to guess, Oscuras has led everybody to believe that you’re the one behind this all, Shadow.”

"We have to let them know the truth!” Shadow thought. “If the Legion and the forces of Falconreach fight, we’ll destroy each other before Oscuras does!”

“No. I can’t let you risk that,” Tarlias decided resolutely. “There is no reason for them to listen to an enemy they can see convince them of an enemy invisible. Either they’ll reach their own conclusion, or we’ll find a way to force them to understand.”

“Veinn!” Eridias called again. “The flying army is attacking the shadow army as well! What could this possibly mean?”


“Pay it no mind. They’re merely destroying trash that they no longer need. Don’t for a second believe that they’re here to help,” Veinn replied coldly from his post.

“It’s ready, start releasing the charges!”

~~~~


From above them, Tarlias noticed a dark shade envelop her and Shadow. “What’s happening?! ” she shouted to Shadow.

“They’re airships that the Guardians are piloting, they’re called Firespewers. They were intended to be used in war to quickly deploy explosives against a ground-based army, but they’ve been shelved due to the efficiency of dragon troops. Until now.”

~~~~


“We can’t fire there!” Eridias protested. “There’s a community there! Just let the militia handle places with people! The Firespewer Mines are extremely dangerous!”

“I want to hear none of this,” Veinn declared. “I know what the risks are, and I accept them. The sooner we eradicate this enemy, the sooner we can rebuild.”

“We can’t rebuild lives shattered by those we thought were our guardians!” Eridias pleaded. “Please, rethink this! Trust will plummet if the public finds out we are willing to displace civilians in battle!”

“Enough!” Veinn boiled. “I’ve made my decision as commander. If you want to go and evacuate everybody, you’re free to do so, just don’t interfere!”

“WHAT?” Eridias shouted. “They haven’t been evacuated yet?!”

“Of course not, saving the majority of people is far more important than saving a few.”

“Unbelievable.” Eridias got off his seat, and headed belowdeck.


The deafening sound of grinding gears rumbled from above them. Ominous green spheres began dropping from the hull of the ship above them.

“Watch out!” Shadow exclaimed, narrowly avoiding one of the globes.

“What are they?” Tarlias asked after they moved to what they assumed was a safer region.
Suddenly, the globe that dropped close to them hit the ground. The ground shook, and a crater formed where a community used to stand.


“The Firespewer Mines are dense explosives. When the nitroglycerin catapults were deemed insufficient to handle the armies of evil, the Firespewers were suggested as a replacement. Needless to say, they were considered too dangerous, and thus they were thrown in storage.”

“And they have to gall to bring something like that to a battle like this?” Tarlias sounded both enraged and disgusted by the primitiveness of this world that came 600 years before she did.

“They must have had no other choice. Usually, wandering and native heroes take care of defending the town.”

“Then that means—”

“Look there!” Seiryuu roared. Below them was a group of battlemages trying in vain to stop the army of darkness from devouring a housing district.


We’ve got to help them! Shadow thought as Seiryuu dropped altitude.

As Shadow jumped to help the defenders, the dark masses recoiled with a voiceless groan before resurging.

“Who are you?!” one of the mages asked in surprise. “You’re not one of us, and your clothing suggests that you’re not from here!”

“Save the questions for later,” Shadow responded as she fired a beam of ice at the darkness.


Though stopped for a moment, the darkness broke through the ice prison. Unfazed by Shadow’s magic, the shades amassed at the top of the hill, congealing to form a writhing shape.

Undiscouraged, Shadow prepared to attack the darkness once again.

“No!” Tarlias shouted behind her. “It’s useless! This is Oscuras’s hatred we’re talking about! If my guess is right, he—”


Suddenly, a dark pressure shifted its weight on the hill. Some of the weaker mages lost consciousness immediately, while even the stronger ones found themselves paralysed.

Shadow’s arms felt like wet sandbags, and her armor became a shackle locking her to the ground.


A familiar shape began to appear in the darkness.

“There’s a person in there!” someone shouted. "We've got to...!"

“The leader! The leader has arrived!” someone else said as they ran off.

“No!” Shadow said, covering her mouth. “It’s too soon for him to…!”




“It’s not early at all!” a voice resonated in everyone’s mind. “It’s the perfect time… for me to close this world in darkness!”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (12/25/2013 1:00:01)

Unite, Untie, Untangle, Tangle

To think that learning from the mistakes of the past will protect you is the same as deluding yourself into believing that the candles of hope and optimism can defeat the darkest moonless sky.

~~ Runic Fountain, Castle Kantniz ~~


“This place just gets bigger and bigger,” Oscuras muttered to himself. “It’s been an eternity, and there are still countless rooms and chambers to explore.”

The floor glowed with a bright blue as he stepped into the shallow pond. Taking vigilant care to not damage the book, Oscuras was lead into the center of the chamber by runes inscribed on the smooth floor.

Having reached his destination, all pretense slipped away as Oscuras callously ripped out entire sections of the now tattered Book of Lore and scattered them on the water. Each page touched the surface like a fallen petal before the ink became unintelligible and the page was devoured by the water.


Panting almost exaggeratedly, Oscuras stood guard as the pool began to simmer feverishly.

Bubbles began rising from the places where pages landed. At first, it was no more than a tiny fizzing, but after a few short seconds, large orbs began rising from the water.

Oscuras stared inquisitively as the bubbles began displaying images. There were no reflections of the Dark Emperor; every sphere displayed a miniature scene from the Book of Lore.

The scenes were very quiet (despite the chaotic events that they displayed), and so Oscuras relaxed a little as entire battles played out before his eyes.

He saw the infernal, saw the Doomknight, saw the pyromancer, the Rose Commander, each one making movements in their own little world, completely unknowing of what was outside their domes.


Just as his mind began to wander, one bubble caught his gaze. A massive creature attacked the land, tearing it apart with its claws and leaving only void in its wake.

This must be… that war… Oscuras thought to himself. Even he was barely able to recall what had happened in that war. Fixing his eyes on the scene intently, Oscuras pieced together the events. I read about this, he thought. It was one of the first entries. The Weavers faced off against an evolving enemy, one that changed the way people looked towards war.

The chamber filled with manic laughter. How naïve we once were! We were so bright-eyed… None of us knew the meaning of war…

None of us ever bothered to consider the consequences, Oscuras thought.

“Those who fail to learn from the past…,” Oscuras muttered, causing the bubble to erupt in a ball of flame.



~~Firespewer Command Ship, skies above ~~

“I hope you’re happy,” Eridias griped. “As if we didn’t commit atrocities today, everyone trapped in that area is now gone forever.”

A minor explosion caused Eridias to lose his footing. Veinn paid it no mind.

“I told you!” Veinn bellowed. “Those lives are sacrificed to save the lives of many others! Now then, the traitor is right there, summoning their boss. If we strike at their group now, we’ll be able to scatter both the forces that they’re leading, as well as prevent stronger enemies from arriving in this plane. Amass all the Firespewers to this location.”

There was a startled yelp and a clattering as someone burst into the captain’s bridge.

“Wait!” somebody shouted. “You… you can’t go there right now! Veinn is trying to save Falconreach! I won’t have you interrupt him!”

“Don’t try to stop me! Stop deceiving yourself and look around you!” the other voice retorted.

Without warning, a tall man wrapped in a Weaver’s cloak burst through the door of the command room. A frigid blast of wind quickly followed behind him, causing Veinn’s hair to stand on end underneath his battle armor.

“What do you think you’re doing?! Can’t you see that I’m saving Falconreach?!” Veinn shouted furiously. Droplets of spittle stained the counter as if to emphasize his point.

“If you know what’s good for the future, you’ll yield to my commands. If you refuse, you’ll be erased from existence,” the intruder demanded, covering the room in a thick sheet of ice.


Just as Veinn began to pluck the daggers out of his bandolier, the trespasser’s movement became impossible to follow with the eyes. Out from behind him, a hand slammed Veinn onto the floor neck-first, knocking the wind out of him. Gasping for air, Veinn saw that the intruder’s hand had transformed into a glowing blue blade. Veinn sensed no malice from the action; there was only the feeling of desperation. “I don’t have time to spare, so if you’re just going to stall me, I’ll rip that time out of you.”


~~battleground, outskirts of village near Falconreach~~



Oscuras looked even more different from the time before. The entire raven motif was falling apart, and so he looked more so like the sole survivor of a lost war. “Ugh…” he groaned. “That worm… where did he go?!” searching frantically, Helios was nowhere to be found.

Tarlias froze. “What? Wasn’t he with you?” she asked Oscuras amid the disarray.

“If I knew where he was, I would have already erased him from this time stream,” Oscuras snarled. Concluding the search to be useless, he stopped and noticed his location. “Hmm… I was supposed to land before my shadow army arrived, but this works just as well…”


Oscuras suddenly felt something rest on his shoulder as the ambient temperature dropped. “You,” a familiar voice called out tensely. “What do you think you’re doing, destroying Falconreach with an army of shadows? I thought you said you were going to stop conflict, not cause disorder.”

He gave a dark, evil laugh. “I was going to create order where there was once chaos, but that’s not enough anymore.” Reaching behind him, the blade of ice melted in his grasp. Raising the arm, his army of darkness began amassing around him. “Come, shadow spectres, join with me to create an eternal night! Let the world be swallowed up by the darkness in the hearts of all men! Dark Calling!”

Throwing away the broken blade, Shadow leapt back as Oscuras absorbed power from the darkness.

Just as his vile ritual began, a squadron of battlemages descended from a Firespewer above them, and attacked Oscuras with bolts of magical energy.

Though it was clear that there was intent coming from every blast of magic, none of them were effective against Oscuras’s cloak of dire shadows.


…No. Shadow thought to herself. “They’re not just ineffective… no! He’s draining energy from the attacks as well!”

Oscuras’s absorbed magical power from the attacks, adding it to his own.

A dark atmosphere enveloped Oscuras as everything in his presence transformed into a twisted parody. “You lose, there is no one left capable enough to stop me!” he shouted, its echoes resonating all the way to the mountain ranges. “How pitiful of you all to rush into this battle, with no knowledge of who you’re fighting!”

Dark spikes erupted from the ground, breaking up the formation. What was once an orderly squadron of casters tore apart, wizards running around in scattered circles.


Directing his attention to the one he considered a threat, Oscuras fired a line of spikes at Shadow, faster than the eye could keep track of. They could only be seen by the disruptions in the air that they tore through. “I have no explanation for how you’ve been able to get through everything that’s happened already, but you won’t get out of this final act. Die.”

Without flinching, the barrier came up and protected Shadow. “It’s useless!” she shouted back. “For this entire time, I thought I was searching for something.” Shadow closed her eyes for a second.

“Oh?” Oscuras lauched. “Did you find it? Your own arrogance? Your own impudence for trying to fight a battle you have zero chance of winning?”

A wave of black fire licked at Shadow’s barrier.

Uninterrupted, she continued. “Now I’ve found it. The secret.”

Oscuras made a perturbed shuffle backwards, but stood his ground. There was no reason to be afraid of someone half his new height. “You’ve been mistakenly believing that you could ever defeat me for six hundred years. Each and every time, I’ve arrived unscathed, and I’ve taken and destroyed everything you’ve known.”

“You might be able to plunder and destroy, but you’ll never be able to stamp out what we need to battle with: our fighting spirit,” Shadow countered.

“Oh please, you’re going to use that cliché now? Wargoth’s balefire is mine. Sek-Duat’s vampirism is mine. A void dragon’s power is mine. The legendary soulsmith’s power is mine. There are countless more. I’ve taken the powers of all who have posed threat to lore, and I shall be the one to use them to close this world! Even you and Tarlias, I’ve taken parts of your essences, too. The heroes of lore might have been able to defeat every enemy that has come at us, but very few would dare fight them all at once.” To emphasize his claim, a sweep of his hand transformed the landscape into a roaring hearth.

Just as Oscuras was about to reduce the small mountain ridge to ash, a dark mass hovered in from above Oscuras with a screeching grinding noise. Looking above, he saw nothing but the gaping mouths of keels.

“Release the Firespewer Mines!” a voice blared from the airship intercoms.

Multiple klaxons blared, and green orbs tumbled out from the airships. Explosions surrounded Oscuras from every direction, drowning him in explosive dust.


Understanding the signal, Seiryuu caught Shadow, and they took flight back into the skies while the earth rumbled with anger at what had just happened. “How did you know that they would arrive?” Seiryuu asked with curiosity.

Recognizing the voice, a small smile crept across her face. “They might be a bit scattered, but when united by a common enemy and backed by a leader, they’ll know what to do.”


At first, only a shape could be seen in the darkness. As the blackened dust settled, a single bright spot appeared in its center. Shadow didn’t notice it until a purple beam shot out of the smoke.

Shadow was able to deflect the attack with her barrier, but further attacks forced her to take to the air. Oscuras returned unharmed, but his priority shifted to his attackers.

“Shadow!” Tarlias shouted in midst of the chaos. “We’ll hold him off for now, you go and stop the other Oscuras!”

In the midst of escaping atop Seiryuu, something Tarlias told her on the way to Falconreach in her time echoed in her mind. “Given that we did not reach our intended temporal destination, we might have returned to a point in time before you were banished to the future. We have to be extremely careful of everything, since there’s no telling what us being here will do to Helios and the future.”

“I don’t quite follow,” Shadow answered guiltily.

Trying again, Tarlias pulled two threads out from her pocket. “We can imagine your predicament as taking a string, cutting it in half, and then moving one half away from the other,” she explained, straining to make the analogy work. “If… no, when, Oscuras chases us back to this time, his string will be doubled, twice the amount of string in that instance.”

The mental picture made it even more confusing, and so Tarlias abandoned the analogy. “When we are warned not to interact with our own selves in a different time era, it’s not because it’ll cause a catastrophic explosion (that myth is a lie told to fool young children); it’s because the two entities will merge unpredictably. It’s prohibited for students and heavily guarded against for even the most veteran Weavers—”

“But Oscuras is now far more than any Weaver”, Shadow interrupted.

“All the more reason for his attempts to be more frightening.”

It started to make sense. Shadow remembered asking a question. “So then, when he arrives here and merges with the Oscuras in this time, what can we expect?”

The answer wasn’t pleasant. “Armed with the knowledge of the future, I too would like to not repeat my mistakes.”


Shadow snapped out of her reverie.

“Seiryuu,” she breathed. “Tarlias and her team are trying to hold this Oscuras off, we need to find and eliminate the other. Oscuras should have retreated to the tower. Let’s go.”

Flapping furiously, Seiryuu soared off as fast as his winds could take them.


~~ Chronoweaver Hub Tower Entrance ~~


The gates were locked when they arrived, but the proof of Shadow being a Weaver caused the gates to open. The floating staircases hovered lazily, as if they were unwilling to move. Seiryuu was too big to help transport her up without destroying large sections of the tower.
“Come on, come on! I don’t have time for this!”


Distractedly using her magic to hurtle up the spire, the platform clattered as she jumped off, sprinting towards Oscuras’s gate. Giving the handles a violent pull, Shadow noticed the powerful ward placed upon the door.

A voice from behind her took Shadow by surprise. “You’re back again?” the secretary asked. “If I didn’t know better, I thought you had run off with some important work.”


It can’t be! How can I be here, now? If we’ve arrived as early as this, everything should be fine…


“Nothing is as important as what I am here to do now,” Shadow replied coldly.

“A bold claim, but I’m sorry, Oscuras was strapped for time before he greeted you last time, and there is no way he’s going to meet with you so soo—“

The door opened. “Come no, there’s no need for such formality. I gave Shadow an important mission, and if she’s returned, it must be something significant. Come, let us know the intelligence you have gathered on this mystery,” Oscuras ordered with an air of bureaucratic procedure.


Getting Shadow to close the heavy door behind them, Oscuras spun around in his chair so the back faced Shadow. “She might be rigid, but my secretary can also be very flexible given the right circumstances,” he said as if there was no larger matter at hand. “So, you must have something important to share, let us hear it?”

Holding a steaming cup of an unidentifiable substance, one would’ve thought Oscuras was going to talk about something irrelevant to work; like the weekend antics of his sons, or something immaterial like that.

Tentatively taking her seat, Shadow couldn’t help but notice that the steam was moving towards Oscuras’s face. “Before we start, there wouldn’t happen to be a draft in this room, would there?” she asked casually.

“Don’t be silly; at this altitude, a draft would be the least of my worries. Now now, don’t dawdle, what have you got to report?”

Shadow struggled to form the words to what she wanted to describe. “I’ve seen things. Things that I don’t wish to have ever seen; a pitch-black roc, a massive giant of darkness, a castle floating in the middle of the deep Void.”

Setting the drink on the windowsill in front of him, Oscuras paced around the outer rim of the room. “It seems like you’ve seen an awful lot in what has been a few minutes,” he mused.

Hearing the suddenly loud click-clacking of shoes, Shadow could feel Oscuras standing behind her. “I only have one question for you now that you’ve had all of these visions.”

Shadow felt relieved that Oscuras didn’t find it unnatural, but then suddenly thought it suspicious. “You must’ve all heard the old saying ‘those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it’, have you all not?” Shadow couldn’t see it, but no bone in her body denied that the phrase was uttered through a sneer.

Taking a sharp inhale to reply vehemently, Shadow found herself unable to do so. The dread had returned, imprisoning her thoughts on the tip of her tongue. “For… how… long… did you… know…?” she finally gasped out.

“I… knew…” Oscuras replied, mocking the breathlessness Shadow was experiencing, “since the… instant… you… returned to… this time…!” Shadow could finally see his face, but only a faceless void gazed back at her.

At that moment, the Oscuras that Tarlias’s team was holding off disappeared. “That can only mean one of two things…” Tarlias thought to herself. “Either Shadow has won, or something far worse than we anticipated happened.” Looking at the clouds above her, she feared for the worst.

“AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA!” Oscuras cackled. A bolt of purple lightning struck down on the spire, causing the walls to crumble and for Shadow to touch the atmosphere. Shadow did not even hear the sound of the bricks hitting the ground.
Shadow broke her daze, and saw Oscuras rise into the sky.

Dark energy surrounded Oscuras like a choking haze; it threatened to invade the illuminated realm at a single moment. The skies darkened with opaque storm clouds, as if in response to the stirring evil. Oscuras became one with the thunderheads. “I control the sky as if it is my plaything, and yet you still dare to take a stand against the storm?”

“Of course!” Shadow shouted back against the darkness. “Is it wrong for the defenders of lore to try and prevent you from destroying it?”

Countless gnashing mouths opened in the darkness, and they all roared with throatless anger. “OF COURSE IT’S WRONG!” the dissonant snarls caused the Weavers to wince in recoil. “THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE CAN DO TO TRY AND STOP ME, AND ALL THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAST WON’T STOP ME!” Dark lightning struck overhead as the sky became punctured by rips.

The gateways opened, and something that could never be erased from the memory of the people spilled out of the portals.


~~ Energy Grid Labs, Teleportation Room~~



“That was quite some ruse you pulled, jumping through the portal before the connection was established! I’d wager that even I would’ve fallen for it!” Quake spoke of the matter as if it was a game, nothing like what it was in reality.

“It wasn’t easy, either. If I was off by a second on either side, it would’ve been too obvious, or I would’ve been transported into the past like the rest of them,” Helios replied, kneading his shoulder. “We really would’ve been out of options if Oscuras didn’t grow so careless.”

“Don’t you ever think that you’ll get yourself killed with this kind of reckless behavior?” the words comprising Quake’s question were sincere, but they still possessed sardonic tone.

Helios gave a wry smile. “To stop Oscuras and his mad plan, no price is too heavy to pay.” Returning to the closest computer monitor, Helios gave another furious session of typing in commands. The portal machine whirred to life again, as Helios reached for his cloak.

“Where are you going now?” Quake asked, partially desiring to follow.


“I’m going to go find him,” was the reply.

“Don’t be absurd, Shadow arrival here was a blatant anomaly, Oscuras said so himself! The other one can’t possibly be in this time!”


“I’m willing to gamble on this, no matter how improbable it is.” Helios wrapped the cloak around him as a visor materialized to shield his eyes. “So… feeling lucky?”



The ErosionSeeker -> RE: [DF] Time Collapse (WIP) (4/12/2014 20:58:15)

Ouroboros

If the world was ending tomorrow I'd tell you no day earlier, because knowing that you're going to die tomorrow is the same as forgetting that you are alive today.

~~Issol Badlands, unknown time ~~


Howling winds incensed the sand below, whipping it up in frenzy. Riled, the desert stood up and attacked, tearing away at its self and everything within it.

“This is your fault for listening to his lies!” a frustrated voice shouted.

“It’s nothing of the sort. It was foolish of you to try and stand against him. We’re not particularly significant to our leader’s plan, so it was to be expected that we’d be left behind like this.”

The two walked down the dunes, covering their heads with their tattered cloaks in a futile attempt at shielding themselves from the caustic windstorm.


Bracing themselves against the flying debris, a bright flash turned their attention to a dune off in the distance.

“I’m telling you, he can’t possibly be here!” a voice shouted. “The only reason why the last one wasn’t torn apart by the ravages of time was because of her power. This, this is insanity! How are we going to find one person here? He could be anywhere in this dead land!”

“I know he’s here,” the other one responded flatly. “When Shadow first arrived in our time, there was a strange substance stuck to parts of her armor. I assumed she knew what it was, so I alone went to analyze what it meant, in silence.”

“So it’s mud, what of it? We already knew that she was in a battle before she appeared at the Grid. You’ve been wasting your time looking for a scientific answer to a simple question!”

“It’s not just any old mud; it was clay. Clay hardens during times of heat and cold and old, so the only way for it to have stayed what it was for that long, it had to have been a clay essence, comprising of only elemental water and stone.”

“None of that information can help us now. We’re looking for a claybender, that’s not going to help us find him!

“If you can’t figure that out, I can sear the information into your head,” the second one retorted. “Clay is a preservative; countless discoveries have been made through unearthing objects and specimens from clay. Oscuras wanted him gone because he was his natural enemy.”


From behind the dune, one of the wanderers nudged the other. “They’re talking about you! Come on, let’s go!”

His companion said nothing and did nothing. “I… I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” he mumbled.

“I know you want to leave here too!” he hissed. “We were both fighting for good, after which we became corrupted by wickedness. This is only the natural order of things, for us to return to battling against evil!”

“Natural order, huh?” he stared at the empty sky above him. “Nothing has been natural for the longest time.”


A voice in the distance caused him to snap to attention. “Claybender! We know you’re here!” pausing for a brief moment, he thought of something to add. “We do not wish to be your enemy, come, come with us and receive a better fate than what you have now.”

Raynor crept out from his hiding place. “You… can give me a better fate?” he asked incredulously. “There’s not a soul in the world that can help me now. I don’t wish to hear your ramblings any longer. Leave me alone, even though this is wasteland, it’s my island of peace and calm.”

“Your island will be swallowed up by his darkness.” Helios didn’t want to reveal it just so quickly, but he had to convince the Claybender. “You are our best shot at stopping Oscuras, is that not better than the parody of calm that you have here?”

“..Swallowed up by…? What do you… Tell me everything you know,” Raynor demanded.

Helios was only too glad to answer the order. “Stronger than the darkness dragon, stronger than the balefire infernal, having stolen each of their powers, stronger than anything this world has ever seen; he, the man of rot and decay, has once again returned to your time to weaken and destroy everything…”


~~Firespewer Battleship, skies above ~~


Staring out the window, Veinn shifted uneasily in the spot he was leaning. “Hey, you…” he murmured, pointing at the one that took over his operations. “What’s that thing outside?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Captain Veinn.” Going through the motions of looking outside, Erosion saw only thunderclouds. The rumbling of thunder made it hard to make out his words, but the message was clear. “We command the skies. There is no one who can stop us from eliminating the real threa—” he stopped. The sight from outside the viewing zone was indescribable.

“Well? What’s gotten into you, commander? I thought you said we were unstoppable!” Veinn gave a wheezy laugh as he wandered away.


One enormous eye stared into the front of the Firespewer. “Familiar, aren’t they?” Oscuras’s voice rumbled, the sound of thunderclaps amplifying his voice. “They say that no fortress should fall to the same force twice, so have at it!”

With no purpose in lying in wait, the Time Demons of old returned to Falconreach.


They ripped and tore away at the land.


“This… this happened before,” Shadow mumbled to herself. She stood at the top of the ruined Weaver tower, transfixed in place by the chaos.

A voice coming from behind Shadow made her jump. “Yes it has. It was heavily written upon in the missing Book of Lore,” a Firespewer had stopped right next to the tower, a guard motioning for her to board the machine.


The ship rumbled as it glided through the sky. Shadow idly stared at the ground moving rapidly below her before she remembered a question to ask. “What are you—”


Shadow was interrupted by the sound of the ship landing. Staring out a window, Shadow noticed that they were inside an opening in the side of a mountain, almost completely hidden by the mountain ranges around it.

The man in the front seat pulled a device down from the ceiling, and spoke into it. “We’ve arrived at the armory. Equip yourselves with what is best suited, and don’t get anything too far out of your experience.”

The chair turned around, and Shadow’s eyes met those of the person sitting in the command chair. “We’re playing the same old game with a new set of rules, and our opponents? They’re called Cacaphonics, creatures of war and engines of destruction.”

“Erosion! What are you…?”
Pretending that an interruption never happened, he carried on his exposition. “Many years ago, we managed to use the Temporal Annihilator to eradicate them, but we don’t have that luxury this time around. ”

Shadow tried to remember how the Weavers defeated them last time. “The Firespewers were the same, how come we were able to find those?”

“Flying ships are quite difficult to hide. That weapon, on the other hand, was not only disassembled, but scattered. To ensure that it could not be used against its inventors, each architect kept a critical piece, so that it could only ever be recreated when they all agreed that it was needed. Most of those people are now dead, missing, or… something much worse.”

“The plans should be preserved, shouldn’t they? If worst comes to worst, we’ll have to recreate one!” As flimsy a plan it was, it was something.

“That would be the case… if the blueprints weren’t stolen,” Shadow muttered in disbelief. “While you were exploring the first portal, somebody broke into the Weaver Archives and removed several files along with the Book of Lore. Our next move would be to try and hold off the incoming waves, but that won’t solve the large problem.”

A blinding flash of lightning attacked the dark sky. A deafening thunderclap followed quickly after. “Oscuras,” they said in unison.

~~Northlands mountain range~~


Before they could continue planning, one of the Firespewers in the formation exploded; a smoldering puncture wound in its hull caused it to explode in a shower of molten metal. As the squad stopped to find the cause, something moving faster than the eye could see infiltrated the ship that Shadow and Erosion were controlling.

Out of nowhere, a blade made of crackling light jabbed out at Erosion. “Are you the one who destroyed that village?! Who are you and what are you doing with Shadow?!” the person demanded, growing more agitated with each word.

Noticing what was happening, Shadow tried to calm their attacker. “Tarlias, calm down. He’s on our side.”

The intruder relaxed her stance. “We were worried,” Tarlias exhaled. “We saw the chamber break, and you disappeared as the airship came by. With all of this chaos, it was difficult for our side to concen—.”

A bright flash covered the frontal force field.
Tarlias fell to one knee, cupping her hand around her ear. “I thought I lost the signal, but they’ve returned. Wait… I can sense four entities, two familiar and two…?”


A portal opened on the airship, spilling faces familiar and new. One figure burst out standing, while the other three could only manage to tumble out.

“Rrgh! I told you, Quake, that… thing of yours is going to get us all killed some day!” Helios cursed, clutching his head and brushing off his sand-soaked clothes.

“You didn’t have an escape route, Candle Head. If we keep going with your calculated path, we’d perish of boredom,” Quake grinned.


Shadow looked at the strangers curiously. “Hey… you’re… you’re Raynor!” pointing a finger at the taller of the two.

“So I am,” he replied coldly. “I don’t see why that scientist thinks I’m so important to this cause. I was fine in that place, all quiet and alone.”

Raynor stared out the window, and his eyes widened.

Getting to his feet, Helios sheathed the sword of brilliant white fire. “He… Raynor… is a Claybender, another of the combined elemental powers. So many people with Claybender powers coursing through their body never realize it. Content with just sculpting with clay, they never learn how to manipulate it, how to create it, and what it can be used for. Like your own barriers, Claybending is one of those things that need to be pushed to the breaking point to unlock. Very few people have survived a situation where their crafts make the difference in a crisis, and so many of these people just disappear.”


Sweat dripped down Raynor’s temple, as he began shivering.

“So he wasn’t exactly blessed by the avatars, but he’s lucky. Why is he so important to our cause? His power—”
“T-t-t-them!” Raynor shouted, pointing at a swarm of Cacaphonics on the ground, transforming a row of abandoned houses to dust. “They’re the ones who…!” the sentence ended with a guttural shout.

He waved his hand in a diagonal motion, and a glob of clay followed the motion. Sharp rocks accumulated on the blade as he took a step back from the window.

“No! Raynor!” Shadow shouted, trying to grab onto an arm to stop him. “If you charge out there, you’ll get killed! Who do you think summoned them? Who do you think caused all of this?”

“Him.” Raynor gave a sigh of defeat as his eyes shifted to Helios. “Fine. What do you want me to do?”


Helios smiled. “Did you know that clay can be used to preserve things?”

A blob of clay erupted from Raynor’s hand, encasing it in a heavy sword. “You decide to inform me about an application of my power as a preservative? Is this a joke?” The blade point was aimed at Helios’s neck.

Unfazed, he gripped the blade with a white flame-wreathed hand. The solid clay heated up and boiled to lava. “As I was saying before, clay preserves, and like all preservatives…”
Shadow put two and two together. “…it can’t decompose!”

“So that’s your game,” Erosion finally said. “So you want to neutralize Oscuras with this guy’s power. What do you plan on doing afterwards?”

“That’s when we use our second trump card,” Quake answered, placing a heavy box on a nearby table. “Raynor had the plans to a certain weapon from your time. It’s not quite finished, but I’ll be able to make it operable shortly.”

“Oscuras was back there, still increasing his powers by devouring the darkness. Soon enough, he’ll be here to destroy everything.”


“There are only seven of us here,” Quake laughed sheepishly. “What can we do against that thing?”

Tarlias smiled. “Oscuras can absorb anything, and take on its abilities and properties. We’ll use his own powers against him.”



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