Knocking on Heaven's Door [MtG/Multicross/SI]
- Thread starter shadenight123
- Start date
- Crossover
Ryven Razgriz
I need a Gun and I'll let you know 'What's up?'.
- Location
- South East Asia
Why not become the Tyrant once more? I mean you can and should become one and channel your inner Tyrant (Edgyness) against the poor-sons-of-sacks that would try and go against you. Let the others cry in indignation or whatever, you're the god damn motherfucking tyrant so why should you care about them?
After all, once a Tyrant is always a Tyrant.
After all, once a Tyrant is always a Tyrant.
shadowace2400
Planeswalker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Texas
Well, I thought that the Sparks were being used to hold back the Rifts from destroying the multiverse... So they're currently being used to close them altogether.
troyamonga
Caffeine Dependent Hero
- Location
- United States
The real kicker would be if Shade was never in the "original" canon MtG timeline at all, and the Rifts he saw were the ones currently occuring.
Itd be humourous of Shade saw himself spark.
Itd be humourous of Shade saw himself spark.
shadowace2400
Planeswalker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Texas
Well, that DOES seem like the kind of thing The Doctor would get involved in...
I'm not nearly so intelligent to say with any surety where this is going, nor do I wish to be seen as so arrogant, so I'll just be asking this, and then leaving without responding to anyone.
How many Great Hermit Planeswalkers are there, do you think? How many look upon the madness that is these affairs, where people of creeds and moralities both light and dark squabble, where salvation and destruction are crusaded for regardless of reason, where entire universes and planes fall into oblivion, all because of the vague and formless ideals held by both those 'good' and 'evil' and 'neutral, when these people say no to the madness, when they say "No more!" where do they go?
Perhaps the only place to go is where stories can't reach, or maybe where stories have concluded.
That's what I think.
How many Great Hermit Planeswalkers are there, do you think? How many look upon the madness that is these affairs, where people of creeds and moralities both light and dark squabble, where salvation and destruction are crusaded for regardless of reason, where entire universes and planes fall into oblivion, all because of the vague and formless ideals held by both those 'good' and 'evil' and 'neutral, when these people say no to the madness, when they say "No more!" where do they go?
Perhaps the only place to go is where stories can't reach, or maybe where stories have concluded.
That's what I think.
Chapter Eighty-Six (????)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Eighty-Six (????)
There was beauty in showing Freddie Mercury's last concert to a wide-eyed boy safely engulfed in my arms. There was something new, and electrifying, in explaining to him the wonders of two neutron stars colliding with one another in the vastness of space. His eyes were wide with the innocence of a child who knew no wrong, or perhaps believed in Santa Claus. It wouldn't be hard for me to craft a Santa Claus out of thin air, weakened as I was from the sealing of the Rifts, I could still do that.
No, there were a lot of things that I couldn't do any longer, but there was nothing stopping me from showing him the wonders of the universe, the glory that was the death of a sun, and the majesty of a newly born planet rippling with life that grew and stretched as far as the eye could see. Mountains were trekked, clouds were trudged. The depths of the ocean explored. I had seen them all already, but I gladly looked at them again.
A fluffy crimson-furred Sliver stood perched on my son's neck. "Bartimeus," I said offhandedly, and he turned to look at me, as if expecting to be told something. I had nothing to say. I merely wanted to taste the feeling of pronouncing his name. It had been his mother's choice, and she had gone with it, following some obscure naming convention passed down in her family. I had conceded. At least, that was what the memories were telling me. The memories hidden deep within his genetic code, slowly but surely coming unlocked as he spent time within the presence of the Slivers' synapses, the Psionic maelstrom of thoughts settling neatly within his cerebral cortex a piece at the time.
The Hive would soon join him. He would soon join the Hive. Together, we would be stronger than alone. My fingers passed through his hair, a grin on my face. "Do you want to try the best food there is to taste in the whole world?"
"Yeah!" he nodded, a smile on his face even as his eyelids began to drop. A yawn escaped his mouth, tiredness starting to claim him. It had been a great, busy day. It was obvious he'd be tired. The ground around us shifted as brick walls painted white rose, a perfect room coming into existence with the fluffiest of beds for him to rest in. He grumbled while rubbing his eyelids, trying to deny his tiredness. I simply lifted him up and plopped him into bed without a second of thought, taking a seat by the bedside.
"Then we'll go tomorrow," I said with a yawn of my own, soothing whispering Slivers carefully slithering inside the room, their tender murmurs bringing to sleep even the staunchest of hyperactive children, and to an already sleepy one, they simply made his sleep all the sweetest.
After giving him a light peck on the forehead, I left him there to catch his rest, gingerly closing the door of his room behind me as outside it trembling Slivers cast in dark, translucent materials stood with the sharpest blades and fiercest glares they could muster.
"Protect him while he sleeps," I whispered, and they obeyed, merging with the walls and disappearing from sight.
The Queen of the Slivers stood in wait, lurched over the most recent clutch of eggs with her usual look of nurturing love, tiny tendrils leaving her skin to prop the eggs around, fluffing the ground and making it soft and cozy.
Anthrax stood nearby, his form that of a mushy rock that sometimes quivered and shone with bright colors, making a light show for the recently born Slivers who gaped and awed with their beaks at the sights.
Discordia and Superbia are yet to return to the Hive.
The Queen's murmur softly spoke to the side of my head, and I nodded at that. "Superbia will be the trickiest to find," I acquiesced. "Discordia should answer to a psionic pulse, but it would broadcast our position." I passed a hand through my hair, then glanced up. "I'll do it. If that's your wish."
They are a part of me. We are all a part of the Whole. The Whole that is Us, the Slivers.
"And you miss them," I added with a chuckle.
What mother does not miss her children? Her large beak-like face dropped down to nuzzle a cracked egg, a tiny beak emerging from within with a soft, crooning sound. A large scythe-like limb dropped down nearby, so gently it didn't even disturb the nearby eggs. The newly born crawled upon the limb, and then was brought outside on the grass. There its chitin hardened, its armored crest grew strong, and its eyes began to shine with the knowledge that the Hive had to offer it.
Spikes and gems crew upon his carapace, the tendrils that composed his lower body morphing into humanoid-like legs, and as he stood up, he trudged away to join the others witnessing Anthrax' light show.
"Discordia headed for Zendikar of all places," I muttered as I gathered the knowledge she had shared with the hive, "But she wasn't there when I reached the plane, or I would have felt her. She must have been brought elsewhere."
She has the genetic potential of a future Queen. The queen spoke, and as she did, I grimaced.
"Which means that wherever she went, if she transformed, then I'd end up in a world at war against a new brood. Well, I reckon it always was her dream to rip, destroy and slaughter..." I tapped my chin. "I should be able to travel through dimensions, but..." I glanced at the newly built house, "I don't think it would be right to leave him behind. It might be dangerous to bring him along."
I can make him sleep until your return, as if not a day had gone by. The Queen said.
"He's been locked away for long enough. No, if he wakes, he wakes. Just show him around," I said. "It won't take long to recover Discordia. With the closure of the Rifts, the power of the Hive has been greatly reduced. She can't have gone that far...no, all things said, there are only a few worlds that could naturally connect to Zendikar." I began to think, my mind subtly shifting as the decisions that Discordia would take would, without a doubt, pass through specific lines of thought that the Hive knew. It was like installing a new operative system in a hard disk's partition.
Thinking like Discordia, there were a few places where someone like me could have gone without leaving a trace. One was Zendikar, trapped by the worthless and pathetic enemies of my greatness. The immediate second place would be, instead, the Helvault of—
"Sorin's not gonna be happy if he returns home," I mouthed as I shifted my line of thought back into my mind's partition, dozens of Slivers merging with my skin as their mana gathered into my frame, opening a path through the Blind Eternities, heading straight for the plane of Innistrad, in all of its glorious black mana abundance and gory death at the hands of maddened and cursed beings, with the people protect by patrolling angels and—
I arrived upon the plane just in time to feel the connection establish itself with the rampaging Slivers across the surface. Lacking a guide, they had gone into a frenzy. With my arrival, my will asserted itself upon them and forced a hasty retreat from whatever it was they were doing. The forest I had landed in was dark, of course, and gloomy.
Owls hooted and vultures flew, but amidst the Slivers that rushed across the landscapes to near me, I was still missing the presence of Discordia. Genetic memory worked in revealing to me the bits and pieces that I needed to string together what had happened, up until the point when Discordia had gone missing.
Sorin was the kind of guy I didn't really bother with. He did his stuff, I did mine, we never met more than once, and honestly out of everyone I had ever met with the Planeswalker's spark, he was the one who didn't give a damn about stuff, as long as he was left alone. It was like being a part of a democracy but never voting. That meant he was the perfect citizen for the political parties.
If Discordia had angered him with her thoughtless actions, then I was pretty much sure I'd find her in the Helvault. Getting her out would prove difficult, especially because of who else stood within.
Perhaps Sorin did have a solution to that conundrum, or maybe he hadn't locked her that deep.
My senses tingled as I stared at the flow of mana within the land, at the leylines that pulsed and yet seemed to stiffen beneath my scrutiny, as if alive and knowledgeable, as if knowing that someone was watching them and doing their best impression of appearing normal, unchanged, simple and calm.
They weren't. As the Slivers neared, I realized that the leylines were tainted. They were poisonous. That was why Discordia had failed. She had drank from the well and thought it water, but it felt, and looked, like the strongest of toxins. She hadn't had the time to deal with the destruction of the flesh of her brood, and had panicked as she always did whenever she was cornered. She had lashed out, cried out, and the flesh had melted off as pain had filled her world.
Just like it was slowly starting to fill mine, a Sliver emerging from the thick canopy of the forest's undergrowth with molten flesh and rotting muscles, shrieking loudly in ghastly wails, eyes burning with desire for raw flesh.
He stopped. He stopped at my unspoken command and twitched.
His flesh knitted and changed, the genetic structure of its body mutated beyond recognition by the poison of the mana that had seen its birth, by the defects within its egg, and from the moment of its birth till now it had remained as a painful, agonizing existence. Yet that mutation, that pain and agony that blinded it...was familiar.
It was the same pain and agony of the Slivers found within the Phyrexia of Zendikar. It was the same mutation, the same genetics, and upon this plane...Phyresis.
Phyresis had reached the plane of Innistrad.
Brought by who, and for what purpose, I could not know.
A flash of white skin entered my mind as the Sliver in front of me twitched, ravenously frothing from its mouth as my own commands to rearrange his genes and those that had seen its birth conflicted, the pain of having his bones rearranged, his muscles ripped and torn, his brain's pathways and synapses resettled...it was an agony that couldn't be described nor compared.
Yet I had to fix him. Once he was fixed, then his knowledge would pass on to the rest of his brood, and they would fix themselves. The Slivers would feed upon the poison and feel no different than if it were water. This was our strength. This was our pride.
We were Slivers.
Trapping us upon a plane of poisonous mana and Phyrexian enemies just made us stronger.
There was beauty in showing Freddie Mercury's last concert to a wide-eyed boy safely engulfed in my arms. There was something new, and electrifying, in explaining to him the wonders of two neutron stars colliding with one another in the vastness of space. His eyes were wide with the innocence of a child who knew no wrong, or perhaps believed in Santa Claus. It wouldn't be hard for me to craft a Santa Claus out of thin air, weakened as I was from the sealing of the Rifts, I could still do that.
No, there were a lot of things that I couldn't do any longer, but there was nothing stopping me from showing him the wonders of the universe, the glory that was the death of a sun, and the majesty of a newly born planet rippling with life that grew and stretched as far as the eye could see. Mountains were trekked, clouds were trudged. The depths of the ocean explored. I had seen them all already, but I gladly looked at them again.
A fluffy crimson-furred Sliver stood perched on my son's neck. "Bartimeus," I said offhandedly, and he turned to look at me, as if expecting to be told something. I had nothing to say. I merely wanted to taste the feeling of pronouncing his name. It had been his mother's choice, and she had gone with it, following some obscure naming convention passed down in her family. I had conceded. At least, that was what the memories were telling me. The memories hidden deep within his genetic code, slowly but surely coming unlocked as he spent time within the presence of the Slivers' synapses, the Psionic maelstrom of thoughts settling neatly within his cerebral cortex a piece at the time.
The Hive would soon join him. He would soon join the Hive. Together, we would be stronger than alone. My fingers passed through his hair, a grin on my face. "Do you want to try the best food there is to taste in the whole world?"
"Yeah!" he nodded, a smile on his face even as his eyelids began to drop. A yawn escaped his mouth, tiredness starting to claim him. It had been a great, busy day. It was obvious he'd be tired. The ground around us shifted as brick walls painted white rose, a perfect room coming into existence with the fluffiest of beds for him to rest in. He grumbled while rubbing his eyelids, trying to deny his tiredness. I simply lifted him up and plopped him into bed without a second of thought, taking a seat by the bedside.
"Then we'll go tomorrow," I said with a yawn of my own, soothing whispering Slivers carefully slithering inside the room, their tender murmurs bringing to sleep even the staunchest of hyperactive children, and to an already sleepy one, they simply made his sleep all the sweetest.
After giving him a light peck on the forehead, I left him there to catch his rest, gingerly closing the door of his room behind me as outside it trembling Slivers cast in dark, translucent materials stood with the sharpest blades and fiercest glares they could muster.
"Protect him while he sleeps," I whispered, and they obeyed, merging with the walls and disappearing from sight.
The Queen of the Slivers stood in wait, lurched over the most recent clutch of eggs with her usual look of nurturing love, tiny tendrils leaving her skin to prop the eggs around, fluffing the ground and making it soft and cozy.
Anthrax stood nearby, his form that of a mushy rock that sometimes quivered and shone with bright colors, making a light show for the recently born Slivers who gaped and awed with their beaks at the sights.
Discordia and Superbia are yet to return to the Hive.
The Queen's murmur softly spoke to the side of my head, and I nodded at that. "Superbia will be the trickiest to find," I acquiesced. "Discordia should answer to a psionic pulse, but it would broadcast our position." I passed a hand through my hair, then glanced up. "I'll do it. If that's your wish."
They are a part of me. We are all a part of the Whole. The Whole that is Us, the Slivers.
"And you miss them," I added with a chuckle.
What mother does not miss her children? Her large beak-like face dropped down to nuzzle a cracked egg, a tiny beak emerging from within with a soft, crooning sound. A large scythe-like limb dropped down nearby, so gently it didn't even disturb the nearby eggs. The newly born crawled upon the limb, and then was brought outside on the grass. There its chitin hardened, its armored crest grew strong, and its eyes began to shine with the knowledge that the Hive had to offer it.
Spikes and gems crew upon his carapace, the tendrils that composed his lower body morphing into humanoid-like legs, and as he stood up, he trudged away to join the others witnessing Anthrax' light show.
"Discordia headed for Zendikar of all places," I muttered as I gathered the knowledge she had shared with the hive, "But she wasn't there when I reached the plane, or I would have felt her. She must have been brought elsewhere."
She has the genetic potential of a future Queen. The queen spoke, and as she did, I grimaced.
"Which means that wherever she went, if she transformed, then I'd end up in a world at war against a new brood. Well, I reckon it always was her dream to rip, destroy and slaughter..." I tapped my chin. "I should be able to travel through dimensions, but..." I glanced at the newly built house, "I don't think it would be right to leave him behind. It might be dangerous to bring him along."
I can make him sleep until your return, as if not a day had gone by. The Queen said.
"He's been locked away for long enough. No, if he wakes, he wakes. Just show him around," I said. "It won't take long to recover Discordia. With the closure of the Rifts, the power of the Hive has been greatly reduced. She can't have gone that far...no, all things said, there are only a few worlds that could naturally connect to Zendikar." I began to think, my mind subtly shifting as the decisions that Discordia would take would, without a doubt, pass through specific lines of thought that the Hive knew. It was like installing a new operative system in a hard disk's partition.
Thinking like Discordia, there were a few places where someone like me could have gone without leaving a trace. One was Zendikar, trapped by the worthless and pathetic enemies of my greatness. The immediate second place would be, instead, the Helvault of—
"Sorin's not gonna be happy if he returns home," I mouthed as I shifted my line of thought back into my mind's partition, dozens of Slivers merging with my skin as their mana gathered into my frame, opening a path through the Blind Eternities, heading straight for the plane of Innistrad, in all of its glorious black mana abundance and gory death at the hands of maddened and cursed beings, with the people protect by patrolling angels and—
I arrived upon the plane just in time to feel the connection establish itself with the rampaging Slivers across the surface. Lacking a guide, they had gone into a frenzy. With my arrival, my will asserted itself upon them and forced a hasty retreat from whatever it was they were doing. The forest I had landed in was dark, of course, and gloomy.
Owls hooted and vultures flew, but amidst the Slivers that rushed across the landscapes to near me, I was still missing the presence of Discordia. Genetic memory worked in revealing to me the bits and pieces that I needed to string together what had happened, up until the point when Discordia had gone missing.
Sorin was the kind of guy I didn't really bother with. He did his stuff, I did mine, we never met more than once, and honestly out of everyone I had ever met with the Planeswalker's spark, he was the one who didn't give a damn about stuff, as long as he was left alone. It was like being a part of a democracy but never voting. That meant he was the perfect citizen for the political parties.
If Discordia had angered him with her thoughtless actions, then I was pretty much sure I'd find her in the Helvault. Getting her out would prove difficult, especially because of who else stood within.
Perhaps Sorin did have a solution to that conundrum, or maybe he hadn't locked her that deep.
My senses tingled as I stared at the flow of mana within the land, at the leylines that pulsed and yet seemed to stiffen beneath my scrutiny, as if alive and knowledgeable, as if knowing that someone was watching them and doing their best impression of appearing normal, unchanged, simple and calm.
They weren't. As the Slivers neared, I realized that the leylines were tainted. They were poisonous. That was why Discordia had failed. She had drank from the well and thought it water, but it felt, and looked, like the strongest of toxins. She hadn't had the time to deal with the destruction of the flesh of her brood, and had panicked as she always did whenever she was cornered. She had lashed out, cried out, and the flesh had melted off as pain had filled her world.
Just like it was slowly starting to fill mine, a Sliver emerging from the thick canopy of the forest's undergrowth with molten flesh and rotting muscles, shrieking loudly in ghastly wails, eyes burning with desire for raw flesh.
He stopped. He stopped at my unspoken command and twitched.
His flesh knitted and changed, the genetic structure of its body mutated beyond recognition by the poison of the mana that had seen its birth, by the defects within its egg, and from the moment of its birth till now it had remained as a painful, agonizing existence. Yet that mutation, that pain and agony that blinded it...was familiar.
It was the same pain and agony of the Slivers found within the Phyrexia of Zendikar. It was the same mutation, the same genetics, and upon this plane...Phyresis.
Phyresis had reached the plane of Innistrad.
Brought by who, and for what purpose, I could not know.
A flash of white skin entered my mind as the Sliver in front of me twitched, ravenously frothing from its mouth as my own commands to rearrange his genes and those that had seen its birth conflicted, the pain of having his bones rearranged, his muscles ripped and torn, his brain's pathways and synapses resettled...it was an agony that couldn't be described nor compared.
Yet I had to fix him. Once he was fixed, then his knowledge would pass on to the rest of his brood, and they would fix themselves. The Slivers would feed upon the poison and feel no different than if it were water. This was our strength. This was our pride.
We were Slivers.
Trapping us upon a plane of poisonous mana and Phyrexian enemies just made us stronger.
shadowace2400
Planeswalker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Texas
Well. Whoever put Phyrexia on Innistrad just got two uberpowerful planeswalkers pissed at them.
TheLurker
Random Omnipotent Lazy-As-Fuck Being
- Location
- The space beyond the stars
Yeah Sorin is probably one of those rare planeswalkers who doesn't actually give a fuck about what shade was doing.
And he is an OLD HAND at this.
Chapter Eighty-Seven (Innistrad)
- Location
- https://discord.gg/z9tBvbh
Chapter Eighty-Seven (Innistrad)
The Sliver had known pain since the moment it had fed upon the Mana. The synaptic connection with its broodmother had brought him agony, and he had preferred to sever himself rather than risk bringing more pain to the Queen. Unfortunately, that was a trick of the plague itself. Alone, the genetic code of a single Sliver could do nothing to prevent the pain, or the Phyresis' mutations.
Discordia had found herself alone, a broodmother with clutches of Slivers that did not listen her, and though they did so to protect her, she felt pain too and suffered from it until she was sealed away. White-winged angels had come to get her, dragging her maddened into the Helvault.
The newly healed Sliver shared his thoughts and his genes with the rest of the Hive, and as it did the poison of the Phyresis was filtered through the new organs born from its cells, and transformed into a harmless mass of dead skin and rust.
Purifying the leylines would require more than just a Sliver; it would require a Skep born for that express purpose. I felt my fingers twitch and ground my teeth. Once, I could have just thrown one out from my pockets after having crafted it in thin air. Now it felt like pulling out a teeth, or a rib. The ground itself answered my coaxing, rising slowly as Slivers began to spit out caustic acid from their mouths, carefully forming tunnels within.
The leylines nearby were grabbed with my metaphysical fingers of mana, dragged ferociously away from their position to interweave and intersect with the Skep itself. Black mana was abundant in this region, as was green. White mana had been drowned out, replaced with a sickening variant that Phyrexia would soon see extinguished. Yet it lingered on, and as Gem-eyed Slivers emerged from the pores of my skin and mutated, they filtered the mana, crafting it into a weave-like pattern that fed the Skep's walls.
The stone-like inner walls began to gleam the color of flesh, and then pulse as the temperature within increased. Red Mana burned brightly at the bottom of the tunnels, air vents began to emit steam and tendrils of tree-like roots dug deep into the ground. It was the birth of a Skep, rather than the summoning of one. Had we been near the sea, it would have been wondrous. We weren't, and I didn't wish to take a chance without an army of sorts.
Strong spindly limbs emerged from the Skep, a cluster of gems on the back of the Sliver which rose, taller than that which birthed it, branches and twigs of toxic poison formed most of its outer skin. It rose, taller than the trees. It rose and it hissed a long, deafening call.
And within seconds, the rampant Slivers that were coming towards me suffered no longer. Their flesh twitched, their genes rearranged themselves, and all over Innistrad what had been disorganized, disarrayed and pain-filled Slivers became the Hive.
And the Hive would have its revenge for the pain it had suffered.
The mournful lament of the skyscraper-sized Sliver echoed in the air, thrumming and chanting as spore-like sacs began to burst from its skin, releasing a patented version of fungi-like colonies, which spread over the trees and entered a symbiotic relationship with the bark itself.
Strong claws gripped on the forest's dirt as an armored Sliver emerged from a hole in the Skep, growling ferociously like a lion whose mane was made of steel, and whose eyes were golden with unspoken hunger. A brood of them followed the first, and my fingers pointed in the direction of the closest village, one of lumberjacks and hunters, one of fearful, corrupted men and women. One where steel glinted beneath the rotting flesh and buzzing noises were heard in the depths of their water-soaked cellars.
"Butcher them all," I growled as flames ignited within the Skep, agile snake-like Slivers emerged with fire in their veins, and within their mouths. "Burn all to the ground. Let the fires warn them of our arrival," I twitched my fingers and the Skep's leylines obeyed, humanoid-like and mist-covered Slivers coming out next, their forms and bodies altering themselves. "So that when they look to the East to see us, they will never realize the blades that strike them down from the West."
With a nod from them all, a nod that was unanimous and without questioning, they rushed forth with their own tasks and orders.
The mournful lament of the Sliver that stood taller than the trees themselves rose in pitch as a second one joined the first, and then began to walk on lumbering legs. I was expecting Sorin to make himself known by now. He should have had spells meant to warn him of another Planeswalker's presence on his plane. He had crafted angels, entire species of living beings and yet he hadn't put a simple alarm spell on his Plane? No. He had to be on his way, or indisposed.
Out of the two, I didn't know which worried me the most.
Hulking Slivers marched across the trees, carefully avoiding their destruction as they hit the border of the forest, and then went past it and into the human village. The people had woken, and though the sick and the wounded were barely capable of making due with the events, those already halfway compleated knew what was coming instinctively, and they screamed.
They screamed so loudly, it reverberated across the sky, all the way up to where a blood-soaked crimson moon stood.
"The Vampires must be out to hunt," I hummed. "But it's the day the hunter becomes the hunted, though Phyresis doesn't work on the dead..." I tapped my chin, closing my eyes as a thousand more opened up, scenes catching my interest as Sorin's manor was in front of my Slivers' eyes, abandoned and destroyed. Avacyn's symbol lay in ruin, and yet fresh blood had been spilled within the halls.
The Slivers moved quietly, ghost-like entities who feared nothing but to displease the will of the Hive. Beneath my feet, I could feel the pavement of the hall and smell the dust and the dried iron-like pungent odor of blood. Doors were open slowly, as if a breeze had come by. Then, something else caught my attention, miles away. Leathery wings now flapped on my back, the Helvault standing resolutely within a dark circle of dead earth below me. Soldiers of the cathedral of Thraben, young inquisitors and proud warriors, stood guard in shifts around it. There was a guardian, one that could unmake the Helvault, but I had no idea whom it was.
There was a shift in the air, and a spear of pure light struck the chest of one of my Slivers. The connection I felt to it was lost as it burned up in cinders, but its neighbors shrieked and dropped down quickly, a scrupulous guard having seen the flock high in the air—no, not a scrupulous guard, but an angel. It was no Avacyn, of that I was sure. The problem with the angel was that it had a flock by its side, and I only had three flying Slivers.
I made them retreat, though they did not go far even as I had them plunge down into the empty streets and split up. The angels pursued them relentlessly, even as I split the trio up. One died due to a surprisingly sturdy door it had tried to break through, another tried the sewer's entrance, but spells meant to keep them clear of foes ignited its skin into cinder. The third one hid inside a garbage can.
He was the one that survived.
I didn't want to destroy the Plane.
I didn't want to have Sorin angered at me, not if I could avoid it. The city of Thraben needed to be checked for Phyresis, of course, but that would have to wait until after the cleansing of the villages where the plague was more evident. Every infection of Phyresis had a source, and once the bodies of the villagers would be examined, and their souls ripped out of their bodies for interrogation, I'd know the truth.
The village burned brightly into the night, the view seen from my own eyes as beneath my feet burrowing Slivers crafted tunnels to lurk through during the day and during the night.
The White Mana's poisonous nature would infect the Angels first, I reckoned. It was subtle enough that it would take years for it to have effect, but I reckoned a couple had already begun to lose a few feathers, and had chalked it up to a simple enough early molt.
If you cough a bit, you don't really think it's the pulmonary black plague until the sores come out now, do you?
"There you are!" a voice spoke.
Three words, and I turned with a scythe-like limb replacing my hand.
I blinked.
He blinked in turn.
Slowly, I let my limb recede back into a human hand of sorts.
"How are you even here?" I asked.
Harry Potter shrugged, and pulled out a book from within one of his sleeves. It was a copy of The Great Adventures of Best-Father throughout the Multiverse. "We checked on the planes written inside and I left spells to be alerted if you'd ever pass through."
"And why would you do that?" I asked, eyes half-narrowed.
"He wanted to find you," Harry Potter remarked, and the next second a pair of armored gauntlets came cruising for my sides as a tear-filled face began to cry and sob uncontrollably against my chest.
"Fatheeerrrr!" Superbia shrieked with a child-like wail.
I sighed, a small smile settling on my lips.
I then gingerly returned the hug, patting Superbia's head all the while. "My son," I whispered. "I've missed you too."
Superbia's nostrils began to gush with blood.
I swear, I must have made a mistake somewhere in his genetic code.
The Sliver had known pain since the moment it had fed upon the Mana. The synaptic connection with its broodmother had brought him agony, and he had preferred to sever himself rather than risk bringing more pain to the Queen. Unfortunately, that was a trick of the plague itself. Alone, the genetic code of a single Sliver could do nothing to prevent the pain, or the Phyresis' mutations.
Discordia had found herself alone, a broodmother with clutches of Slivers that did not listen her, and though they did so to protect her, she felt pain too and suffered from it until she was sealed away. White-winged angels had come to get her, dragging her maddened into the Helvault.
The newly healed Sliver shared his thoughts and his genes with the rest of the Hive, and as it did the poison of the Phyresis was filtered through the new organs born from its cells, and transformed into a harmless mass of dead skin and rust.
Purifying the leylines would require more than just a Sliver; it would require a Skep born for that express purpose. I felt my fingers twitch and ground my teeth. Once, I could have just thrown one out from my pockets after having crafted it in thin air. Now it felt like pulling out a teeth, or a rib. The ground itself answered my coaxing, rising slowly as Slivers began to spit out caustic acid from their mouths, carefully forming tunnels within.
The leylines nearby were grabbed with my metaphysical fingers of mana, dragged ferociously away from their position to interweave and intersect with the Skep itself. Black mana was abundant in this region, as was green. White mana had been drowned out, replaced with a sickening variant that Phyrexia would soon see extinguished. Yet it lingered on, and as Gem-eyed Slivers emerged from the pores of my skin and mutated, they filtered the mana, crafting it into a weave-like pattern that fed the Skep's walls.
The stone-like inner walls began to gleam the color of flesh, and then pulse as the temperature within increased. Red Mana burned brightly at the bottom of the tunnels, air vents began to emit steam and tendrils of tree-like roots dug deep into the ground. It was the birth of a Skep, rather than the summoning of one. Had we been near the sea, it would have been wondrous. We weren't, and I didn't wish to take a chance without an army of sorts.
Strong spindly limbs emerged from the Skep, a cluster of gems on the back of the Sliver which rose, taller than that which birthed it, branches and twigs of toxic poison formed most of its outer skin. It rose, taller than the trees. It rose and it hissed a long, deafening call.
And within seconds, the rampant Slivers that were coming towards me suffered no longer. Their flesh twitched, their genes rearranged themselves, and all over Innistrad what had been disorganized, disarrayed and pain-filled Slivers became the Hive.
And the Hive would have its revenge for the pain it had suffered.
The mournful lament of the skyscraper-sized Sliver echoed in the air, thrumming and chanting as spore-like sacs began to burst from its skin, releasing a patented version of fungi-like colonies, which spread over the trees and entered a symbiotic relationship with the bark itself.
Strong claws gripped on the forest's dirt as an armored Sliver emerged from a hole in the Skep, growling ferociously like a lion whose mane was made of steel, and whose eyes were golden with unspoken hunger. A brood of them followed the first, and my fingers pointed in the direction of the closest village, one of lumberjacks and hunters, one of fearful, corrupted men and women. One where steel glinted beneath the rotting flesh and buzzing noises were heard in the depths of their water-soaked cellars.
"Butcher them all," I growled as flames ignited within the Skep, agile snake-like Slivers emerged with fire in their veins, and within their mouths. "Burn all to the ground. Let the fires warn them of our arrival," I twitched my fingers and the Skep's leylines obeyed, humanoid-like and mist-covered Slivers coming out next, their forms and bodies altering themselves. "So that when they look to the East to see us, they will never realize the blades that strike them down from the West."
With a nod from them all, a nod that was unanimous and without questioning, they rushed forth with their own tasks and orders.
The mournful lament of the Sliver that stood taller than the trees themselves rose in pitch as a second one joined the first, and then began to walk on lumbering legs. I was expecting Sorin to make himself known by now. He should have had spells meant to warn him of another Planeswalker's presence on his plane. He had crafted angels, entire species of living beings and yet he hadn't put a simple alarm spell on his Plane? No. He had to be on his way, or indisposed.
Out of the two, I didn't know which worried me the most.
Hulking Slivers marched across the trees, carefully avoiding their destruction as they hit the border of the forest, and then went past it and into the human village. The people had woken, and though the sick and the wounded were barely capable of making due with the events, those already halfway compleated knew what was coming instinctively, and they screamed.
They screamed so loudly, it reverberated across the sky, all the way up to where a blood-soaked crimson moon stood.
"The Vampires must be out to hunt," I hummed. "But it's the day the hunter becomes the hunted, though Phyresis doesn't work on the dead..." I tapped my chin, closing my eyes as a thousand more opened up, scenes catching my interest as Sorin's manor was in front of my Slivers' eyes, abandoned and destroyed. Avacyn's symbol lay in ruin, and yet fresh blood had been spilled within the halls.
The Slivers moved quietly, ghost-like entities who feared nothing but to displease the will of the Hive. Beneath my feet, I could feel the pavement of the hall and smell the dust and the dried iron-like pungent odor of blood. Doors were open slowly, as if a breeze had come by. Then, something else caught my attention, miles away. Leathery wings now flapped on my back, the Helvault standing resolutely within a dark circle of dead earth below me. Soldiers of the cathedral of Thraben, young inquisitors and proud warriors, stood guard in shifts around it. There was a guardian, one that could unmake the Helvault, but I had no idea whom it was.
There was a shift in the air, and a spear of pure light struck the chest of one of my Slivers. The connection I felt to it was lost as it burned up in cinders, but its neighbors shrieked and dropped down quickly, a scrupulous guard having seen the flock high in the air—no, not a scrupulous guard, but an angel. It was no Avacyn, of that I was sure. The problem with the angel was that it had a flock by its side, and I only had three flying Slivers.
I made them retreat, though they did not go far even as I had them plunge down into the empty streets and split up. The angels pursued them relentlessly, even as I split the trio up. One died due to a surprisingly sturdy door it had tried to break through, another tried the sewer's entrance, but spells meant to keep them clear of foes ignited its skin into cinder. The third one hid inside a garbage can.
He was the one that survived.
I didn't want to destroy the Plane.
I didn't want to have Sorin angered at me, not if I could avoid it. The city of Thraben needed to be checked for Phyresis, of course, but that would have to wait until after the cleansing of the villages where the plague was more evident. Every infection of Phyresis had a source, and once the bodies of the villagers would be examined, and their souls ripped out of their bodies for interrogation, I'd know the truth.
The village burned brightly into the night, the view seen from my own eyes as beneath my feet burrowing Slivers crafted tunnels to lurk through during the day and during the night.
The White Mana's poisonous nature would infect the Angels first, I reckoned. It was subtle enough that it would take years for it to have effect, but I reckoned a couple had already begun to lose a few feathers, and had chalked it up to a simple enough early molt.
If you cough a bit, you don't really think it's the pulmonary black plague until the sores come out now, do you?
"There you are!" a voice spoke.
Three words, and I turned with a scythe-like limb replacing my hand.
I blinked.
He blinked in turn.
Slowly, I let my limb recede back into a human hand of sorts.
"How are you even here?" I asked.
Harry Potter shrugged, and pulled out a book from within one of his sleeves. It was a copy of The Great Adventures of Best-Father throughout the Multiverse. "We checked on the planes written inside and I left spells to be alerted if you'd ever pass through."
"And why would you do that?" I asked, eyes half-narrowed.
"He wanted to find you," Harry Potter remarked, and the next second a pair of armored gauntlets came cruising for my sides as a tear-filled face began to cry and sob uncontrollably against my chest.
"Fatheeerrrr!" Superbia shrieked with a child-like wail.
I sighed, a small smile settling on my lips.
I then gingerly returned the hug, patting Superbia's head all the while. "My son," I whispered. "I've missed you too."
Superbia's nostrils began to gush with blood.
I swear, I must have made a mistake somewhere in his genetic code.
bigpianist
alcoholic
- Location
- Gensokyo
The parenting your Tyrant-SI gave him might also be a factor.
Nurturing can supercede Nature, if what we learned from Trading Places holds true!
How exactly was he raised, if I may ask?
shadowace2400
Planeswalker Extraordinaire
- Location
- Texas
Soooo, was he being perverted or something? I don't get the nose blood thing if that's not it.
