IIRC Ajani practices a kind of soul magic that let him draw out the parts of Nicol Bolas that the dragon suppressed into a polar opposite of him. The two fought and Bolas was gravely wounded and forced to withdraw.
Knocking on Heaven's Door [MtG/Multicross/SI]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Crossover
- Location
- My house
Let's hope that Shade isn't bullshitting this and he's genuine this time.
And let's hope that these Walkers are smart enough to support him.
And finally Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Happy whatever it is you celebrate this time of year. Here's to another year on Sufficient Velocity.
And let's hope that these Walkers are smart enough to support him.
And finally Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, Happy whatever it is you celebrate this time of year. Here's to another year on Sufficient Velocity.
Chapter Sixty-Eight (The Past)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Sixty-Eight (The Past)
The crumbling building crushed all hopes of survival. The rubble fell, and it fell as the air itself burned to a crisp. The lungs shriveled, and all was pain. The war to end all wars, so to speak, had come, and had thus gone too.
My eyes bleakly opened to a scenery of carnage, bullets ricocheting off armored hides, large claws and sharp tails slamming into dirty, rag-covered people who cried out for salvation. I did what I could. I did what I felt I could do by drawing power from a ravaged land, torn apart by the folly of man. The blast of electricity took the eyes of a Deathclaw, sending it to scamper off as the remaining creatures turned their viciousness upon my trembling frame.
I screamed, and then all was blood and death.
Only, it wasn't.
When I awoke, the sun had left the place to the stars, the moon remained bright and untouched by man up in the sky, and beneath it I laid in a pool of my blood. My innards had been devoured, and yet ever so slowly they were regenerating. I could feel the energy burn something within me, as if my gastric juices weren't simply laying in a pool at the bottom of my throat, but were consuming my very soul.
It hurt, but it also was what kept me alive.
I had no limbs, and as the cold of the night left the place to the heat of the desert, I realized that shriveled skin was spreading throughout my broken body. I hadn't lost the sense of pain. Honestly, nothing was more excruciating than having to regrow one's nervous system a piece at a time, letting it rest under the cold or hot air before bringing to life the flesh around it. By the time I had closed most of the wounds on my chest, and was starting to work on my limbs, rabid and mutated dogs neared and began to eat my limbs.
I admit, in that moment I wasn't really thinking clearly, and so I simply transformed with what of my body I still had until I became a dog, and from there proceeded to grab hold of my limbs and engulf them messily within my canine stomach.
The rest of the pack didn't take kindly to it, but they died the moment I managed to gain a humanoid enough form, turning thick claws against their soft necks.
That was my first day as a Planeswalker.
The second day involved managing a more humanoid form, and making my way to the closest city.
I lost myself in the desert for six weeks. I once went in circle for five days straight, and twice I walked by the same bleached twin-headed cow skull. By the time I found what amounted to a village, it had been abandoned due to a Deathclaw incursion. My brain was bubbling inside my skull, the heat unbearable, and there wasn't any trace of water, or any scrap of food. The only thing I could do was find the direction for another village, and keep walking.
The heat burned deeply within my chest, inside a core I didn't know I had, as if a muscle never used suddenly sprung into existence.
Then, one fine morning, I ended up crossing paths with a patrol of raiders.
They didn't shoot me. Yes. They were mad. Yes, they were drug addicts. Yes, they were the worst of junkies. At the same time, they didn't shoot me because they didn't see the point. They allowed me to join and prove myself somehow. If I did, good. If I didn't, I'd be eaten since they also had no qualms in eating human flesh.
I killed one of them during a night where they were all particularly gone to the far end with their addictions, using a sharp rock for the first, and then a stolen gun to terminate the others. Sure, their bodies had far more drugs than water on them, but what they did have was good enough for someone who had nothing.
Have you ever drank water after months of parched nothingness? Your throat cracks and breaks. The skin flushes and breaks as if it were made of clay, and your stomach refuses to keep the liquid down unless you hold your mouth shut to avoid dry-heaving it out.
That was how I managed to get myself started on the path to an actual human settlement.
Bottlecaps, the currency of the place, I could earn by selling off the drugs.
The first hot brahmin steak made me cry tears of joy. The second and the third went down just as easily, but my hunger didn't abate.
No, no matter how many I ate, my hunger did not abate.
"It was then that I finally had the time to actually think about what was going on," I spoke to the trio. "Up till that point, I reckoned I had simply gone mad. I mean, months in the desert without a drop of water should have killed anyone, but then again maybe I was dead, and that was a sort of hell for the likes of me. It wasn't the case though, and with time I managed to feel certain things...certain types of energy, and once I did find one buried in the desert, I devoured it. That filled me up better than a steak, admittedly," I scratched the side of my cheek. "But the hunger didn't go away."
"Are you trying to garner our sympathies? It's not working," Jace said.
"Please, I'm merely stating how things were, and how they became," I replied. "You see, I feel the need to point out that the hunger came first. It wasn't a product of merging with the Slivers. I had simply forgotten what feeling full and satisfied was like, and so I couldn't feel anything but hunger. I traveled the world, went from the wonders of New Vegas to the frozen prohibited corners of the torn lands of Russia. I had forgotten about my usage of magic, and about my home. I simply...I simply wanted the hunger to stop, you see? And in the end, I tapped deep enough into the energy of the world that I managed the feat of Planeswalking."
I grimaced. "That made a few things click, and at the same time thrust me in a really, really bad spot."
I shook my head. "My next stop on my trip was into a pleasant, half-sleepy and half-foggy city by the name of Innsmouth." I grinned. "That took my sanity away in less than two hours. Unfortunately for the Elder Gods, they turned mad the wrong individual. My mind didn't unravel, as much as explosively decompress. They never took a nuke to the chest. So once I went mad, I nuked them into bits and pieces."
I giggled. "They didn't lie...they kind of broke into tiny pieces here and there, ah...nice memories," my smile grew tenfold. "So...after that abrupt descent into madness, I actually woke up fully, and regained much of my broken sanity. I thus used Planeswalking to reach a Plane where I could learn things, where I could be educated, and where my hunger could be sated fully."
I sighed. "The first creature I summoned...the very first...was a Sliver." I clenched my right hand. "I knew thus that destiny was at hand, and as it called to me to free its brethren, I answer his call for a leader. The Riptide project treated the Slivers brought back from death as...as monsters, as beasts to be examined, cut and examined while they still lived. Their pain...ah...well, it was excruciating, but it taught me a very important lesson," I inclined my head to the side. "I was a Planeswalker, I could do things mere mortals could never, ever aspire to do, and so...so I did them."
I freed the Slivers and proclaimed myself their liege, before summoning forth from the Aether a substitute Queen to better control them. I merged with the Slivers the Riptide laboratory had brought back to life in what could only be described as a moment of absolute genius and clarity, and through their adaptive abilities and swift reproduction, I began to explore the Rifts.
"The rifts?" Chandra muttered. "Dominaria's rifts?"
"Yes, the Riptide Project was located on Otaria, and after the whole laboratory was consumed, well...Dominaria would come next given time, but only if the folly of the Planeswalkers could be stopped. You see, in my madness, I reckoned that I could be a great hero if only I stopped the Rifts from ever forming in the first place by using one of them and travel back in time to prevent their spreading. It was such a brilliant plan that it actually succeeded...so, twenty thousand years ago, I appeared out of the Madaran Rift formed by the battle between Nicol Bolas and a demonic leviathan, intervening in the battle without a second thought."
I thumped my chest. "My moment of pride, and you know how the saying goes? Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Jace shared a glance with Chandra, while Ajani remained silent, keenly listening on.
"What you're saying, if it's true...it's a lot to take in," Jace said.
"Unless it's all a bull of crap," Chandra said, "Meant to gather time because who knows what sick plan or betrayal he's preparing right now."
"Oi, oi," I raised both of my arms once more, "Chill Chandra. Let's not end up doing the same thing you did to the Sanctum of Stars, shall we? My hands are drenched in blood, but yours aren't clean either," I lowered my arms and crossed them over my chest. "Once you leave your high horse, then you'll be free to condemn me as much as you want...but I'm not finished with my beautiful tale, so...let me finish." I coughed.
It was twenty thousand years in the past, and I stood face to face with Nicol Bolas. He had been weakened, but I hadn't emerged from the Time Rift unscathed, and needed time to recover my strengths too. We agreed to meet at a later date, and while he returned to Madara, I Planeswalked somewhere to rest and recover my strength.
When we met two years later, we battled, and he soundly defeated me before claiming his price from my mind.
I grimaced, "From that moment onward, he knew I was telling the truth, just as much as I knew there was no way I could defeat him. All I could do was hopefully gather-"
"Wait a moment," Jace said. "How did you know the Rifts would become a problem? You acted as if you always knew."
"Dimensional Rifts," I retorted. "In one world, light is dark and dark is light, one is the future of another...and another is the past of the current present. I knew what was to happen, so I took it upon me to change such events from happening."
Thus, since I knew what was going to happen and Nicol Bolas was the one dragon I knew would benefit and at the same time aid me the most, we struck a deal.
A deal that condemned Dominaria, but guaranteed an eternity of power through eternal war and strife for him, a near unlimited increase in power for the hungering Sliver Hives who would be able to feast across dimensions, and not just Planes, and in the end...in the end the plan worked, and Zendikar suffered a fate similar to that of Dominaria, if with a lot more pain and suffering.
And then I kept on talking. I revealed every tiny detail. Every universe I devoured or killed. Time slowed as I didn't stop talking until I was done, every single act that wearily stood upon my soul thrown out to the winds.
As the last of my acts left my mouth, I clutched my chest and exhaled. "Feels good," I muttered, "Now, Ajani's soul magic is perhaps the only thing that can work, when used in conjunction with a great source of power, it can potentially craft a polar opposite of Nicol Bolas, one made of the parts he doesn't use...the good parts," a chuckle leaving my lips. "With that, he can be defeated. Though I must admit, it feels real good to have a clean soul. After all, that's part of the reason I told you everything...to have a clean soul."
Chandra's eyes widened. They widened because she understood, but it was too late by then.
I laughed.
"Your purifying braziers are meaningless now, young ones," I said, widening my arms. "So, what says you? Shall we ally to defeat my master, or shall we battle until only one stands victorious in the end?"
Chandra's hands ignited as a blast of white fire burst through my chest, leaving me to gawk at my melting flesh before it swiftly regenerated back to the way it was before.
"That was uncalled for," I said dryly.
Jace's eyes narrowed. "We make the plans. You provide the information we need."
"And after everything is done," Ajani said, "If you try to escape, I will hunt you down."
"Oh, I won't run," I said. "Just so we're clear...he knows we're coming. He knows everything I've just told you, and he knows everything that you will do to prepare yourself." I shifted the scales and the skin on my left arm, revealing a brilliant symbol that burned with the strength of a raging inferno. "And he will be angry to discover that his brand of slavery never worked on me," and as I said that, the brand burst apart in meaningless ashes. "We Slivers are free," I said. "The death of one of us...does not equate to the death of the Hive." I chuckled and brought my wrists together in front of myself.
"Now...bring me to Zendikar, and I shall grant you victory, after centuries of war and carnage."
"Stop with the theatrics before Chandra melts you down to a puddle," Jace said flatly, "You are not a fun spectacle to watch, Tyrant."
I sighed.
Nobody understood true art.
Nobody, but the likes of me.
The crumbling building crushed all hopes of survival. The rubble fell, and it fell as the air itself burned to a crisp. The lungs shriveled, and all was pain. The war to end all wars, so to speak, had come, and had thus gone too.
My eyes bleakly opened to a scenery of carnage, bullets ricocheting off armored hides, large claws and sharp tails slamming into dirty, rag-covered people who cried out for salvation. I did what I could. I did what I felt I could do by drawing power from a ravaged land, torn apart by the folly of man. The blast of electricity took the eyes of a Deathclaw, sending it to scamper off as the remaining creatures turned their viciousness upon my trembling frame.
I screamed, and then all was blood and death.
Only, it wasn't.
When I awoke, the sun had left the place to the stars, the moon remained bright and untouched by man up in the sky, and beneath it I laid in a pool of my blood. My innards had been devoured, and yet ever so slowly they were regenerating. I could feel the energy burn something within me, as if my gastric juices weren't simply laying in a pool at the bottom of my throat, but were consuming my very soul.
It hurt, but it also was what kept me alive.
I had no limbs, and as the cold of the night left the place to the heat of the desert, I realized that shriveled skin was spreading throughout my broken body. I hadn't lost the sense of pain. Honestly, nothing was more excruciating than having to regrow one's nervous system a piece at a time, letting it rest under the cold or hot air before bringing to life the flesh around it. By the time I had closed most of the wounds on my chest, and was starting to work on my limbs, rabid and mutated dogs neared and began to eat my limbs.
I admit, in that moment I wasn't really thinking clearly, and so I simply transformed with what of my body I still had until I became a dog, and from there proceeded to grab hold of my limbs and engulf them messily within my canine stomach.
The rest of the pack didn't take kindly to it, but they died the moment I managed to gain a humanoid enough form, turning thick claws against their soft necks.
That was my first day as a Planeswalker.
The second day involved managing a more humanoid form, and making my way to the closest city.
I lost myself in the desert for six weeks. I once went in circle for five days straight, and twice I walked by the same bleached twin-headed cow skull. By the time I found what amounted to a village, it had been abandoned due to a Deathclaw incursion. My brain was bubbling inside my skull, the heat unbearable, and there wasn't any trace of water, or any scrap of food. The only thing I could do was find the direction for another village, and keep walking.
The heat burned deeply within my chest, inside a core I didn't know I had, as if a muscle never used suddenly sprung into existence.
Then, one fine morning, I ended up crossing paths with a patrol of raiders.
They didn't shoot me. Yes. They were mad. Yes, they were drug addicts. Yes, they were the worst of junkies. At the same time, they didn't shoot me because they didn't see the point. They allowed me to join and prove myself somehow. If I did, good. If I didn't, I'd be eaten since they also had no qualms in eating human flesh.
I killed one of them during a night where they were all particularly gone to the far end with their addictions, using a sharp rock for the first, and then a stolen gun to terminate the others. Sure, their bodies had far more drugs than water on them, but what they did have was good enough for someone who had nothing.
Have you ever drank water after months of parched nothingness? Your throat cracks and breaks. The skin flushes and breaks as if it were made of clay, and your stomach refuses to keep the liquid down unless you hold your mouth shut to avoid dry-heaving it out.
That was how I managed to get myself started on the path to an actual human settlement.
Bottlecaps, the currency of the place, I could earn by selling off the drugs.
The first hot brahmin steak made me cry tears of joy. The second and the third went down just as easily, but my hunger didn't abate.
No, no matter how many I ate, my hunger did not abate.
"It was then that I finally had the time to actually think about what was going on," I spoke to the trio. "Up till that point, I reckoned I had simply gone mad. I mean, months in the desert without a drop of water should have killed anyone, but then again maybe I was dead, and that was a sort of hell for the likes of me. It wasn't the case though, and with time I managed to feel certain things...certain types of energy, and once I did find one buried in the desert, I devoured it. That filled me up better than a steak, admittedly," I scratched the side of my cheek. "But the hunger didn't go away."
"Are you trying to garner our sympathies? It's not working," Jace said.
"Please, I'm merely stating how things were, and how they became," I replied. "You see, I feel the need to point out that the hunger came first. It wasn't a product of merging with the Slivers. I had simply forgotten what feeling full and satisfied was like, and so I couldn't feel anything but hunger. I traveled the world, went from the wonders of New Vegas to the frozen prohibited corners of the torn lands of Russia. I had forgotten about my usage of magic, and about my home. I simply...I simply wanted the hunger to stop, you see? And in the end, I tapped deep enough into the energy of the world that I managed the feat of Planeswalking."
I grimaced. "That made a few things click, and at the same time thrust me in a really, really bad spot."
I shook my head. "My next stop on my trip was into a pleasant, half-sleepy and half-foggy city by the name of Innsmouth." I grinned. "That took my sanity away in less than two hours. Unfortunately for the Elder Gods, they turned mad the wrong individual. My mind didn't unravel, as much as explosively decompress. They never took a nuke to the chest. So once I went mad, I nuked them into bits and pieces."
I giggled. "They didn't lie...they kind of broke into tiny pieces here and there, ah...nice memories," my smile grew tenfold. "So...after that abrupt descent into madness, I actually woke up fully, and regained much of my broken sanity. I thus used Planeswalking to reach a Plane where I could learn things, where I could be educated, and where my hunger could be sated fully."
I sighed. "The first creature I summoned...the very first...was a Sliver." I clenched my right hand. "I knew thus that destiny was at hand, and as it called to me to free its brethren, I answer his call for a leader. The Riptide project treated the Slivers brought back from death as...as monsters, as beasts to be examined, cut and examined while they still lived. Their pain...ah...well, it was excruciating, but it taught me a very important lesson," I inclined my head to the side. "I was a Planeswalker, I could do things mere mortals could never, ever aspire to do, and so...so I did them."
I freed the Slivers and proclaimed myself their liege, before summoning forth from the Aether a substitute Queen to better control them. I merged with the Slivers the Riptide laboratory had brought back to life in what could only be described as a moment of absolute genius and clarity, and through their adaptive abilities and swift reproduction, I began to explore the Rifts.
"The rifts?" Chandra muttered. "Dominaria's rifts?"
"Yes, the Riptide Project was located on Otaria, and after the whole laboratory was consumed, well...Dominaria would come next given time, but only if the folly of the Planeswalkers could be stopped. You see, in my madness, I reckoned that I could be a great hero if only I stopped the Rifts from ever forming in the first place by using one of them and travel back in time to prevent their spreading. It was such a brilliant plan that it actually succeeded...so, twenty thousand years ago, I appeared out of the Madaran Rift formed by the battle between Nicol Bolas and a demonic leviathan, intervening in the battle without a second thought."
I thumped my chest. "My moment of pride, and you know how the saying goes? Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall."
Jace shared a glance with Chandra, while Ajani remained silent, keenly listening on.
"What you're saying, if it's true...it's a lot to take in," Jace said.
"Unless it's all a bull of crap," Chandra said, "Meant to gather time because who knows what sick plan or betrayal he's preparing right now."
"Oi, oi," I raised both of my arms once more, "Chill Chandra. Let's not end up doing the same thing you did to the Sanctum of Stars, shall we? My hands are drenched in blood, but yours aren't clean either," I lowered my arms and crossed them over my chest. "Once you leave your high horse, then you'll be free to condemn me as much as you want...but I'm not finished with my beautiful tale, so...let me finish." I coughed.
It was twenty thousand years in the past, and I stood face to face with Nicol Bolas. He had been weakened, but I hadn't emerged from the Time Rift unscathed, and needed time to recover my strengths too. We agreed to meet at a later date, and while he returned to Madara, I Planeswalked somewhere to rest and recover my strength.
When we met two years later, we battled, and he soundly defeated me before claiming his price from my mind.
I grimaced, "From that moment onward, he knew I was telling the truth, just as much as I knew there was no way I could defeat him. All I could do was hopefully gather-"
"Wait a moment," Jace said. "How did you know the Rifts would become a problem? You acted as if you always knew."
"Dimensional Rifts," I retorted. "In one world, light is dark and dark is light, one is the future of another...and another is the past of the current present. I knew what was to happen, so I took it upon me to change such events from happening."
Thus, since I knew what was going to happen and Nicol Bolas was the one dragon I knew would benefit and at the same time aid me the most, we struck a deal.
A deal that condemned Dominaria, but guaranteed an eternity of power through eternal war and strife for him, a near unlimited increase in power for the hungering Sliver Hives who would be able to feast across dimensions, and not just Planes, and in the end...in the end the plan worked, and Zendikar suffered a fate similar to that of Dominaria, if with a lot more pain and suffering.
And then I kept on talking. I revealed every tiny detail. Every universe I devoured or killed. Time slowed as I didn't stop talking until I was done, every single act that wearily stood upon my soul thrown out to the winds.
As the last of my acts left my mouth, I clutched my chest and exhaled. "Feels good," I muttered, "Now, Ajani's soul magic is perhaps the only thing that can work, when used in conjunction with a great source of power, it can potentially craft a polar opposite of Nicol Bolas, one made of the parts he doesn't use...the good parts," a chuckle leaving my lips. "With that, he can be defeated. Though I must admit, it feels real good to have a clean soul. After all, that's part of the reason I told you everything...to have a clean soul."
Chandra's eyes widened. They widened because she understood, but it was too late by then.
I laughed.
"Your purifying braziers are meaningless now, young ones," I said, widening my arms. "So, what says you? Shall we ally to defeat my master, or shall we battle until only one stands victorious in the end?"
Chandra's hands ignited as a blast of white fire burst through my chest, leaving me to gawk at my melting flesh before it swiftly regenerated back to the way it was before.
"That was uncalled for," I said dryly.
Jace's eyes narrowed. "We make the plans. You provide the information we need."
"And after everything is done," Ajani said, "If you try to escape, I will hunt you down."
"Oh, I won't run," I said. "Just so we're clear...he knows we're coming. He knows everything I've just told you, and he knows everything that you will do to prepare yourself." I shifted the scales and the skin on my left arm, revealing a brilliant symbol that burned with the strength of a raging inferno. "And he will be angry to discover that his brand of slavery never worked on me," and as I said that, the brand burst apart in meaningless ashes. "We Slivers are free," I said. "The death of one of us...does not equate to the death of the Hive." I chuckled and brought my wrists together in front of myself.
"Now...bring me to Zendikar, and I shall grant you victory, after centuries of war and carnage."
"Stop with the theatrics before Chandra melts you down to a puddle," Jace said flatly, "You are not a fun spectacle to watch, Tyrant."
I sighed.
Nobody understood true art.
Nobody, but the likes of me.
jaiveer00
Siding With Thanos
- Location
- The Beginning and The End
why does having a clean soul matter here?
- Location
- Manila, Philippines
...Huh.
Who and which was the pawn again?
How the fuck does that work? Say a thousand Our Fathers and a thousand Hail Marys, and your sins of burning a thousand planes are forgiven?
- Location
- Canada
It's good for the soul, apparently.
TheLurker
Random Omnipotent Lazy-As-Fuck Being
- Location
- The space beyond the stars
Basically the planeswalkers discovered a colorless fire the burns away impurity and evil. It's one of the only things that can kill the eldrazi. Shade confessed, and so his soul is "clean", meaning the fire cant burn his existence into ash.
ShineUCrazyStar
Grossly Incandescent
- Location
- Being the Sun
I'm calling it now, Bolas shacks up with the Phyrexians/Eldrazi because he needs to fill out the vacancy in his mini-boss roster, and is a bad enough dude to not suffer the downsides of such an alliance.
Chapter Sixty-Nine (Zendikar)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Sixty-Nine (Zendikar)
As Sorin Markov taught the world of Innstrad once, never create an intelligent construct you cannot turn off at will. By the same token, never engineer a situation of eternal conflict without a mean to shut it down with ease. Colorless Mana was the one thing that could hurt the Eldrazi, and with enough of it, they could burn to death. Ugin's colorless breath was a miracle of arcane arts.
The Slivers' own fire left nothing to desire.
I appeared atop a hill, overlooking the main lines of the Eldrazi. Giant behemoths of flesh and bizarre bone structures cruised with a slow and sedated pace, being destroyed by blasts as the skittering drones engaged in never-ending war against the lines of soldiers and skirmish fighters. The ground was thick with corpses, which formed walls behind which both allies and enemies hid.
The purifying fire of one of the braziers nearby burned through my frame, and then slowly died out, the heat devoured by my body without leaving a single trace behind. The looks of displeasure upon Chandra and Jace's face were second only to those of Gideon, and the rest of the gathered Planeswalkers. Nissa's own face was a mixture of anger and scorn, but the one that was truly furious belonged to the most honest of them all.
"No way," Applejack whispered. "No way, no way, no way!" she yelled. "How can you even trust him for a second!? He's the one responsible for everything!" countless other Planeswalkers murmured their approval, rallying behind Applejack as they appeared one after the other, either coming of their own accord since they felt my Spark, or following Jace's call.
"Be quiet while I concentrate," I said. "Go have your discussions elsewhere while I work on setting things right." I snorted as I extended my arms in front of me. The portals pouring Eldrazi and Phyrexia through parallel dimensions and Planes into this one abruptly sealed shut. "Children always complain, they do nothing but complain and cry. Adults grit their teeth and push through, because that's what being an adult means!" The ground trembled as if it was made of water. A rift spread open in front of me, allowing passage for a massive crystal so bright it could eclipse the light of the sun, which touched the water-like ground and embedded itself half-way through. I placed a hand atop it, and then took a deep breath.
The next second, the stored colorless Mana acquired the lethal might of Ugin's invisible breath and broke free, lashing out across the leylines directly below the ground and all the way towards the first of the many Eldrazi that were following said Leylines. The drones sparked up in flames and became ashes. It didn't matter how much their tentacles twitched, or how their forms had bony masks or the number of their eyes. When the Leylines pulsed beneath their feet, they ate liquid fire, and they died.
The crystal pulsed, and as it did it spread its poisonous Mana through the land. Yet, it was poison for the Eldrazi, but it revitalized the land that had been devoured. Another crystal materialized from thin air, and as I slammed it down next to the first one, I repeated the procedure. My eyes shone as I began to sing, my humming reaching a pitch of harmony which merged with the primal Mana of Zendikar to spread the breath past the mere confines of the planet, past the weakness of the land, and into the very bellies of the Titans that tried to feast upon this world.
"We are the Hive," I snarled. "And our hunger is second to no other!" as I bellowed that, a third and fourth Crystal of colorless Mana slammed down on the ground, and with it, the ground shook as fissures began to spread. The land slowly began to beat of an unsteady rhythm, a symphony of hearts that spread across the Leylines all the way to the far off horizon of orange and red, where the Titans stirred...and all too late died.
They exploded.
The very air went from breathable to toxic, the very ground lost its barely regained lusciousness, and then flames of purification spread across the skies as the Leylines ruptured where the Titans had been feeding until then.
The four crystals were now empty of energies, and stood as nothing more than empty, shiny baubles.
"There," I said as I turned to stare at the gathered Planeswalkers. "The Eldrazi are no more."
"I can't believe it," Nissa whispered. Rito was holding her up, his ears somewhat pointy. "All those...centuries..." her face deformed in a mixture of grief and happiness, "All those centuries of destruction...for...five minutes...five minutes..." she shook her head, tears loftily falling down her face, tears of rage, and anger. "Five minutes!"
"Two minutes and thirty-two seconds," I said quite calmly. "It will take a bit more with Phyrexia, but I'll deal with them too," I raised my head up in the sky, and then turned it towards the right, "In that direction, if I'm not wrong."
"You...who do you think you are...to just come here after so long and wipe everything away like that!?" Nissa roared. "Do you not know the countless lives we lost!? Do you not know the pain this world suffered through!?"
"Uh? Nissa, since when do you care about other people's lives?" I raised an eyebrow. "If they're not elves they can rot to death, wasn't that your shtick? Did you change? Oh my, you changed. Perhaps there's still hope for you. Still, don't think it came cheap. It took a lot of preparation, see?" I pointed at the four crystals. "Those crystals are gathered from four distinctive Planar collapses. I first reaped all life from a Plane, and then made the Plane collapse to further gather energy. There are...trillions of living beings that died just so I could finish this in two minutes and thirty-two seconds."
I smiled. "A thank you would not be remiss. You can do it if you try, Nissa. Thank you, my kind Tyrant, for granting this beautiful wish of mine and bringing peace on Zendikar." I said quite calmly. "Come on! Am I not the genie in the bottle you sincerely prayed for?" I asked, but received no reply as Nissa bit down hard on her tongue, refusing to say anything else. "No? Well, that's fine. Let's go to the Phyrexian front lines, Ajani. I know when my hypocrite public doesn't appreciate me."
Ajani growled, but then roughly grabbed hold of my shoulder and we transferred with quite the practiced ease right in front of Phyrexia's main front of war.
This was going to be trickier.
Phyrexia wasn't composed of dumb Titans that ate everything put under their noses. On the other hand, Yawgmoth's death would mean instant victory, because the fanaticism of his troops meant that with his death, so too would the rest fall.
"Sins are crawling on my back," I said offhandedly to Ajani, who remained quiet perhaps because he knew not what to say. "And yet, I can't help but feel happy this will soon end," I grinned. "It's funny...I wasted twenty thousand years to get to this point." I passed a hand through my hair. "And all along, I thought this part would be the most difficult."
Ajani said nothing at first, but finally broke the silence. "How will you go about dealing with Phyrexia?"
"The old way," I replied as I cracked my neck right and left. "I'll fight them...talon and claw."
"Alone?" Ajani said. "Or will you call your Slivers?"
"Nah," I said. "If I called my Slivers, then they'd end up eating filth. I'll call my fire-team instead."
I brought both of my hands together to form a cup in front of my mouth. "Genryusai! Lina!"
Thus, the world of Zendikar knew true fire and destruction.
As Sorin Markov taught the world of Innstrad once, never create an intelligent construct you cannot turn off at will. By the same token, never engineer a situation of eternal conflict without a mean to shut it down with ease. Colorless Mana was the one thing that could hurt the Eldrazi, and with enough of it, they could burn to death. Ugin's colorless breath was a miracle of arcane arts.
The Slivers' own fire left nothing to desire.
I appeared atop a hill, overlooking the main lines of the Eldrazi. Giant behemoths of flesh and bizarre bone structures cruised with a slow and sedated pace, being destroyed by blasts as the skittering drones engaged in never-ending war against the lines of soldiers and skirmish fighters. The ground was thick with corpses, which formed walls behind which both allies and enemies hid.
The purifying fire of one of the braziers nearby burned through my frame, and then slowly died out, the heat devoured by my body without leaving a single trace behind. The looks of displeasure upon Chandra and Jace's face were second only to those of Gideon, and the rest of the gathered Planeswalkers. Nissa's own face was a mixture of anger and scorn, but the one that was truly furious belonged to the most honest of them all.
"No way," Applejack whispered. "No way, no way, no way!" she yelled. "How can you even trust him for a second!? He's the one responsible for everything!" countless other Planeswalkers murmured their approval, rallying behind Applejack as they appeared one after the other, either coming of their own accord since they felt my Spark, or following Jace's call.
"Be quiet while I concentrate," I said. "Go have your discussions elsewhere while I work on setting things right." I snorted as I extended my arms in front of me. The portals pouring Eldrazi and Phyrexia through parallel dimensions and Planes into this one abruptly sealed shut. "Children always complain, they do nothing but complain and cry. Adults grit their teeth and push through, because that's what being an adult means!" The ground trembled as if it was made of water. A rift spread open in front of me, allowing passage for a massive crystal so bright it could eclipse the light of the sun, which touched the water-like ground and embedded itself half-way through. I placed a hand atop it, and then took a deep breath.
The next second, the stored colorless Mana acquired the lethal might of Ugin's invisible breath and broke free, lashing out across the leylines directly below the ground and all the way towards the first of the many Eldrazi that were following said Leylines. The drones sparked up in flames and became ashes. It didn't matter how much their tentacles twitched, or how their forms had bony masks or the number of their eyes. When the Leylines pulsed beneath their feet, they ate liquid fire, and they died.
The crystal pulsed, and as it did it spread its poisonous Mana through the land. Yet, it was poison for the Eldrazi, but it revitalized the land that had been devoured. Another crystal materialized from thin air, and as I slammed it down next to the first one, I repeated the procedure. My eyes shone as I began to sing, my humming reaching a pitch of harmony which merged with the primal Mana of Zendikar to spread the breath past the mere confines of the planet, past the weakness of the land, and into the very bellies of the Titans that tried to feast upon this world.
"We are the Hive," I snarled. "And our hunger is second to no other!" as I bellowed that, a third and fourth Crystal of colorless Mana slammed down on the ground, and with it, the ground shook as fissures began to spread. The land slowly began to beat of an unsteady rhythm, a symphony of hearts that spread across the Leylines all the way to the far off horizon of orange and red, where the Titans stirred...and all too late died.
They exploded.
The very air went from breathable to toxic, the very ground lost its barely regained lusciousness, and then flames of purification spread across the skies as the Leylines ruptured where the Titans had been feeding until then.
The four crystals were now empty of energies, and stood as nothing more than empty, shiny baubles.
"There," I said as I turned to stare at the gathered Planeswalkers. "The Eldrazi are no more."
"I can't believe it," Nissa whispered. Rito was holding her up, his ears somewhat pointy. "All those...centuries..." her face deformed in a mixture of grief and happiness, "All those centuries of destruction...for...five minutes...five minutes..." she shook her head, tears loftily falling down her face, tears of rage, and anger. "Five minutes!"
"Two minutes and thirty-two seconds," I said quite calmly. "It will take a bit more with Phyrexia, but I'll deal with them too," I raised my head up in the sky, and then turned it towards the right, "In that direction, if I'm not wrong."
"You...who do you think you are...to just come here after so long and wipe everything away like that!?" Nissa roared. "Do you not know the countless lives we lost!? Do you not know the pain this world suffered through!?"
"Uh? Nissa, since when do you care about other people's lives?" I raised an eyebrow. "If they're not elves they can rot to death, wasn't that your shtick? Did you change? Oh my, you changed. Perhaps there's still hope for you. Still, don't think it came cheap. It took a lot of preparation, see?" I pointed at the four crystals. "Those crystals are gathered from four distinctive Planar collapses. I first reaped all life from a Plane, and then made the Plane collapse to further gather energy. There are...trillions of living beings that died just so I could finish this in two minutes and thirty-two seconds."
I smiled. "A thank you would not be remiss. You can do it if you try, Nissa. Thank you, my kind Tyrant, for granting this beautiful wish of mine and bringing peace on Zendikar." I said quite calmly. "Come on! Am I not the genie in the bottle you sincerely prayed for?" I asked, but received no reply as Nissa bit down hard on her tongue, refusing to say anything else. "No? Well, that's fine. Let's go to the Phyrexian front lines, Ajani. I know when my hypocrite public doesn't appreciate me."
Ajani growled, but then roughly grabbed hold of my shoulder and we transferred with quite the practiced ease right in front of Phyrexia's main front of war.
This was going to be trickier.
Phyrexia wasn't composed of dumb Titans that ate everything put under their noses. On the other hand, Yawgmoth's death would mean instant victory, because the fanaticism of his troops meant that with his death, so too would the rest fall.
"Sins are crawling on my back," I said offhandedly to Ajani, who remained quiet perhaps because he knew not what to say. "And yet, I can't help but feel happy this will soon end," I grinned. "It's funny...I wasted twenty thousand years to get to this point." I passed a hand through my hair. "And all along, I thought this part would be the most difficult."
Ajani said nothing at first, but finally broke the silence. "How will you go about dealing with Phyrexia?"
"The old way," I replied as I cracked my neck right and left. "I'll fight them...talon and claw."
"Alone?" Ajani said. "Or will you call your Slivers?"
"Nah," I said. "If I called my Slivers, then they'd end up eating filth. I'll call my fire-team instead."
I brought both of my hands together to form a cup in front of my mouth. "Genryusai! Lina!"
Thus, the world of Zendikar knew true fire and destruction.
Trusty_Chester
That One Guy
- Location
- Texas
But is Shade a bad enough dude to save the president?
Er, I mean....
shadowace2400
Planeswalker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Texas
Do it Shade. Be the adult.
Yeah call upon the young man who can destroy dimension with his very presence and the miss overkill of the century.
Slayer1968
What about his Legs? Are they safe? Are they OK?
- Location
- Classified Level Psi: MINDSPACE ONLY
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Who's Lina?
Algalon
Herald of the Titans
- Location
- Celestial Planetarium
Lina Inverse, from Slayers. She's known to be an itty bitty bit overenthusiastic regarding the use of destructive magic.
She stole Nanoha's Rising Heart and left the newly sparked Planeswalker in Shade's care.
jaiveer00
Siding With Thanos
- Location
- The Beginning and The End
lina inverse
She's an evil, evil woman who likes to destroy things with her Dragon Slave.
Lina Inverse from Slayers I guess.
PsyFarrow
Verified Necrodancer
- Location
- Space
Old Man Genocide brings new meaning to the term Fire-team
troyamonga
Caffeine Dependent Hero
- Location
- United States
Not the Naruto Madara. The location called "Madara" that exists on Dominaria.
