Atraxis watched as the darkness creature stabbed through the champion of the gods. The silver ivory blade glistened with a faint glow, despite the gloom which wreathed it. It had sprung up, over twenty feet off the ground, and stabbed one of it’s blades through the chest of the champion. A guttural laugh escaped the long gone lips of the skeletal former mage, guiding his steed, a creature made from blue light, towards the fallen Percival.
The wizard had managed to prop himself up, despite the hefty wound inflicted to him by the Divine Crusader. Gloom wreathed him. Prior to the summoning of the darkness creature (Atraxis knew it as Beherit), the entire area around him had been coated in it, and now it had simply receded back towards him. Atraxis stuck out a bony hand, as he rode past, and Percival took it, the skeletal man pulling him behind him with perhaps unexpected strength.
“Thank you-” He said with a wince, as the pair rode to crest one of the nearby rock formations, to get a better look at the field of battle.
“What did you promise Beherit?” Was Atraxis’s reply. The entity was one of three Percival kept, that he described as ‘abjectly harmful’. It was Beherit, Athena, and the Zeitgeist.
He sighed.
“For sixty six hours of service, five of my wounds, to be extracted at a later date.”
A laugh once more, from Atraxis, as he stopped at a crest. Nearby, a fierce melee between locals and summoned spirits was coming to a conclusion, in their favor. Across the field, though, the insurgents had the upper hand. The magic that guided them together, which, like with the champion, was tethered back to the god in the sky, was giving them too much of an advantage.
However, it wasn’t all bad. The champion was still skewered, though he was attempting to cast spells, the darkness was swallowing them, and he noticed that Percival’s wounds were mending at the same rate. Apart of their deal, no doubt. The winged Crusader had circled back down the the hammer user, the two of them confirming briefly, accompanied by those strange stone statues, which kept guard from any of the golems or amalgams which got close.
Across the field of battle, the crocodile shifter had been plucked up by the god with ease, lifted fifty feet in the air. It’s intent was to restrain, likely trying to dismiss the venom-but it was far too late. The crocodile began to bleed from her eyes and between her scales, thrashing violently. The god was taking quick, desperate measures, working magic through the connection they shared, but Atraxis could see the death of those connected to chaos a long while away.
The rest of the shapechangers weren’t doing much better. The snake was still engaged with the griffon, wrapping his body around it, but sustaining more claws and pecks in the process. The monkey was throwing himself up the cliff, only for Thomas, the eidolon of memory to vanish from near the jaguar, and reappear, stabbing the monkey in the hand, and sending him falling again.
The armadillo was caught between more of the golems, and the wyrm, having been struck by a swing of the crocodile’s tail earlier.
The Mayan woman, who shared the blood of the god but lacked the power from it, popped up from behind cover, rifle in hand. The bullet struck Atraxis in the shoulder. A low chuckle. A clever one, that.
“Percival, shall I deal with the problem?”
“No-!” He said sharply, breathing in.
“You don’t have an implement. Your army is coming apart. Beherit isn’t going to be enough, if you get shot.”
Another bullet whizzed by him, he didn’t move the reigns.
“I won’t damn them to chaos, even if-”
“Even if you die? And allow that god to make things worse? Trust me, boy, I know a sinkhole of chaos when I see one. These people are gearing up for an attack. If they do, they might drag the whole country down. What then, Percival?” The former wizard knew exactly what to say to twist Percival around. The wizard scowled.
“Fine, do it. Keep things to a minimum. Our goal is still to bind the thing.”
“Of course.” He said, starting to ride down towards the field of the shifters.
That’s when he cast his first spell, as he rode past the Armadillo.
Each of the limb golems nearby him transmuted into the purest form of chaos-that was all that was left of their forms, outside of the cohesion Percival’s bindings had given them.
The energy ripped through it’s form, inverting armor, transformed bone, and organs. A ripple effect that would corrupt and mold each segment of the magical form. The figment of order which allowed the chaos to be molded into the form, of say, a massive Armadillo, released and destroyed. In what was likely a panic, the shifter abandoned the form, a larger man, who stumbled, only to be stabbed in the gut by Mathias, one of the more powerful manifestations under the control of Percival. This caused the jaguar to rush forward, ignoring the wounds of Thomas. It would likely be her downfall. But Atraxis was forced to ride forward instead.
The crocodile shifter was dead, and the god was the pragmatic sort. The massive body was hurled towards the pair. But Percival had withdrawn a backup implement, in the form of an emerald gemstone, shouting “Invicta Reditus!” to the sky, causing the momentum to reverse for a brief moment, the massive body, now starting to shrink away, slamming into the god.
In the moment he bought Atraxis, he activated his sight. Chaos was eager to supplant his senses if it meant spreading it’s tendrils. Eager to guide him to which actions would cause the most damage. He’d only used this ability a few other times before, one of them on the night of his fall.
Oh what a wonderful night that had been. Tossing aside his rules in favor of a confluence of power that he had never forgotten.
And then he’d been struck down. By a man named Doyle, who was succeeded by a woman named Miitra, who’d been succeeded by a man named Glade. Glade would train a young boy named Percival Harris, teach him to be a rigorous man of order, and then he too, would fall.
For when Atraxis had been felled by Doyle, he’d planted the seed of chaos in his mind. The seed of power. The notion of always having more, at the cost of others, was the most human thing imaginable. It was why the angels were here, trying to enforce what remained of virtue, even if no one but they still believed it. It’s why Percival was here, trying to impose order onto something which could only be chaos. It’s why the insurgents were here, wanting to wrong where they were wronged.
That seed, left in Doyle, was passed to Miltra, when he realized what he had become, and hurled himself off of his own balcony. His mind too strong to fall. Miltra found his notes, and would practice magics thought most forbidden. Her execution by the Council of Eight harbored resentment in Glade, who sought to finally perfect the magic that had been past down, and when he dragged a town that now lacked a name into chaos, he planted the seed within Percival Harris. Harris, however, had resisted the temptation. He courted chaos in some form, binding it’s will to his, but frustratingly, he always sought order through that chaos.
It irked Atraxis, but it didn’t matter. Even the strongest men would one day die. And with the size of chaos, there was only one place for those men to go.
It was the fate of this world, and all others. And it brought him, even in his skeletal form, peace.
The sight of chaos told him, that his first step would be to free the Champion. So another spell was cast, and the champion’s reserves expanded. The darkness could not swallow the force of the magical weapon summoned to his hand, a bladed club striking Beherit and forcing the two to break contact, the champion pulled from the blade, and propelling to the ground, taking off at a run towards his allies. Beherit, who had, if previous summoning’s were any indication, been instructed to kill the greatest threat to Percival at the time.
The sight told him to remain within the range of the woman who had shot at the pair of them earlier, and he complied, now turning his attention elsewhere.
The jaguar had torn Mathias apart, and cleared the area around the Armadillo shifter of their forces. He threw a spell towards her, she managed to dodge, but wasn’t able to form counterattacks in time. However, on the other side of it all, Thomas had sustained his first injury at the hands of the scream of the monkey shifter, and was sent flying, as he finally rejoined the fray. The griffon was also struck down, with a pair of bites from the serpent to the neck. Percival took action, using “Invicta Jactus” to hurl rocks at them and slow them down. But Atraxis knew his reserves would be running low, and he’d be saving the remainder for defenses.
The Divine Crusaders had returned to the fray, however, the winged one carrying the one with the hammer. The pair of constructs had split off to continue to rip through as much of the armies on display as possible.
Seraphim. Those who had the angels blood. He had thought them extinct, or close to it. It seemed they had the potency for one more battle.
Angels were creatures of order, born from chaos. How perplexing! Yet, Atraxis supposed the most chaotic thing chaos could do was create order. Either way, in ancient times, before him and even before many of the gods, angels had curbed the expansion of chaos, having been born from fundamental revelations of humans about the world. When humans gained enlightened understanding, gained a further grasp of order, angels would be born.
But chaos hated those children. And even more paradoxically, an angels presence could sometimes fuel chaos. So they used mortal agents, bloodlines carried from ages of the gods, to continue the crusade. The angels which spawned them would recede, existing across everyone with their blood, as opposed to within the vessel of their bodies.
Eventually, the Crusaders would die, because of their own idiocy. Their bloodline would thin, powers pushed into one or two vessels. Then those vessels would get unlucky. Their powers would crossbreed. And when they were finally defeated, dead, a new angel would be born from what remained. To start anew, in a cycle of madness.
It seemed, based on only two of them, charging towards the pair, that it was near the end of that life cycle.
Beherit chased the champion to near a cliff, only to be struck again with the club, and a now summoned short blade. Beherit responded with consuming itself in gloom, reappearing behind the Champion, and cutting across his back. Catching him in the magic eating gloom once again, but this time, he was quickly pushed back by a mighty strike of both weapons. He struck both together, sparks flying forth, filling the darkness and forcing Beherit back. It was no real injury, Atraxis knew.
That said, what would be a real injury, was the god diving down, and planting his foot in Beherit’s chest, bringing it to the ground with a crunch. Thomas appeared in the entities blind spot, and was caught by the face, and within a second, no longer had one. Beherit, however, was a bit harder to kill, gloom expanding rapidly, covering the entire field for a moment. Atraxis was still able to see in this gloom, thanks to his sight, and saw the summoned creature stab twice into the still adjusting god, forcing itself out from it’s foot, springing backwards. The Champion, however, bleeding profusely, was spared for now. The gloom started to recede. At least a dozen beings had been slain in the confusion of it.
The snake shifter had lunged for the hammer crusader on the ground, and had been struck in the side for it, however this had just been to buy the monkey time, clawing at her face violently.
The winged Crusader had been poised to dive, when two things had happened.
The pair of statues lunged for the monkey, stalling him off of the other one (Atraxis noticed, based on how they spoke and looked to each other, and the rings on their fingers, that they were likely close to one another).
And Atraxis’s magnum opus came together. He could see the pieces move into place, as chaos flooded his perceptions. It was not truly seeing. For a brief moment, he had given up thinking and perceiving as humans did. Instead seeing it all happen at once.
Beherit had, as expected, been ordered to strike down the largest threat to Percival at a given moment. And being a creature of it’s capacity, something which manifested darkness, entropy, death, it had a good eye for these things.
Atraxis had stopped dead still, leaving himself and Pervical exposed. As expected, no one had time to worry about the pair of wizards, in the midst of a fray this big.
But he had left them in the line of the Mayan sharpshooter, who the crusaders had come with.
As she aimed a shot firmly at Pervical’s head, Beherit acted, in a burst of gloom, likely forming from the woman’s very own shadow. The winged crusader, seeing his beloved well handled, on protective instinct, dove to intercept Beherit. His sword interposal saved the sharpshooter’s life, who tumbled out of the way, as the pair of them traded blows for a few crucial seconds. The winged crusader threw forward a kick, attempting to banish Beherit, but the creature’s darkness consumed the attempt. Only wings and blade remained for any of the crusader’s abilities at all, the only things not swallowed by shadow. And these allowed him to not die in those last few seconds before his death.
The god turned, actually bleeding golden ichor from the wounds Beherit had inflicted. His champion was still recovering, and clearly, the creature wanted to deal with the entity as quickly as possible.
So he went all in. Just as Atraxis as hoped. The glorious flow of chaos through the air, in the leading few seconds of a god intervening in this world, for the first time in a thousand years.
A destructive storm of death and mayhem descended onto the pair of them. Filled with the crackle of deathly lightning, crimson bolts flowing between, the swirling of wind. Blades, hundreds of them, long and sharp, took form within the apex of a god’s domain, brought manifest for just a mere moment. The ‘storm’ of sorts swirled and struck back and forth, obscuring the pair of them from sight amidst a flurry of grey silt. It was mesmerizing, as it abided no rhyme, no reason, only sheer magic itself. The will to destroy, the will to kill, put on display.
It only lasted five seconds. But to Atraxis, it felt like glorious days of rapture.
And when it finally ceased, Beherit was left a husk, not killed, but waning, falling forth, unable to catch himself.
And the winged crusader was flung. His body a mess of singed burns, rotting necrosis, slashed and mutilated flesh, and massive holes. His life was likely gone less then a second after it had settled around him, the rest had simply been…destruction.
The hammer user screamed. Almost as loud as the monkey had. And Atraxis simply laughed, a guttural noise which filled the area, and finally drew the attention of others present. Atraxis didn’t care, even if he felt Percival tense just behind him. He didn’t even need to look to know that his eyes were wide, like a deer in the headlights.
“You see what happens when you trust me my boy! Now I would suggest we call a retreat.”
Percival let his hands fall to his sides a moment, before raising the emerald gemstone, shouting over the mayhem.
“Forces of order! Fall back! Meet at the rendezvous! Beherit! I demand you fulfill our bargain. Strike down all attempts to fell us, until we’ve gone!”
He called Dawn back over, and switched steeds, and both him and Atraxis moved to flee.
The sight of chaos left him, just in time to watch the screaming woman with the hammer hurl herself towards the serpent shifter, either killing, or morally wounding him by crushing his chest with one mighty swing, his body sent flying through the air with the sheer strength of it. She leveled her hammer to the side, raising it, and charging straight for the god, who seemed to still be recovering. The Champion stepped forward, ready to intercept.
The Jaguar attempted to lunge for Star, the wyrm breathing flame in her face before joining the growing retreat. A few of the elementals were helping, creatures of earth putting walls in the way, torrents of water slowing them, and so on.
And with the winds at our back, Beherit made his final move.
A cloud of gloom settled over the entire camp. Clouding even Atraxis and Percival’s sight, though the son of chaos pulled vision back to himself to watch.
He watched as Beherit removed the right leg of the hammer user, a few fingers from the trigger hand of the sharpshooter, the left arm of the Champion, the fangs of the barely breathing serpent, the stone statues turned to rubble glittering with emeralds, the claws from the jaguar, ears and nose from the defeated armadillo, chunks from the neck of the monkey, the hands and eyes from insurgents, and sliced the god at least two dozen times.
He did it all at once. Each patch of the gloom was Beherit, a confluence of a hundred blows in but a few seconds. Beherit’s web of destruction then receded.
The hammer user fell to the ground, her scream choked in it’s final moments by a surge of yet unknown pain, her weapon leaving her grasp. The sharpshooter dropped her gun, looking more surprised then pained. The serpent continued to bleed onto the ground, both inside and out, his form starting to recede. The jaguar’s final swipe onto an elemental of metal broke one of her paws, and she was struck hard in return, shattering many of her bones, as the elemental sprinted into a retreat. The monkey moved to scream, to stop the pair of them from escaping on steedback, surging forward, adrenaline ignoring his injuries. His scream brought only blood and bile to his throat, and he fell forward to the ground. The armadillo’s face was obscured by blood. Insurgents everywhere shouted in alarm, unable to fire weapons they needed in the mayhem, costing the retreating force no more casualties.
The Champion stared at the bleeding stump, and the shortblade that laid at his feet. He looked shocked. Before letting out a cry of rage, and shooting off after us. Beherit would intercept, and take an eye from him for his folly. The Champion would tumble from the sky.
The god stood there in silence, bleeding ichor from a dozen wounds which would not close. Beherit turned around, spinning to slice down again as a barely formed collection of shadows. The two entities collided. Atraxis knew, however, that Beherit was no match. He would reform eventually, though.
Atraxis wished he could capture that glorious moment, those glorious three seconds, in his mind forever. Chaos would perhaps allow him that. He felt the foundations of reality here, the boundary, the wall between chaos and what was supposedly true…weaken. And the cracks were starting to spread. Another unearthly laugh.
The retreating force hit the brush, getting out of sight.
The last segment of the battle Atraxis knew of was the familiar flashing glow of the angel’s transporting in and out. They had gotten away, no matter.
Percival audibly sighed, as they left the battle behind.
“Just a little further. We nearly had it.”
“You still have one more day, my friend. Don’t fret, we’ll have your prize yet. Our divine problem will be much easier to solve carrying wounds from Beherit.”
“I…suppose you’re right. And if all it costs was some future suffering, and a few contracts…”
“A price well paid.” Atraxis concluded.
“…Yes.” Percival said, before silencing himself. He likely felt the impact too. But was too numb after this to consider it. He’d certainly be in a frenzy over it later, and continue to put back Atraxis’s resurrection.
Not that the skeletal mage cared. It didn’t matter if he was bone, blood, or had a form at all. As long as he was here, he could see the fruits of his labor. After all, if what his sight had seen had been correct?
Then his efforts would pay off in a grander fashion then the man who broke his chains years ago could ever have possibly imagined.
Kindling And Miscellany 