Knocking on Heaven's Door [MtG/Multicross/SI]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Crossover
It's seems the Shade has reached planeswalker maturity. He finally figured out that the younger planeswalkers will always be ungrateful little brats and he might as well just enjoy wandering or hermitage.
So are managing singles planes and young walkers the equivalent of beekeeping for mature planeswalkers
So are managing singles planes and young walkers the equivalent of beekeeping for mature planeswalkers
jaiveer00
Siding With Thanos
- Location
- The Beginning and The End
i thought retroactively making it so that your enemies never existed would have been better, but that's just me.
Chapter Seventy (Zendikar)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Seventy (Zendikar)
Lina Inverse appeared like the kind of toddler who didn't really want to go to the doctor, but had no choice but to comply due to the promise of sweets. Genryusai appeared with a sigh, a cup of green tea in his left hand.
Ajani's body shifted slightly backwards as Genryusai's eyes glanced over him, his own presence more than enough to make all hair on the Nacahtl's body rise. It was a different kind of presence, one that expected judgment and righteousness rather than safety and calm. Lina, on the other hand, had the power of absolute destruction.
"Woo-hoo," Lina said as she cracked her neck brightly, letting the crimson Mana flicker through her frame, "This is the day isn't it? We're gonna burn it all down!" she rubbed her hands together, "Everything shiny is mine old man!"
"Youngster," Genryusai said firmly, his right hand slightly opening with a click his sword. "Keep up."
Like twin spirals of fire and flames they shot out from my sides, turning into molten slag the ground beneath them as they impacted with the strength of a thousand suns each against the sides of the Phyrexian's main line. Sickly black rays bounced off the shields made of sizzling white fire, and as one side blasted everything, ground and Phyrexians included into ashes, the other side sliced them in half as they proceeded further into the ranks.
"You know, Ajani...everything that begins must one day end, and that's just sad," I said offhandedly to the albino Nacahtl, "but without an end, there can't be a new beginning."
I took a single step, and the second one saw me vault over the charred ground as the Pennon Blade burst into existence, twirling around me as I worked it deep into the chests of incoming hordes of skittering metallic creatures, driven mad by pain, and then back into the realm of insanity by a faith so wrong, it couldn't be anything else but perfect for their brains. I thrust and spun, dragging dozens of Phyrexian grunts through the ground as I trudged on the toxic and poisonous ground.
Genryusai's blade burned with flames as it coiled and swished like a whip mixed with a snake, hungrily incinerating the countless, fearless creatures that opened fire, or tried to draw near to rip his body with their vicious claws. Eastern and Western paladins, which comprised the bulk of Yawgmoth's elite forces shattered against the bulwark of fire as we advanced. The further deep into the corrupted territory we went, the thicker the poisons became, and the darker the sky turned.
Yet with each blast of fire, with each burning swipe of a sword, or with each explosion that incinerated every single thing existing on a molecular level, we advanced.
A Gargantua blocked Genryusai's path, a creature of large claws and brutish strength, the size easily three to four times that of a human, its body mainly composed of mechanical gears and twirling mechanisms covered in dark oils and pulsing flesh-like metal. It disappeared into molten slag within seconds, a mere glance all that it took to destroy a ravager of men who had known no equal until then, and most definitely had never felt himself inferior to any other creature, barring those higher in hierarchy in Phyrexia.
"Oi, Shade!" Lina bellowed as her entire body was covered in pulsing flames. "How does this stick work!?" she said as she raised up Raising Heart. "I want to try it!"
"Throw it over and I'll program it for you!" I yelled back, twisting in mid-air to avoid a stab of a Sanguine paladin, before neatly beheading him with one of my seven swords, six arms having sprouted from my back. Nanoha's staff hit my tail as I twirled it around and began to work on it. I thrust the Pennon Blade into the chest of an incoming Demon, before glancing upwards, "Nina! Use the staff and wipe them out of the air! The chant is Divine Buster!" I threw the staff back, which Nina nimbly caught as she spun in the air as a towering column of flames.
"Uh? Very well," she spun her staff, aiming up at the sky dotted with dark engines meant to spread plague and illnesses, and as the demons flying close to hit us. "Darker than darkness! Deeper than night! Divine Buster, Giga Slave Edition!" as she said that, I actually acutely howled and threw myself down against the ground as Genryusai did the pretty much the same.
The blast that echoed destroyed the Raising Staff as the backlash cracked the ground and created fissures that aimed directly at the planet's core, while the skies disappeared as the blast vaporized pretty much everything and anything that it passed even remotely close to.
My ears rang as I stood back up from the sandy desert that had formed around us. "Lina!" I snarled, "You were to say only Divine Buster!"
Lina sheepishly laughed, and then summoned forth a second Raising Heart from the Aether. "Oh, come on Shade, you knew I was gonna do that anyway!"
Genryusai, most aptly, sighed as he stood up and dusted his shinigami's clothes. "I knew she would do that," he said. "You should have known she would do that."
"I did," I exhaled, "I did and yet I hoped she wouldn't."
Lina simply laughed, summoning a second Raising Heart, "Divine Buster!" she roared as both Raising Hearts opened fire in tandem, crafting energy beams that rushed past the lines of Phyrexians. Explosions dotted the landscape as we advanced, myself taking point as Genryusai and Lina ran behind me.
The ground trembled as massive constructs of bronze-like metal rushed forth from the depths of Yawgmoth's reign, the Phyrexian Dreadnoughts tearing through the land as mountains burst apart and lakes drained into the depths of the earth. Their quakes broke the roots of ancient forests, and the skies themselves seemed to lose the vibrancy that Lina had returned to them with her own massive attacks.
I sang joyously as I merged the seven blades together, before rushing forth to slice through the first of the Dreadnoughts with ease, bursting it into countless molten bits as I finished beyond it. Genryusai's sword shone with the plasma of supernovas, as the heat around us grew tenfold. Lina Inverse's Raising Hearts began to crackle with dark energies, twin Ragna Blades forming as she began to spin the twin-headed swords.
"Show off," Genryusai said as he sliced through a Dreadnought with ease, glancing at Lina who was instead dealing with two of the behemoths by herself, and with practiced ease breaking them apart. "Youngsters these days."
"Let's sip green tea while we wait for her," I drawled as I sliced a shrieking demon that had descended from the skies. "You going to play with them for much longer, Lina!?" I yelled at the young woman, who in turn grumbled and slammed a Raising Heart through the head of the first Dreadnought, detonating it, jumped off with a back-flip, and tore off the head of the second one with a neat swing.
Both constructs stopped moving, and as she neared with a huff, she flicked her head backwards to let her hair move away from her face. "Did you really need us for this?"
"No, I needed you for that," I said as I gestured further ahead, where the land of Zendikar itself seemed to merge with a darker, and deader land. "That is the artificial plane of Rath, which joins together Zendikar to Phyrexia. Even I would find it daunting to invade a Plane like Phyrexia alone."
"Uh, shouldn't we call little miss Nadia for this too?" Lina asked.
"She is indisposed, forever," I replied.
"Ah..." Lina clicked her tongue. "Broke the law?"
"Yes," I said. "She wiped her own brain out of the last...give or take decades," I glanced from Lina to Genryusai. "But she's been dealt with, so let's concentrate on dealing with Phyrexia."
I took a step forward and then reeled as I clutched my chest. "Gah," I grunted, feeling as if somebody had just burned a hole through my stomach. I closed my eyes, and took deep breaths. "Very well," I snarled. "Let's hurry."
"What happened?" Genryusai asked.
"Some of the Planes where I gather my Mana from have been destroyed," I answered. "It doesn't matter. I have enough energy stored that I can go at a loss for...ten minutes, give or take." I tried to smile, but the burning in my guts didn't ebb away. "Let's move it. One minute to cross Rath, one minute per layer of Phyrexia...it's still doable."
"Then allow me to open the way," Genryusai said as he took point, burning brightly in his entire being as he swung his sword in front of him. "Bankai," and in answer to that single word, a Sun was born upon the land of Zendikar. A travelling star that shot forth, crafting upon its path a lake of lava as it pushed through the border between Zendikar and Rath, and through it into the lands of Phyrexia.
Lina grabbed hold of me, "You hold on," she said. "Conserve your energies, and we'll get a few minutes added to the count," she grinned as she crouched to throw me on her back like a bag of potatoes.
"The Tyrant of Planeswalkers, hoisted as a bag of potatoes," I muttered. "The shame, the shame."
Lina simply laughed, and then rushed forth like a rocket into Rath, following the path of molten stone and the whirlwinds of ashes that Genryusai was leaving in front of him.
Rath was a new Phyrexia given form, an outpost beyond which laid the surface of a Plane that harbored death and pain beyond imagination.
Yet no matter how sturdy the walls, how thick and poisonous the air, how devastating the toxins...against the might of a newly born sun, they could do nothing.
Praise the Sun, Genryusai.
Praise it...and weaponize it.
Lina Inverse appeared like the kind of toddler who didn't really want to go to the doctor, but had no choice but to comply due to the promise of sweets. Genryusai appeared with a sigh, a cup of green tea in his left hand.
Ajani's body shifted slightly backwards as Genryusai's eyes glanced over him, his own presence more than enough to make all hair on the Nacahtl's body rise. It was a different kind of presence, one that expected judgment and righteousness rather than safety and calm. Lina, on the other hand, had the power of absolute destruction.
"Woo-hoo," Lina said as she cracked her neck brightly, letting the crimson Mana flicker through her frame, "This is the day isn't it? We're gonna burn it all down!" she rubbed her hands together, "Everything shiny is mine old man!"
"Youngster," Genryusai said firmly, his right hand slightly opening with a click his sword. "Keep up."
Like twin spirals of fire and flames they shot out from my sides, turning into molten slag the ground beneath them as they impacted with the strength of a thousand suns each against the sides of the Phyrexian's main line. Sickly black rays bounced off the shields made of sizzling white fire, and as one side blasted everything, ground and Phyrexians included into ashes, the other side sliced them in half as they proceeded further into the ranks.
"You know, Ajani...everything that begins must one day end, and that's just sad," I said offhandedly to the albino Nacahtl, "but without an end, there can't be a new beginning."
I took a single step, and the second one saw me vault over the charred ground as the Pennon Blade burst into existence, twirling around me as I worked it deep into the chests of incoming hordes of skittering metallic creatures, driven mad by pain, and then back into the realm of insanity by a faith so wrong, it couldn't be anything else but perfect for their brains. I thrust and spun, dragging dozens of Phyrexian grunts through the ground as I trudged on the toxic and poisonous ground.
Genryusai's blade burned with flames as it coiled and swished like a whip mixed with a snake, hungrily incinerating the countless, fearless creatures that opened fire, or tried to draw near to rip his body with their vicious claws. Eastern and Western paladins, which comprised the bulk of Yawgmoth's elite forces shattered against the bulwark of fire as we advanced. The further deep into the corrupted territory we went, the thicker the poisons became, and the darker the sky turned.
Yet with each blast of fire, with each burning swipe of a sword, or with each explosion that incinerated every single thing existing on a molecular level, we advanced.
A Gargantua blocked Genryusai's path, a creature of large claws and brutish strength, the size easily three to four times that of a human, its body mainly composed of mechanical gears and twirling mechanisms covered in dark oils and pulsing flesh-like metal. It disappeared into molten slag within seconds, a mere glance all that it took to destroy a ravager of men who had known no equal until then, and most definitely had never felt himself inferior to any other creature, barring those higher in hierarchy in Phyrexia.
"Oi, Shade!" Lina bellowed as her entire body was covered in pulsing flames. "How does this stick work!?" she said as she raised up Raising Heart. "I want to try it!"
"Throw it over and I'll program it for you!" I yelled back, twisting in mid-air to avoid a stab of a Sanguine paladin, before neatly beheading him with one of my seven swords, six arms having sprouted from my back. Nanoha's staff hit my tail as I twirled it around and began to work on it. I thrust the Pennon Blade into the chest of an incoming Demon, before glancing upwards, "Nina! Use the staff and wipe them out of the air! The chant is Divine Buster!" I threw the staff back, which Nina nimbly caught as she spun in the air as a towering column of flames.
"Uh? Very well," she spun her staff, aiming up at the sky dotted with dark engines meant to spread plague and illnesses, and as the demons flying close to hit us. "Darker than darkness! Deeper than night! Divine Buster, Giga Slave Edition!" as she said that, I actually acutely howled and threw myself down against the ground as Genryusai did the pretty much the same.
The blast that echoed destroyed the Raising Staff as the backlash cracked the ground and created fissures that aimed directly at the planet's core, while the skies disappeared as the blast vaporized pretty much everything and anything that it passed even remotely close to.
My ears rang as I stood back up from the sandy desert that had formed around us. "Lina!" I snarled, "You were to say only Divine Buster!"
Lina sheepishly laughed, and then summoned forth a second Raising Heart from the Aether. "Oh, come on Shade, you knew I was gonna do that anyway!"
Genryusai, most aptly, sighed as he stood up and dusted his shinigami's clothes. "I knew she would do that," he said. "You should have known she would do that."
"I did," I exhaled, "I did and yet I hoped she wouldn't."
Lina simply laughed, summoning a second Raising Heart, "Divine Buster!" she roared as both Raising Hearts opened fire in tandem, crafting energy beams that rushed past the lines of Phyrexians. Explosions dotted the landscape as we advanced, myself taking point as Genryusai and Lina ran behind me.
The ground trembled as massive constructs of bronze-like metal rushed forth from the depths of Yawgmoth's reign, the Phyrexian Dreadnoughts tearing through the land as mountains burst apart and lakes drained into the depths of the earth. Their quakes broke the roots of ancient forests, and the skies themselves seemed to lose the vibrancy that Lina had returned to them with her own massive attacks.
I sang joyously as I merged the seven blades together, before rushing forth to slice through the first of the Dreadnoughts with ease, bursting it into countless molten bits as I finished beyond it. Genryusai's sword shone with the plasma of supernovas, as the heat around us grew tenfold. Lina Inverse's Raising Hearts began to crackle with dark energies, twin Ragna Blades forming as she began to spin the twin-headed swords.
"Show off," Genryusai said as he sliced through a Dreadnought with ease, glancing at Lina who was instead dealing with two of the behemoths by herself, and with practiced ease breaking them apart. "Youngsters these days."
"Let's sip green tea while we wait for her," I drawled as I sliced a shrieking demon that had descended from the skies. "You going to play with them for much longer, Lina!?" I yelled at the young woman, who in turn grumbled and slammed a Raising Heart through the head of the first Dreadnought, detonating it, jumped off with a back-flip, and tore off the head of the second one with a neat swing.
Both constructs stopped moving, and as she neared with a huff, she flicked her head backwards to let her hair move away from her face. "Did you really need us for this?"
"No, I needed you for that," I said as I gestured further ahead, where the land of Zendikar itself seemed to merge with a darker, and deader land. "That is the artificial plane of Rath, which joins together Zendikar to Phyrexia. Even I would find it daunting to invade a Plane like Phyrexia alone."
"Uh, shouldn't we call little miss Nadia for this too?" Lina asked.
"She is indisposed, forever," I replied.
"Ah..." Lina clicked her tongue. "Broke the law?"
"Yes," I said. "She wiped her own brain out of the last...give or take decades," I glanced from Lina to Genryusai. "But she's been dealt with, so let's concentrate on dealing with Phyrexia."
I took a step forward and then reeled as I clutched my chest. "Gah," I grunted, feeling as if somebody had just burned a hole through my stomach. I closed my eyes, and took deep breaths. "Very well," I snarled. "Let's hurry."
"What happened?" Genryusai asked.
"Some of the Planes where I gather my Mana from have been destroyed," I answered. "It doesn't matter. I have enough energy stored that I can go at a loss for...ten minutes, give or take." I tried to smile, but the burning in my guts didn't ebb away. "Let's move it. One minute to cross Rath, one minute per layer of Phyrexia...it's still doable."
"Then allow me to open the way," Genryusai said as he took point, burning brightly in his entire being as he swung his sword in front of him. "Bankai," and in answer to that single word, a Sun was born upon the land of Zendikar. A travelling star that shot forth, crafting upon its path a lake of lava as it pushed through the border between Zendikar and Rath, and through it into the lands of Phyrexia.
Lina grabbed hold of me, "You hold on," she said. "Conserve your energies, and we'll get a few minutes added to the count," she grinned as she crouched to throw me on her back like a bag of potatoes.
"The Tyrant of Planeswalkers, hoisted as a bag of potatoes," I muttered. "The shame, the shame."
Lina simply laughed, and then rushed forth like a rocket into Rath, following the path of molten stone and the whirlwinds of ashes that Genryusai was leaving in front of him.
Rath was a new Phyrexia given form, an outpost beyond which laid the surface of a Plane that harbored death and pain beyond imagination.
Yet no matter how sturdy the walls, how thick and poisonous the air, how devastating the toxins...against the might of a newly born sun, they could do nothing.
Praise the Sun, Genryusai.
Praise it...and weaponize it.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Solaire will be proud.
Someone is using the opportunity it seems. Bolas?
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
So Bolas starts by taking away his foundations of power, he probably had this planned from the moment he met Shade. While Shade was planning to end Bolas from the moment he knew about him.
Its keikaku against keikaku inside of other keikaku.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Just like Keikaku!
Trusty_Chester
That One Guy
- Location
- Texas
For every Keikaku.
Inb4 I expect this.
Every Planswalker were played like a damn fiddle.
Edited.
Nanomachines?
Also, 420Praiseit! \[T]/
Last edited:
Chapter Seventy-One (Rath)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Seventy-One (Rath)
Genryusai's path through Rath was unhindered. Mana flowed richly through the Planes, and as the rushing Star was followed by a rocket, we covered more ground than if we had taken a supersonic jet. Genryusai's sun burned like a shining beacon of hope through the torn landscape, the death and the metal. Even the darkest of nights must leave the place to a shining day after all, and as the Stronghold of Rath came into view, my mind shattered open to the cries of countless beings.
Slivers stood within the depths of the fortress, sores and bruises burned within their minds as they knew nothing but pain, and sought nothing but their own self-harm. They knew no other life but that of slavery, and as their thoughts burst through into my own, my own shifted into theirs.
Painful sores spread across my skin, my bones turned brittle and my sight grew void. I saw nothing, nor felt nothing. "Lina..." I whispered. "Make the ten minutes...two. Keep going for the Stronghold...it's close by...I'll...I'll join you later there."
I had been expected. Then again, I knew this would be the result from the moment I set myself here. For while the Queen that stood guard to my Plane wasn't the original one, the one of Rath still remained a jealously well-kept secret from all. And it suffered for countless thousands of years. It suffered until suffering itself became her purpose and her cause, until her love for her children was twisted into hatred for those despicable things that dared to clutch near her.
A lifetime of whipping and excruciating pain was nothing compared to what it meant for the beloved mother to hate you. All knew shame at their inferiority, all knew that their status was due to their weakness, to their unworthiness and to their existence.
I hissed as tears fell from my eyes, the deepest wells of sadness pouring out together with the most heartfelt of sympathies. The Slivers that constituted most of my body had human emotions bound to them by virtue of my very soul.
It hurts.
"I'll make it hurt no more," I hissed as I burst free from Lina's grasp and rushed forth upon Sliver-like coils as I roared, passing right by the side of Genryusai's sun aiming for the closest vent into the depths of Rath's cavern networks. Deformed spindly Slivers emerged like swarms of bats, shrieking in pain as I engulfed them all, bursting through the tunnels like a singular mass of gelatin, rushing to devour them all.
The Hive shares both greatness and weakness. It is the duty of the strong to withstand the weak, and hoist them up. Thus as I rushed past them, I engulfed them in arms made of gelatin and darkness. Crystals burned their light as I reached with my fingertips the final chamber, where a deformed and maddened Queen stood shrieking wildly, shaking her long head as thoughts shifted from my own memories into hers.
"Make it hurt no more!" the Queen shrieked, "Make it stop!" her long, deformed talons broke through the walls, threatening to cause a cave-in. No, desiring to cause a cave-in, for self-harm was all that was left to her. I rushed up till I came face to face with her, my own head twisting and deforming as I slammed it against hers, engulfing the talons, the chitin, the sharp quills and the spikes into an embrace made of oily tar and poisonous toxins.
"Hush-a-bye," I whispered gently, hugging her gently and rocking her right and left like a crying child seeking rest. "Lull-a-bye. I'm here now. Sorry it took so long."
The Queen screamed louder. The wails became broken sobs, the sobs turned into meager vocalizations, and in the end she closed her mind, letting soothing music rush through her. I burst the oily tar, burning it away as the rot and the filth were fixed in minutes. What thousand of years had caused, minutes rendered meaningless. To stop the feeling of loneliness, a hug from a millennia-old being is sometimes more than enough.
The Queen's body molded itself around mine, disappearing within the Hive that formed my body as she closed herself off into hibernation, preferring to rest until I woke her up in the promised land of the Slivers. I smiled as I realized she had probably merged together bits and pieces of my memories to craft herself a purpose for her suffering, a sort of sacrifice meant to ensure a future of everlasting happiness.
For when we suffer, we seek to give purpose to our suffering, do we not?
"Let's go now," I whispered to the children, the countless children who screeched as they dug themselves free from the pits of black tar, from the depths of the mountains, from the darkness of the abyss to cling on to the feeble light of hope. "We are the Hive...and we will never be broken."
They widened their wings made of leather scraps and misshapen bones, and as I widened mine in turn, pristine and clear, soon theirs too changed in shape.
My body reformed back, and each of them learned anew what they needed to know. Their sick hearts became clean. Their rotten lungs breathed in air correctly as they healed. Their muscles bound themselves properly to their bones, now stronger than before. Their talons sharpened and their eyes burned with purpose that was different from that of self-harm or slavery.
Fight.
They rushed out from the vents below the fortress of Rath, they rushed out from the corners of the hallways, from the very rock that would have taken miners decades to mine out. They crafted tunnels out of dark, deadly tar as they made their way upwards, back into a sky that had for far too long been but a dream to their eyes.
Kill.
All those who stood in their way, all the Phyrexians that dared to bring metal and pain to their Hive, that dared to trudge upon them and enslave them, they faced an army of teeth and talons that crushed through them, breaking their claws against their chitin, shattering their chests with their talons, lancing across their ranks with acidic spit or heated gases.
Evolve.
Harmonious songs rang in the air as metal began to quake and break, White and Green Mana suffusing the the creatures that until then had known nothing but Black and Red, burning through the mightiest of constructs or binding the weaker ones to a will higher than theirs. Concepts like forests, islands, plains rushed forth and mixed with those of mountains made not to dig into, but to explore from high above, or of swamps meant to for proliferation, and not for damnation.
With each memory that was shared, the conviction and the belief of freedom and paradise became stronger into the others. Perhaps Yawgmoth's influence of being venerated as a divine being had managed to worm its way into the biological imperative of the Slivers, or perhaps they had deemed whoever was their savior as their God. Whatever the reason, the Slivers of Rath had learned one thing, one very important thing, from their time spent in eternal suffering.
Hope.
For Hope is the hardest thing to kill.
Genryusai's path through Rath was unhindered. Mana flowed richly through the Planes, and as the rushing Star was followed by a rocket, we covered more ground than if we had taken a supersonic jet. Genryusai's sun burned like a shining beacon of hope through the torn landscape, the death and the metal. Even the darkest of nights must leave the place to a shining day after all, and as the Stronghold of Rath came into view, my mind shattered open to the cries of countless beings.
Slivers stood within the depths of the fortress, sores and bruises burned within their minds as they knew nothing but pain, and sought nothing but their own self-harm. They knew no other life but that of slavery, and as their thoughts burst through into my own, my own shifted into theirs.
Painful sores spread across my skin, my bones turned brittle and my sight grew void. I saw nothing, nor felt nothing. "Lina..." I whispered. "Make the ten minutes...two. Keep going for the Stronghold...it's close by...I'll...I'll join you later there."
I had been expected. Then again, I knew this would be the result from the moment I set myself here. For while the Queen that stood guard to my Plane wasn't the original one, the one of Rath still remained a jealously well-kept secret from all. And it suffered for countless thousands of years. It suffered until suffering itself became her purpose and her cause, until her love for her children was twisted into hatred for those despicable things that dared to clutch near her.
A lifetime of whipping and excruciating pain was nothing compared to what it meant for the beloved mother to hate you. All knew shame at their inferiority, all knew that their status was due to their weakness, to their unworthiness and to their existence.
I hissed as tears fell from my eyes, the deepest wells of sadness pouring out together with the most heartfelt of sympathies. The Slivers that constituted most of my body had human emotions bound to them by virtue of my very soul.
It hurts.
"I'll make it hurt no more," I hissed as I burst free from Lina's grasp and rushed forth upon Sliver-like coils as I roared, passing right by the side of Genryusai's sun aiming for the closest vent into the depths of Rath's cavern networks. Deformed spindly Slivers emerged like swarms of bats, shrieking in pain as I engulfed them all, bursting through the tunnels like a singular mass of gelatin, rushing to devour them all.
The Hive shares both greatness and weakness. It is the duty of the strong to withstand the weak, and hoist them up. Thus as I rushed past them, I engulfed them in arms made of gelatin and darkness. Crystals burned their light as I reached with my fingertips the final chamber, where a deformed and maddened Queen stood shrieking wildly, shaking her long head as thoughts shifted from my own memories into hers.
"Make it hurt no more!" the Queen shrieked, "Make it stop!" her long, deformed talons broke through the walls, threatening to cause a cave-in. No, desiring to cause a cave-in, for self-harm was all that was left to her. I rushed up till I came face to face with her, my own head twisting and deforming as I slammed it against hers, engulfing the talons, the chitin, the sharp quills and the spikes into an embrace made of oily tar and poisonous toxins.
"Hush-a-bye," I whispered gently, hugging her gently and rocking her right and left like a crying child seeking rest. "Lull-a-bye. I'm here now. Sorry it took so long."
The Queen screamed louder. The wails became broken sobs, the sobs turned into meager vocalizations, and in the end she closed her mind, letting soothing music rush through her. I burst the oily tar, burning it away as the rot and the filth were fixed in minutes. What thousand of years had caused, minutes rendered meaningless. To stop the feeling of loneliness, a hug from a millennia-old being is sometimes more than enough.
The Queen's body molded itself around mine, disappearing within the Hive that formed my body as she closed herself off into hibernation, preferring to rest until I woke her up in the promised land of the Slivers. I smiled as I realized she had probably merged together bits and pieces of my memories to craft herself a purpose for her suffering, a sort of sacrifice meant to ensure a future of everlasting happiness.
For when we suffer, we seek to give purpose to our suffering, do we not?
"Let's go now," I whispered to the children, the countless children who screeched as they dug themselves free from the pits of black tar, from the depths of the mountains, from the darkness of the abyss to cling on to the feeble light of hope. "We are the Hive...and we will never be broken."
They widened their wings made of leather scraps and misshapen bones, and as I widened mine in turn, pristine and clear, soon theirs too changed in shape.
My body reformed back, and each of them learned anew what they needed to know. Their sick hearts became clean. Their rotten lungs breathed in air correctly as they healed. Their muscles bound themselves properly to their bones, now stronger than before. Their talons sharpened and their eyes burned with purpose that was different from that of self-harm or slavery.
Fight.
They rushed out from the vents below the fortress of Rath, they rushed out from the corners of the hallways, from the very rock that would have taken miners decades to mine out. They crafted tunnels out of dark, deadly tar as they made their way upwards, back into a sky that had for far too long been but a dream to their eyes.
Kill.
All those who stood in their way, all the Phyrexians that dared to bring metal and pain to their Hive, that dared to trudge upon them and enslave them, they faced an army of teeth and talons that crushed through them, breaking their claws against their chitin, shattering their chests with their talons, lancing across their ranks with acidic spit or heated gases.
Evolve.
Harmonious songs rang in the air as metal began to quake and break, White and Green Mana suffusing the the creatures that until then had known nothing but Black and Red, burning through the mightiest of constructs or binding the weaker ones to a will higher than theirs. Concepts like forests, islands, plains rushed forth and mixed with those of mountains made not to dig into, but to explore from high above, or of swamps meant to for proliferation, and not for damnation.
With each memory that was shared, the conviction and the belief of freedom and paradise became stronger into the others. Perhaps Yawgmoth's influence of being venerated as a divine being had managed to worm its way into the biological imperative of the Slivers, or perhaps they had deemed whoever was their savior as their God. Whatever the reason, the Slivers of Rath had learned one thing, one very important thing, from their time spent in eternal suffering.
Hope.
For Hope is the hardest thing to kill.
- Location
- America
Daw, how sad even though I know she is capable of overwhelming entire planes its still sad.
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Is there a 'Walker who once tried to blend metal and organic together?
Alphaleph
The Firstiest of First
Well, Karn made Mirrodin, if that counts.
troyamonga
Caffeine Dependent Hero
- Location
- United States
The entire plane of Esper.
Chapter Seventy-Two (Rath)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Seventy-Two (Rath)
The Sun entered the Stronghold, and the few lines of defenses that still remained broke into shambles. With the destruction of the Flowstone generator, the Rathi Overlay would come to an end, and Zendikar would be freed forever from the influence of Phyrexia.
"Shade, those your new friends?" Lina asked as she rushed over to where I stood, right over the bridge and pillar supporting the fortress over the city of traitors. I was surrounded by Slivers who crooned and sang, many of which doing their hardest to take a spot on my back or on my Sliver tail.
"Yes," I answered as I squinted my eyes, the bright sun of Genryusai coming less as the old man came to a halt by our sides, heat leaving his body surrounded in haze of vaporizing air. He snapped his blade to a close, and turned to look at the devastation wrought.
"Should we destroy the city?" he asked.
"I'll open a portal for Phyrexia right here, and I need you to go through to plant these as far deep into the Plane as you possibly can," I said in answer, summoning forth two bombs that ticked and whirred, a Spark sizzling within. "Then return here." The ground shook as Slivers emerged as a horde from the countless tunnels that lead into the Stronghold. "The flowstone production will need to be reversed, so that as Rath loses mass, so too will the boundaries with Zendikar come less."
"Can't I just destroy the Plane myself?" Lina asked.
"No," I replied. "Right now Rath is tied to Zendikar. Destroy one, and you destroy the other. Also, Phyrexia's walls and spheres are made of far stronger stuff, don't worry about Yawgmoth though...he'll come through first to save himself." I smiled. "After all...he can't Planeswalk."
As soon as I said that, a loud chuckle echoed behind us.
"He couldn't," a voice spoke darkly, filled with mirth and rich amusement. "Yawgmoth could not Planeswalk." An old man with white wavy hair and eyes pitch-black stood calmly with a staff that ended in bronze-like metal held in his right hand. He wore red and black clothes, which soon shifted into metallic armor of dark blue and bronze colors. "But we can."
I looked at the creature in front of me.
"Should I call you Urza Yawgmoth, or Yawgmoth Urza?" I asked in a murmur as the Slivers began to rise behind me, their forms shifting abruptly into Primes.
The Planeswalker laughed, his staff darkening in color. "You may call me your new Master. I will take back what is mine." He extended a hand, and as he did, something tried to break free from within my chest. "You stole it from our Evincar at the cusp of our might during the invasion. Now you will no longer run away, but will gladly serve us until your dying breath."
As he snarled that, the Hivestone broke free from within the center of my rib-cage, sailing in the air and landing neatly into the palm of Yawgmoth's palm. He hoisted it up in the air, "Now the Slivers will once more obey. To think I had to come down here all the way to reclaim what you stole..." He smiled, his feeling of victory suddenly turning into a sense of puzzlement as he realized that neither Genryusai nor Lina had tried to stop him.
I stared at Urza's body, and then I smiled as the two forms by my side shifted in appearance, becoming mist-like Slivers that drew closer to me. "I sent them ahead while you were busy speaking and acting all evil-like," I said nonchalantly. "Admittedly, the Psionic net around this place isn't all that strong, but it should slow you down considerably."
I hoisted my sword right in front of me. "Shall we dance now, pathetic excuse of a fart?"
Urza's black eyes glowed with Black Mana as he snarled. "You come into my realm to challenge me, a God?" he brought the Hivestone forth, Mana gathering into it. "You will be devoured by the same creatures you cherish." As he said that, and nothing happened, his black eyes widened as tendrils shot out to dig deep into his skin, making him roar in anger as he broke his limb off with his other hand, throwing it away as a new one grew in place. "I'll make you pay for this."
"I eat Gods," I snarled right back at him, "I don't let food talk to me like that," I continued nonchalantly, "And you are nothing but a pitiful heart-broken fool. I guess Rebecc's final choice hurt you in more ways than one didn't it?" In answer to my taunting, Urza merely pulsed with energies that sent me to fly backwards in the air, my flesh burning itself away as ashes scattered in the air.
"All of your bravado is meaningless," Urza said as he walked closer, his left hand covering itself in a metallic gauntlet that thrust forth a ray of Black Mana. "You are draining yourself to sustain something that isn't meant to be sustained. Hunger is all the Slivers should feel. They are weak, and you are weak, because you choose to embrace your weakness."
"Your body would say something like...you can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts," I quipped back as I spun back on my feet, a crystal intercepting the ray and claiming it for itself. "Then again...those who know only one path to victory will never achieve it," I grinned and clenched the crystal in my right hand. The Black Mana shot out like a whip, brimming with Red and slamming down on Urza's gauntlet.
He scoffed, freeing his hand with ease before rushing forth, magic rays burning up against shields conjured from the Aether. We circled each other as we threw our might into a battle of spells, even as the Slivers that tried to draw close were vaporized by tendrils of dark fog that came from within Urza's body. Yet, as the first creatures died horribly, the third wave managed to reach closer than those before.
"You are foolish to oppose me," Urza hissed, as he easily snapped the neck of a Prime that had drawn near with an invisible force, before throwing him off the bridge and down in the streets below, "What makes you think you can defeat me? Greater beings than you tried, and failed."
"You seem to be misunderstanding something, Yawgmoth," I pointed out smoothly. "I do not seek to defeat you," I grabbed another crystal, clutching it to my chest as the energies within seeped out to reinforce my own body. "I do not even seek to win over you." I smiled. "I seek to annihilate everything you stand for." I threw the Crystal in Yawgmoth's direction, watching as it suddenly burned with bright white fire. It was abruptly deflected by Urza's staff, the pitch-black eyes of Yawgmoth bleeding with dark oil as his face was deformed into a cruel scowl.
The ground's trembling increased. Yawgmoth's pitch-black angry eyes turned away from me and to the sides, where the walls of the inner caverns of the Stronghold seemed to break further under an invisible strain. "This Plane is close to falling," I said. "And if we both die due to its collapse, then so be it."
"What? But how?" Yawgmoth muttered. "I saw my victory through Urza's eyes if I stalled for time." His eyes narrowed. "What have you done? What have you done!"
"I did nothing," I answered in turn. "I simply reversed the Flowstone generator into a Flowstone destroyer. Though if you had connected the dots earlier rather than skulk the shadows, you would have realized that the only possible way for me to do so...would be to be there in person."
I grinned as the assembled Slivers that composed my body began to shift back into their singular forms. "I joined with the Hivemind, Yawgmoth...not with the Hive. If it can console you...you won the battle. I simply won the war."
As the last of the Slivers split apart, it was with a heavy heart that I set off the final Planeswalker bomb within the Rath stronghold, seconds after the Plane of Rath separated from that of Zendikar.
Death happened in an instant.
And as soon as it did, Phyrexia died from within as the pacts binding the countless demons came less, and that in turn signaled the defeat of their God, the failure of their dreams, and the inevitable destruction of everything they cherished. For without power, Phyrexia would inevitably die.
The twin bombs exploded at different levels of Phyrexia, setting forth the final ripples that tore apart the Plane.
Witnessing it from a vantage point in the Blind Eternities, I hummed nonchalantly.
"So...Lina's bomb was planted deeper than yours, Genryusai," I said as my body was held aloft by both Planeswalkers.
"I could not swing my sword properly in those narrow confines," Genryusai replied.
"That sounded lewd," I said with the most stoic face I could ever manage.
"Don't make me drop you," Genryusai said sternly.
Lina simply chuckled.
"We don't have much time left," I muttered as I felt worlds I was tied to die one after the other, "He's on a rampage. He's trying to force me to hibernate in order to keep Dominaria confined."
"So, should we head over to where he is and battle him?" Genryusai asked, only for me to shake my head.
"Not yet. First, Lina, I'm going to give you the images of some Planes you need to travel to. Once you're there, destroy them," I took a couple of deep breaths. "Genryusai, you go back and gather the other Planeswalkers. Lead them to my location." I took a deep breath. "I do not know what my teacher can truly do when he sets himself up for the task, so I'll be holding him back by talking. He'll take the bait because without me to aid you, he'll have bigger chances of victory. Don't worry about me. Nicol will never strike me down, not unless he wishes to see Dominaria freed...and if that happens, then everything dies."
"You planned for how the confrontation would go, did you not?" Genryusai asked.
"That...that I did," I said as I felt my eyes start to close. "I might need a bit of energy, so..." I extended a hand, and the Plane of Rath that was collapsing suddenly entered my hungry stomach, making me grin and groan as I slowly stood on my own two feet upon the Blind Eternities themselves. "I better go," I smiled.
"Do you truly intend to let yourself die at the end?" Genryusai asked, only for me to chuckle in turn.
"Who knows, my friend. Who knows." I clasped his hand and shook it firmly. "Thank you, for all the tea we drank."
"Don't thank me for something like that," Genryusai replied stiffly. "Thank me for tolerating your presence until now...and for the centuries to come."
"Oi, I'm here too, you know!" Lina said hotly. "Anyway, I don't like sad stuff, so get going, then come back and let's go test a new modified version of Giga Slave using the funny sticks."
I laughed wholeheartedly as I disappeared across the Blind Eternities, my course like that of a falling meteor, aimed for the Plane where Nicol Bolas' presence rang the strongest.
The Plane where it all started.
The Plane where it all would end.
California here I come, right back where we started from.
Fallout California.
The Sun entered the Stronghold, and the few lines of defenses that still remained broke into shambles. With the destruction of the Flowstone generator, the Rathi Overlay would come to an end, and Zendikar would be freed forever from the influence of Phyrexia.
"Shade, those your new friends?" Lina asked as she rushed over to where I stood, right over the bridge and pillar supporting the fortress over the city of traitors. I was surrounded by Slivers who crooned and sang, many of which doing their hardest to take a spot on my back or on my Sliver tail.
"Yes," I answered as I squinted my eyes, the bright sun of Genryusai coming less as the old man came to a halt by our sides, heat leaving his body surrounded in haze of vaporizing air. He snapped his blade to a close, and turned to look at the devastation wrought.
"Should we destroy the city?" he asked.
"I'll open a portal for Phyrexia right here, and I need you to go through to plant these as far deep into the Plane as you possibly can," I said in answer, summoning forth two bombs that ticked and whirred, a Spark sizzling within. "Then return here." The ground shook as Slivers emerged as a horde from the countless tunnels that lead into the Stronghold. "The flowstone production will need to be reversed, so that as Rath loses mass, so too will the boundaries with Zendikar come less."
"Can't I just destroy the Plane myself?" Lina asked.
"No," I replied. "Right now Rath is tied to Zendikar. Destroy one, and you destroy the other. Also, Phyrexia's walls and spheres are made of far stronger stuff, don't worry about Yawgmoth though...he'll come through first to save himself." I smiled. "After all...he can't Planeswalk."
As soon as I said that, a loud chuckle echoed behind us.
"He couldn't," a voice spoke darkly, filled with mirth and rich amusement. "Yawgmoth could not Planeswalk." An old man with white wavy hair and eyes pitch-black stood calmly with a staff that ended in bronze-like metal held in his right hand. He wore red and black clothes, which soon shifted into metallic armor of dark blue and bronze colors. "But we can."
I looked at the creature in front of me.
"Should I call you Urza Yawgmoth, or Yawgmoth Urza?" I asked in a murmur as the Slivers began to rise behind me, their forms shifting abruptly into Primes.
The Planeswalker laughed, his staff darkening in color. "You may call me your new Master. I will take back what is mine." He extended a hand, and as he did, something tried to break free from within my chest. "You stole it from our Evincar at the cusp of our might during the invasion. Now you will no longer run away, but will gladly serve us until your dying breath."
As he snarled that, the Hivestone broke free from within the center of my rib-cage, sailing in the air and landing neatly into the palm of Yawgmoth's palm. He hoisted it up in the air, "Now the Slivers will once more obey. To think I had to come down here all the way to reclaim what you stole..." He smiled, his feeling of victory suddenly turning into a sense of puzzlement as he realized that neither Genryusai nor Lina had tried to stop him.
I stared at Urza's body, and then I smiled as the two forms by my side shifted in appearance, becoming mist-like Slivers that drew closer to me. "I sent them ahead while you were busy speaking and acting all evil-like," I said nonchalantly. "Admittedly, the Psionic net around this place isn't all that strong, but it should slow you down considerably."
I hoisted my sword right in front of me. "Shall we dance now, pathetic excuse of a fart?"
Urza's black eyes glowed with Black Mana as he snarled. "You come into my realm to challenge me, a God?" he brought the Hivestone forth, Mana gathering into it. "You will be devoured by the same creatures you cherish." As he said that, and nothing happened, his black eyes widened as tendrils shot out to dig deep into his skin, making him roar in anger as he broke his limb off with his other hand, throwing it away as a new one grew in place. "I'll make you pay for this."
"I eat Gods," I snarled right back at him, "I don't let food talk to me like that," I continued nonchalantly, "And you are nothing but a pitiful heart-broken fool. I guess Rebecc's final choice hurt you in more ways than one didn't it?" In answer to my taunting, Urza merely pulsed with energies that sent me to fly backwards in the air, my flesh burning itself away as ashes scattered in the air.
"All of your bravado is meaningless," Urza said as he walked closer, his left hand covering itself in a metallic gauntlet that thrust forth a ray of Black Mana. "You are draining yourself to sustain something that isn't meant to be sustained. Hunger is all the Slivers should feel. They are weak, and you are weak, because you choose to embrace your weakness."
"Your body would say something like...you can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts," I quipped back as I spun back on my feet, a crystal intercepting the ray and claiming it for itself. "Then again...those who know only one path to victory will never achieve it," I grinned and clenched the crystal in my right hand. The Black Mana shot out like a whip, brimming with Red and slamming down on Urza's gauntlet.
He scoffed, freeing his hand with ease before rushing forth, magic rays burning up against shields conjured from the Aether. We circled each other as we threw our might into a battle of spells, even as the Slivers that tried to draw close were vaporized by tendrils of dark fog that came from within Urza's body. Yet, as the first creatures died horribly, the third wave managed to reach closer than those before.
"You are foolish to oppose me," Urza hissed, as he easily snapped the neck of a Prime that had drawn near with an invisible force, before throwing him off the bridge and down in the streets below, "What makes you think you can defeat me? Greater beings than you tried, and failed."
"You seem to be misunderstanding something, Yawgmoth," I pointed out smoothly. "I do not seek to defeat you," I grabbed another crystal, clutching it to my chest as the energies within seeped out to reinforce my own body. "I do not even seek to win over you." I smiled. "I seek to annihilate everything you stand for." I threw the Crystal in Yawgmoth's direction, watching as it suddenly burned with bright white fire. It was abruptly deflected by Urza's staff, the pitch-black eyes of Yawgmoth bleeding with dark oil as his face was deformed into a cruel scowl.
The ground's trembling increased. Yawgmoth's pitch-black angry eyes turned away from me and to the sides, where the walls of the inner caverns of the Stronghold seemed to break further under an invisible strain. "This Plane is close to falling," I said. "And if we both die due to its collapse, then so be it."
"What? But how?" Yawgmoth muttered. "I saw my victory through Urza's eyes if I stalled for time." His eyes narrowed. "What have you done? What have you done!"
"I did nothing," I answered in turn. "I simply reversed the Flowstone generator into a Flowstone destroyer. Though if you had connected the dots earlier rather than skulk the shadows, you would have realized that the only possible way for me to do so...would be to be there in person."
I grinned as the assembled Slivers that composed my body began to shift back into their singular forms. "I joined with the Hivemind, Yawgmoth...not with the Hive. If it can console you...you won the battle. I simply won the war."
As the last of the Slivers split apart, it was with a heavy heart that I set off the final Planeswalker bomb within the Rath stronghold, seconds after the Plane of Rath separated from that of Zendikar.
Death happened in an instant.
And as soon as it did, Phyrexia died from within as the pacts binding the countless demons came less, and that in turn signaled the defeat of their God, the failure of their dreams, and the inevitable destruction of everything they cherished. For without power, Phyrexia would inevitably die.
The twin bombs exploded at different levels of Phyrexia, setting forth the final ripples that tore apart the Plane.
Witnessing it from a vantage point in the Blind Eternities, I hummed nonchalantly.
"So...Lina's bomb was planted deeper than yours, Genryusai," I said as my body was held aloft by both Planeswalkers.
"I could not swing my sword properly in those narrow confines," Genryusai replied.
"That sounded lewd," I said with the most stoic face I could ever manage.
"Don't make me drop you," Genryusai said sternly.
Lina simply chuckled.
"We don't have much time left," I muttered as I felt worlds I was tied to die one after the other, "He's on a rampage. He's trying to force me to hibernate in order to keep Dominaria confined."
"So, should we head over to where he is and battle him?" Genryusai asked, only for me to shake my head.
"Not yet. First, Lina, I'm going to give you the images of some Planes you need to travel to. Once you're there, destroy them," I took a couple of deep breaths. "Genryusai, you go back and gather the other Planeswalkers. Lead them to my location." I took a deep breath. "I do not know what my teacher can truly do when he sets himself up for the task, so I'll be holding him back by talking. He'll take the bait because without me to aid you, he'll have bigger chances of victory. Don't worry about me. Nicol will never strike me down, not unless he wishes to see Dominaria freed...and if that happens, then everything dies."
"You planned for how the confrontation would go, did you not?" Genryusai asked.
"That...that I did," I said as I felt my eyes start to close. "I might need a bit of energy, so..." I extended a hand, and the Plane of Rath that was collapsing suddenly entered my hungry stomach, making me grin and groan as I slowly stood on my own two feet upon the Blind Eternities themselves. "I better go," I smiled.
"Do you truly intend to let yourself die at the end?" Genryusai asked, only for me to chuckle in turn.
"Who knows, my friend. Who knows." I clasped his hand and shook it firmly. "Thank you, for all the tea we drank."
"Don't thank me for something like that," Genryusai replied stiffly. "Thank me for tolerating your presence until now...and for the centuries to come."
"Oi, I'm here too, you know!" Lina said hotly. "Anyway, I don't like sad stuff, so get going, then come back and let's go test a new modified version of Giga Slave using the funny sticks."
I laughed wholeheartedly as I disappeared across the Blind Eternities, my course like that of a falling meteor, aimed for the Plane where Nicol Bolas' presence rang the strongest.
The Plane where it all started.
The Plane where it all would end.
California here I come, right back where we started from.
Fallout California.
C4d
Has approximate knowledge of many things.
- Location
- Germany
Bolas can't kill shade because then he would loose horribly, either by being depowered or because everything dies thanks to the rifts.
Or it could all according to keikaku.
Trusty_Chester
That One Guy
- Location
- Texas
Wait.
Fallout?
I expect appropriate music.
Fallout?
I expect appropriate music.
Chapter Seventy-Three (Fallout)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Seventy-Three (Fallout)
The dragon's wingspan obscured the land. The vast desert of the Mojave barely held its claws as its head stood taller than the sky itself. Thousands of years spent gorging had given him a body that could rival that of the tallest of titans. His tail did not swish, for if it did, it easily would have tore apart the moon and cleaved in half the stars. His heartbeat made the ground quake, and his presence alone brought down to their knees every single living creature around him.
"Student," Nicol Bolas spoke from beyond the skies, his head lowering down as with each of his breaths, the dunes of the desert were blasted away in sandstorms. "You knew this would happen when you decided to defy me."
"Yeah," I said. "And you knew this would happen when you decided to send me to kill Ajani."
"Yes," Bolas spoke, "I knew what you would do and how, and I knew how long it would take for you to get here. I waited for you," he added. "For all of our differences, and for the weakness you still harbor, you are still a student. I can allow you this one mistake. You will pay for it by slaughtering all of the Planeswalkers that will oppose my might once I claim the title that you will hand over, and with you at my right claw, we will rule over them all." He extended his right claw, clenching it as the mere act created hurricanes. "With time, you might regain your strength and challenge me again, but that will take you far more time than you have at your disposal. I am your elder, your better, and I will now be your everything." He snarled, and with his snarl the sand turned to glass. "Swear you will serve me, and I will let you keep your consciousness."
"I've lived long enough," I said with a sigh. "Holding back Dominaria...I don't want to do that any longer," I shook my head. "If we both have to die, then so be it. Well...we'll all probably die. Everywhere in the Multiverse. If one doesn't solve his mistakes, then they just grow bigger with time."
Bolas huffed, and his huff blasted me in mid-air only for an invisible force to pull me right in front of his eye. "You will never sacrifice everyone else," Bolas spoke. "It is not in your nature to do so. I know your thoughts," his tongue clicked against his teeth, and with that sound, eardrums burst in a kilometer radius. "I know your desires. I have watched over you every step of the way. You have touched with dirty hands the clay of life and of existence, and molded it into shapes that were crude and disgusting to behold."
"Anthrax is the most beautiful creature in the whole world," I said flatly. "His beauty is second to none, and you will take back what you just said," I huffed as he suddenly shook me right and left with enough strength that if I had had mere human bones, they would have turned to dust after piercing through the entirety of my skin. But I wasn't human, and so he simply shook me right and left.
"Your species has always been weak," Bolas snorted. "Whether because one alone could not hunt down anything bigger than a mouse, or because you had no choice in your pathetic evolution, this feelings of sociability are a sickening and crude demonstration of the inherent weakness of your species."
"You were born an Elder Dragon," I retorted. "You didn't earn your strength."
"No, I did not earn the strength of my claws, or the toughness of my hide," Bolas spoke. "But I did earn the prowess of my magic through study and discovery."
"Wide-eyed kid Bolas discovering magic while making an awed face," I said with a chuckle, "That I would have loved to see."
The dragon huffed, and then he lifted his head above the clouds, dragging me up with his magic to still be at his eye level. "I was no wide-eyed kid," he spoke darkly. "And because knowledge and magic was what I toiled for, to see it slip away because of childish actions...your arrival was warranted, and rewarded. You did my a service, and I returned it. Now you try to claim more than what you are due, and you see now how we are in conflict?" he brought symbols of ethereal energy up in the air by his side, forming countless worlds all linked together. "Standing against me is folly itself."
"Standing against me was supposed to be the same thing, but kids will be kids," I said. "Speaking of that, you were the one who tipped everyone off on my location, weren't you? No, honestly I was wondering why they kept coming for me as if they knew where I was, but it was all due to that slavery mark you placed on my skin, wasn't it? You just kept sending them over to me. It must have been fun."
"Those who do not keep their claws sharp should not cry when others' claws dig deep into their necks," Bolas said crisply. "That should be obvious."
"Why bother?" I replied.
"It is typical of the nearsightedness of your species that you would think growing weak and lax after a short period of time to be nothing to think much of," Bolas said curtly. "There is no limit to the knowledge that one might gleam from the countless Planes that now dot the Multiverse. Yet, rather than bother exploring them in their entirety, you have found your curiosity die because you did what every pathetic mortal does time and time again." He rolled his eyes, and with that roll, the oceans began to boil. "You grew lazy. You grew apathetic. You sought out nothing but your continued existence. The way you crafted things that had no purpose other than amuse you..."
"All of the Apex are my cherished children," I said flatly. "And you will not harm them."
"I will not," Bolas said. "But do not think I did not know from the principle that it was your plan to hold your own Plane as the highest yield of Mana. If I were to destroy it, no, if anyone were to destroy it, then Dominaria would break free."
I chuckled. "Yeah, I know. My Hive will be safe, and I with it."
"But you will sleep forever," Bolas acquiesced. "And I would rather not waste a powerful tool if it can be put to good use." He narrowed his eye. "Do you remember when you first came to my aid? The battle against the demon took us two weeks to defeat it. You lied, claiming that my brother had sent for you to aid me. Whether you thought that would stay my claw, our first meeting was with a lie of yours."
"Why the trip down memory lane, Bolas?" I asked.
"I pushed you away with my claw," Bolas said. "On the third day of battle, the demon's many eyes seared through in patterns quite difficult for the human mind to deflect or dodge. Thus, I threw you against a mountain range."
"Ah, yes, I remember that," I said. "You threw me against a mountain, not a mountain range."
"Two days earlier it was a mountain range. Still, you stood back up as if nothing had happened, and kept fighting," Nicol Bolas slowly drew one of his claws closer, and tapped gently upon my chest.
Nothing happened.
"It was on that account that I realized that there was more to the likes of you, and so my interest was piqued. And when Bolas' interest is piqued, then things must go the way Nicol Bolas wishes them to be," he said with a sly grin. Well, sly was perhaps an exaggeration. The show of teeth did bring forth a series of deaths in the local Death Claw population as their hearts burst from sheer fear.
"Only Nicol Bolas is allowed to speak like that, because if he wishes to be pompous, he'll do it himself," I quipped, receiving a slow nod from Bolas in turn.
"Indeed," he said. Then, he grew quiet. "I can, and will, defeat them." He glanced at me. "I will give you time until I am done with all of them, and once that happens I will come back and ask you one last time what your choice will be. Perhaps after seeing the defeat of all of your hopes, you will change your mind."
"You do understand that my answer won't change," I said in a whisper. "No matter what happens next."
"We both know that to be a lie," Nicol Bolas said smugly. "Your answers always change to fit the one asking you questions, student. It is how I taught you, but you knew that even before you met me. There is great potential in you...but you squander it around," his voice grew heated, and the sky turned red, "with things like morality, with shackles like caring for the weak...how do you expect to grow strong enough to challenge my rule?" my body kept rising up, and in the end I was brought down, not too kindly, on the moon's surface.
Then, I felt the portals open up, and the battle begin.
I dropped down on the moon's surface, my eyes gazing up at the dark sky, and at the satellites orbiting good old Earth ravaged by nuclear war.
I extended a hand, and closed it.
A figure knelt down by my side, a gauntlet hand resting on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes.
"Proceed with the plan," I spoke as I fell into the depths of hibernation.
It was true.
The Hive consumed energies to walk, and it consumed energies to stave off the hunger, and it consumed energies to keep Dominaria in check.
At the same time, however, the Hive main's devourer of energy was also its most powerful creature.
Me.
"You have heard Father's command!" Superbia bellowed as he lifted his spear up, Hive Fleets popping into existence one after the other from across the galaxy, rather than through the Planes. "You have heard his desire! You-"
Discordia placed a delicate hand over her face, and turned towards Anthrax. "Does he know we cannot hear him, because there is no air in space?"
Anthrax, in answer, simply sparkled with orange and red lights, the powerful psionic signal bouncing off the Hive Fleets and across the Planes, thrusting itself through countless Slivers and using them as beacons to bounce further away, into the depths of places that only the Slivers would ever dare to trudge.
It was enough.
Trillions answered the call.
Trillions more would arrive.
The dragon's wingspan obscured the land. The vast desert of the Mojave barely held its claws as its head stood taller than the sky itself. Thousands of years spent gorging had given him a body that could rival that of the tallest of titans. His tail did not swish, for if it did, it easily would have tore apart the moon and cleaved in half the stars. His heartbeat made the ground quake, and his presence alone brought down to their knees every single living creature around him.
"Student," Nicol Bolas spoke from beyond the skies, his head lowering down as with each of his breaths, the dunes of the desert were blasted away in sandstorms. "You knew this would happen when you decided to defy me."
"Yeah," I said. "And you knew this would happen when you decided to send me to kill Ajani."
"Yes," Bolas spoke, "I knew what you would do and how, and I knew how long it would take for you to get here. I waited for you," he added. "For all of our differences, and for the weakness you still harbor, you are still a student. I can allow you this one mistake. You will pay for it by slaughtering all of the Planeswalkers that will oppose my might once I claim the title that you will hand over, and with you at my right claw, we will rule over them all." He extended his right claw, clenching it as the mere act created hurricanes. "With time, you might regain your strength and challenge me again, but that will take you far more time than you have at your disposal. I am your elder, your better, and I will now be your everything." He snarled, and with his snarl the sand turned to glass. "Swear you will serve me, and I will let you keep your consciousness."
"I've lived long enough," I said with a sigh. "Holding back Dominaria...I don't want to do that any longer," I shook my head. "If we both have to die, then so be it. Well...we'll all probably die. Everywhere in the Multiverse. If one doesn't solve his mistakes, then they just grow bigger with time."
Bolas huffed, and his huff blasted me in mid-air only for an invisible force to pull me right in front of his eye. "You will never sacrifice everyone else," Bolas spoke. "It is not in your nature to do so. I know your thoughts," his tongue clicked against his teeth, and with that sound, eardrums burst in a kilometer radius. "I know your desires. I have watched over you every step of the way. You have touched with dirty hands the clay of life and of existence, and molded it into shapes that were crude and disgusting to behold."
"Anthrax is the most beautiful creature in the whole world," I said flatly. "His beauty is second to none, and you will take back what you just said," I huffed as he suddenly shook me right and left with enough strength that if I had had mere human bones, they would have turned to dust after piercing through the entirety of my skin. But I wasn't human, and so he simply shook me right and left.
"Your species has always been weak," Bolas snorted. "Whether because one alone could not hunt down anything bigger than a mouse, or because you had no choice in your pathetic evolution, this feelings of sociability are a sickening and crude demonstration of the inherent weakness of your species."
"You were born an Elder Dragon," I retorted. "You didn't earn your strength."
"No, I did not earn the strength of my claws, or the toughness of my hide," Bolas spoke. "But I did earn the prowess of my magic through study and discovery."
"Wide-eyed kid Bolas discovering magic while making an awed face," I said with a chuckle, "That I would have loved to see."
The dragon huffed, and then he lifted his head above the clouds, dragging me up with his magic to still be at his eye level. "I was no wide-eyed kid," he spoke darkly. "And because knowledge and magic was what I toiled for, to see it slip away because of childish actions...your arrival was warranted, and rewarded. You did my a service, and I returned it. Now you try to claim more than what you are due, and you see now how we are in conflict?" he brought symbols of ethereal energy up in the air by his side, forming countless worlds all linked together. "Standing against me is folly itself."
"Standing against me was supposed to be the same thing, but kids will be kids," I said. "Speaking of that, you were the one who tipped everyone off on my location, weren't you? No, honestly I was wondering why they kept coming for me as if they knew where I was, but it was all due to that slavery mark you placed on my skin, wasn't it? You just kept sending them over to me. It must have been fun."
"Those who do not keep their claws sharp should not cry when others' claws dig deep into their necks," Bolas said crisply. "That should be obvious."
"Why bother?" I replied.
"It is typical of the nearsightedness of your species that you would think growing weak and lax after a short period of time to be nothing to think much of," Bolas said curtly. "There is no limit to the knowledge that one might gleam from the countless Planes that now dot the Multiverse. Yet, rather than bother exploring them in their entirety, you have found your curiosity die because you did what every pathetic mortal does time and time again." He rolled his eyes, and with that roll, the oceans began to boil. "You grew lazy. You grew apathetic. You sought out nothing but your continued existence. The way you crafted things that had no purpose other than amuse you..."
"All of the Apex are my cherished children," I said flatly. "And you will not harm them."
"I will not," Bolas said. "But do not think I did not know from the principle that it was your plan to hold your own Plane as the highest yield of Mana. If I were to destroy it, no, if anyone were to destroy it, then Dominaria would break free."
I chuckled. "Yeah, I know. My Hive will be safe, and I with it."
"But you will sleep forever," Bolas acquiesced. "And I would rather not waste a powerful tool if it can be put to good use." He narrowed his eye. "Do you remember when you first came to my aid? The battle against the demon took us two weeks to defeat it. You lied, claiming that my brother had sent for you to aid me. Whether you thought that would stay my claw, our first meeting was with a lie of yours."
"Why the trip down memory lane, Bolas?" I asked.
"I pushed you away with my claw," Bolas said. "On the third day of battle, the demon's many eyes seared through in patterns quite difficult for the human mind to deflect or dodge. Thus, I threw you against a mountain range."
"Ah, yes, I remember that," I said. "You threw me against a mountain, not a mountain range."
"Two days earlier it was a mountain range. Still, you stood back up as if nothing had happened, and kept fighting," Nicol Bolas slowly drew one of his claws closer, and tapped gently upon my chest.
Nothing happened.
"It was on that account that I realized that there was more to the likes of you, and so my interest was piqued. And when Bolas' interest is piqued, then things must go the way Nicol Bolas wishes them to be," he said with a sly grin. Well, sly was perhaps an exaggeration. The show of teeth did bring forth a series of deaths in the local Death Claw population as their hearts burst from sheer fear.
"Only Nicol Bolas is allowed to speak like that, because if he wishes to be pompous, he'll do it himself," I quipped, receiving a slow nod from Bolas in turn.
"Indeed," he said. Then, he grew quiet. "I can, and will, defeat them." He glanced at me. "I will give you time until I am done with all of them, and once that happens I will come back and ask you one last time what your choice will be. Perhaps after seeing the defeat of all of your hopes, you will change your mind."
"You do understand that my answer won't change," I said in a whisper. "No matter what happens next."
"We both know that to be a lie," Nicol Bolas said smugly. "Your answers always change to fit the one asking you questions, student. It is how I taught you, but you knew that even before you met me. There is great potential in you...but you squander it around," his voice grew heated, and the sky turned red, "with things like morality, with shackles like caring for the weak...how do you expect to grow strong enough to challenge my rule?" my body kept rising up, and in the end I was brought down, not too kindly, on the moon's surface.
Then, I felt the portals open up, and the battle begin.
I dropped down on the moon's surface, my eyes gazing up at the dark sky, and at the satellites orbiting good old Earth ravaged by nuclear war.
I extended a hand, and closed it.
A figure knelt down by my side, a gauntlet hand resting on my shoulder.
I closed my eyes.
"Proceed with the plan," I spoke as I fell into the depths of hibernation.
It was true.
The Hive consumed energies to walk, and it consumed energies to stave off the hunger, and it consumed energies to keep Dominaria in check.
At the same time, however, the Hive main's devourer of energy was also its most powerful creature.
Me.
"You have heard Father's command!" Superbia bellowed as he lifted his spear up, Hive Fleets popping into existence one after the other from across the galaxy, rather than through the Planes. "You have heard his desire! You-"
Discordia placed a delicate hand over her face, and turned towards Anthrax. "Does he know we cannot hear him, because there is no air in space?"
Anthrax, in answer, simply sparkled with orange and red lights, the powerful psionic signal bouncing off the Hive Fleets and across the Planes, thrusting itself through countless Slivers and using them as beacons to bounce further away, into the depths of places that only the Slivers would ever dare to trudge.
It was enough.
Trillions answered the call.
Trillions more would arrive.
Last edited:
Trusty_Chester
That One Guy
- Location
- Texas
Silver Rush?
Omake - Too Funny To Pass Up
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Omake - The Real Reason Nicol Bolas did it all.
"Standing against me was supposed to be the same thing, but kids will be kids," I said. "Speaking of that, you were the one who tipped everyone off on my location, weren't you? No, honestly I was wondering why they kept coming for me as if they knew where I was, but it was all due to that slavery mark you placed on my skin, wasn't it? You just kept sending them over to me. It must have been fun."
"Those who do not keep their claws sharp should not cry when others' claws dig deep into their necks," Bolas said crisply. "That should be obvious."
"Why bother?" I replied.
"Because it wouldn't be appropriate for my life partner to grow lax," Bolas said. "After all, you are the only one able to touch me without growing mad. That clearly is a sign that we are destined to be together. Your long term courtship has a lot to be desired, but you did start things properly by granting me foresight of the future thousand or so years to come, so I have been patiently waiting for another gift worthy of me."
My brain screeched to a halt.
"You...are a male Elder Dragon," I said. "And I...am a male human."
"We are both Planeswalkers," Nicol Bolas said, "Freely altering our bodies is no problem. Since you are the weaker party, you will now change your gender if it bothers you so much. I do not care either way. A Life Partner is something more than mere rutting for the prosecution of the species. I do enjoy being the last surviving member of my species, because it marks me as the strongest."
My brain thoughts went left and then right, before finally trying to find a bit of rope to hang themselves with.
"But I married other people," I said.
"And they all died didn't they?" Nicol Bolas said quite calmly. "That Fuuka was definitely going to become a new addition, which is why I reckoned I had to deal with her sooner than later. Now, however, I understand that you wish to gift me with the Sparks of all these rebellious Planeswalkers and I admit, it is quite the fitting gift."
"This is a rebellion, you understand?" I hazarded.
"Oh, of course, if that is how you wish to play it by feigning ignorance and catching me by surprise," he smiled and the smile itself was both smug and utterly freezing to my soul. "We both know that to be a lie," he added. "Perhaps I might be compelled to alter my own appearance to a more pleasant female-like one. You mammals are always on about breasts, while we Dragons do not care, nor have them to begin with. The clear superiority of egg-based lifeforms over human nature."
As he said that, his pectoral began to take on a far more pleasant shape with two large ovals of...no, no, don't look at that.
Don't look at that!
Stop looking! Stop thinking!
"Here we go," a slightly taller woman dressed in bronze and blue armor stood now in front of me, her hair having horns holding aloft a gem between them. Her wings were bronze, and soft silk seemed to cover her indecencies. She made a smile that was all teeth as she patted my cheek with the gentleness of a Titan trying to caress a bunny. "I'll show you how happy for your surprise gift I am later," she added as she made a small rawr sound.
It was the rawr sound of what could only be described as the mother of all Cougars.
I eeped as I embraced my body.
Nicol Bolas couldn't be this Milf-Y!
"Standing against me was supposed to be the same thing, but kids will be kids," I said. "Speaking of that, you were the one who tipped everyone off on my location, weren't you? No, honestly I was wondering why they kept coming for me as if they knew where I was, but it was all due to that slavery mark you placed on my skin, wasn't it? You just kept sending them over to me. It must have been fun."
"Those who do not keep their claws sharp should not cry when others' claws dig deep into their necks," Bolas said crisply. "That should be obvious."
"Why bother?" I replied.
"Because it wouldn't be appropriate for my life partner to grow lax," Bolas said. "After all, you are the only one able to touch me without growing mad. That clearly is a sign that we are destined to be together. Your long term courtship has a lot to be desired, but you did start things properly by granting me foresight of the future thousand or so years to come, so I have been patiently waiting for another gift worthy of me."
My brain screeched to a halt.
"You...are a male Elder Dragon," I said. "And I...am a male human."
"We are both Planeswalkers," Nicol Bolas said, "Freely altering our bodies is no problem. Since you are the weaker party, you will now change your gender if it bothers you so much. I do not care either way. A Life Partner is something more than mere rutting for the prosecution of the species. I do enjoy being the last surviving member of my species, because it marks me as the strongest."
My brain thoughts went left and then right, before finally trying to find a bit of rope to hang themselves with.
"But I married other people," I said.
"And they all died didn't they?" Nicol Bolas said quite calmly. "That Fuuka was definitely going to become a new addition, which is why I reckoned I had to deal with her sooner than later. Now, however, I understand that you wish to gift me with the Sparks of all these rebellious Planeswalkers and I admit, it is quite the fitting gift."
"This is a rebellion, you understand?" I hazarded.
"Oh, of course, if that is how you wish to play it by feigning ignorance and catching me by surprise," he smiled and the smile itself was both smug and utterly freezing to my soul. "We both know that to be a lie," he added. "Perhaps I might be compelled to alter my own appearance to a more pleasant female-like one. You mammals are always on about breasts, while we Dragons do not care, nor have them to begin with. The clear superiority of egg-based lifeforms over human nature."
As he said that, his pectoral began to take on a far more pleasant shape with two large ovals of...no, no, don't look at that.
Don't look at that!
Stop looking! Stop thinking!
"Here we go," a slightly taller woman dressed in bronze and blue armor stood now in front of me, her hair having horns holding aloft a gem between them. Her wings were bronze, and soft silk seemed to cover her indecencies. She made a smile that was all teeth as she patted my cheek with the gentleness of a Titan trying to caress a bunny. "I'll show you how happy for your surprise gift I am later," she added as she made a small rawr sound.
It was the rawr sound of what could only be described as the mother of all Cougars.
I eeped as I embraced my body.
Nicol Bolas couldn't be this Milf-Y!