Lords of Creation (Story Thread 3)

[Zaleramancer]

Gentleman Vaultboy wrote

"Move, move back!" Commanded Shoving Another Down as one of the Goblins struck out of the jungle again, it's nails scratching across the Vandals shied just as she brought it up and stepped back into formation.

She had awaken to screams as the moon had exploded. But before they could even begin to process that these things had come out of he forest. They had acted quickly, the other girls responding to her orders. Cirlce the wagons, protect the Bouquabians. They stood now, in a circle, shoulder to shoulder around the huddled group. Like a herd of animals protecting it's young.

Another of the girls overextend beating back an attack, and was cut down with a single terrible swipe. Shoving called out, and another quickly filled the gap. They didn't have to die. They didn't have to be here. They could fly away, save themselves. But it wasn't what they had been taught. They were soldiers, and a soldier duty was to protects people. They would stay, and fight to the last. There was really know other option.

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The Watcher looked wearily at the Hag. On one hand, it was a true emergency right now. On the other hand, it had been spying on these people for years now and it didn't doubt that she knew.

Still, it wasn't like it had a choice. It followed the hag when she beckoned it, toward the mirror.

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The Watchman heard the boom, and stumbled out into the sleeping room as the  other watcher streaked in.

"Sir, it's terrible, the sky is falling!"

Was this some sort of joke?

"Not only that, we've received reports of terrible creatures spawning everywhere."

He moved as if in a daze, stumbling over himself. What? What had happened? He began to feel as though he had made a very serious mistake.

The Veterans voice broke through the haze. "Watchman, my girls are without a commander! With your permission, I'll return to Spectropolis."

"Yes." he mumbled. "Of course, head back. BS?"

Th Babysitter looked up as he called out to her. "Call it back!"

"But Everyone-"

"I'll take care of it, call them back!"

She stared down into the pot. "Abort mission, return to base! We're, like, under attack!"

The Watchman turned to Gant. He was useless. He had spent everything he had, spreading it to Mik and his creations in the dream world. He needed someone who was still fresh, someone who could think crooked thoughts and use power it inventive ways. He knelt, and clamped and hand on the old woman's shoulder.

"What's you're relation to Zaya? You are your creation, correct? Please tell me that! I need a focus!" he pleaded, desperation clear in his voices.

From the craggy wall, a shadow unfolded. A dusky sleeping vulture appeared.

"Mistress, can you hear me?"

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Far away, Gant shifted uncomfortably.

"It's complicated. You see-"

We are Zaya. The thoughts of a god are mighty. Even separated from them, power they do hold. So many memories, it becomes easy for some to.. live.

Tez began to continue,"-Of course, we are only a fragment of those memories. But I guess-"

It is better than nothing.

[Zaleramancer]

The god-clones fell, but many more came in their place.

But as they fell, a new fresh hell came to place.

Bodies dissolved into black dust.. Each tiny one a creature filled with twisted suicidal thoughts.

They exploded with glee, each triggering the other in a chain reaction of death and destruction.

[Zaleramancer]

Three women with silver hair marched up to the barrier. following the horde of goblins and giants.

They tuttered among themselves, "Arrogant, Arrogant, Arrogant."

Looking around at the carnage surrounding the limit of their expansion, a single smile broke out.

"If they wish not to leave, then shall we give them that privilege?"  One of the said.

"I'd enjoy that. She always irked me." The second said.

"It's smarter than the brutish tactics our other brethren employ, is it not?" The last said.

With smooth voices, the dopplegangers began an eerie chant. Dark black blood and grey flesh began to bubble around them. It began to rise and flow towards Mina's territory.

Unable it enter, it instead flowed. Slowly and steadily, it began to cover it. Inch by inch..

The three Zayas smiled.

"Let's see how she deals with good.."

"Old fashioned.."

"Black and bloody magic.."

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

As the barrier of black blood goes up, the mortals of Mina's lands stop attacking in confusion. Kyouko and Lily look on, then nod in agreement, before signaling to everyone, except the other gods, to move away. Pulling out Ame-no-Murakumo, the two of them concentrate their powers into forming a spiral of fire, ice, lightning, and wind around its blade as Suna begins to concentrate on her Nighthawk having it form multiple projectiles and Fuujin and Raijin form blasts of wind and lightning respectively before all firing their attacks at the black blood.

[Zaleramancer]

The blood flies away, blasted far and wide by the furious assault..

But..

As each drop touches the ground, a monster is born.

What little blood remains begins to ooze upwards and around again.

A test of endurance.

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On the opposite side of Mina's territory, another pair of silver haired gods appear and begin to chant.

Blood oozes..

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

The five goddesses watch as the process occurs.

Kyouko: "This isn't good."

Lily: "With each attack, more enemies come into existence."

Suna: "We need to let mistress know, right?"

Kyouko: "That's the best idea right now."

Lily: "We should send one of our heroes."

Suna: "Since our strongest are away, we should send our next most powerful. That would be Fubuki and Koriko."

Kyouko: "First, we must make it so that they can get out without being harassed by enemies."

Lily: "A diversion will suffice and Artifacts should help them in this endeavors."

Concentrating their energy, the five create two Artifacts, one for each of the two heroes. The Artifacts take on the form of a glistening white knife with specks of black within and a jet black knife with sparkles of white within, Kuro and Shiro respectively (-12 motes, 2 Artifacts).

The goddesses present the Artifacts to Fubuki and Kuroko, before attacking once more at the enemies and the blood surrounding their lands as Koriko and Fubuki fly out with wings of ice to find Mina.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Excellent, that will make this easier." he lay his hand lightly on Gants forehead. He didn't know if he had enough strength to pull this off. The power he'd marshaled flowed into Gant, but it didn't stay their. He pushed it on through, using Gant as the focus and point of comparison. Daughter, Memory, creation, none of that mattered. Gant was alive, a conscious thing that had been created by the one he was looking for. Connected.

Power flowed along those ties, searching it's way to Zaya wherever she may be. But it wasn't enough: he was to weak to just pull her out. It needed something else.

"The Jar!" he shouted. "Bring me the Jar!"

The Babysitter lugged the jar over to him, and he placed his other hand upon it. A creation of Zaya to find another creation of Zaya. The power reached put. Across the world, in the land of the Hags, the mirror began to crackle and spark.

It was beyond his power right now to pull her out, but to deliver her to where she needed to be? To polarize her land and her most powerful tool, so it would be the anchor that pulled her back into this world? That was a much easier thing to do.

A sort of divine bungee cord connected the mirror, to the jar, to the Watchman, to Gant. With a final push, he cast his line out into the crystal network like he was fly fishing.

(Miricle -3 = 9)

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Can you keep them from getting in here?" asked Horizons to Junior. "Not into the city, because that would be like way to much for anyone, just these routes we're using. I know that the city is weakening you, but can you at least bless the roads to, like, hurt these things and junk right?"

[Celadon's Penultimate]

Khadai looked around, too find the greatest concentration of monsters she could find. Indeed, she did despise the fact that the mortals were ignorant of her existence, but this...this was no fit punishment for the Elves, no justice against them. Surely, if no others were subject to her whims, if no others were affected by her capacities, these wretched monsters would fall before her...

She called to the Seven-Sin Sisters, "Handmaidens! Follow me! The fray awaits!"

Her mount swooped low, and she jumped off of it, into a crowd of twisted and chaotic nightmare creatures. Left and right, they roared, and pounded their chests. Nasta caught sight of their arrogance first. With a mighty and deeply furious roar, she leaped after them, the claw's of Wrath's Reach splayed, to put them in their place. Left and right, the monsters were dashed to ribbons, torn asunder like the sky by lightning. She passed through them so quickly, left wounds so clean, that they were seamless...until they fell into rancid chunks of dead monster.

Prasim followed behind her, leaping coyly from the head of one monster to the next. In attempting to smash her, they ended up only smashing themselves and each other. And when finally, she was ready to strike, she was without remorse. Greed's Grasp, in her hands, could call up precious stone from the earth. And when a precious stone reached her hand from beneath the dirt, the essence of greed allowed her to cling to it for dear life, lest she lose something of great potential value. Anyone who dared cross her path was handily pummeled to a pulp, for the sake of the almighty dollar.

Though, rather than take potential foes on alone, Desra and Vai figured it was best that they work together. Vai would glance into the mirror for a quick morale and power boost, and Desra would aim and blow her deadly kisses with pinpoint precision that would scare a sharpshooter to pieces. And when Desra found a monster leap from the obscurity of the chaos at hand, Vai would handily reflect a stray magic attack from an elf, to hit the monster before he could blink. And ne'er the twain should meet a problem.

And Indiva had allied herself quickly to Slomna, when she saw what her sister could do. Though lethargic and slow, her reflexes were drunken, and it seemed none could lay a hand on her. Under foes, around, to this side and that. Slomna barely lifted a finger, and Indiva quickly found that everyone in their midst had either been hurt themselves (or one another) in their pursuit, or just plain tired themselves out from the effects of Sloth's Mind, for Indiva to finish them with a mimicked move from Envy's Eye.

Even Eda was having a romping good time of her combat. She found that Gluttony's Jaws had made her more than able to take an uppercut, and with the short distance the brutes' attacks gave her, she would lunge to grab them in her powerful unhinging jaws. She would shake them side to side like chew toys to a dog, and then toss them aside, to collide with their comrades. She found she could even change her teeth; dog's teeth, beaver's teeth, snake's fangs. And for every chunk she bit from the enemy's body, her own wounds would be healed.

By hook or by crook, the Seven-Sin Sisters would do their darnedest to save the Elves.

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Throughout the fighting and destructiion, Brynhildr had stayed with Kaita, Fideon and a few other centaurs, generating the best illusion she could that no one was where they were hiding. She'd only managed to keep it up for so long, because she couldn't physically move around very much, but she'd started to reach her limits. They'd have to have someone help them or they'd be found by the giants, goblins, and imitations, which while pretty good weren't that powerful compared to the gods she'd seen. What made them dangerous was not their raw power, but what happened when one was destroyed, that was what was most dangerous. Above all though, they'd need to be rescued... And soon.

[Philote]

Naram still existed with the fusion of Gilgamesh and Deva. A single motes worth of power resting in the maelstrom of the two Spirits. The hero alone was weak, but when the Spirits channeled their power through him, new powers became possibilities.

Gilgamesh lifted his arms as if pulling on a great weight, drawing on the shaping powers of Naram. The crystal growths running through Gilgamesh's land begins to rise, phasing through the world. The crystal shatters as it is separated from its connections to the rest of the world and brought into the sky.
(Inherent Miracle x2)

Then space bends in. The crystal structure compresses as light and matter get sucked in towards a single point. Gilgamesh extinguishes the corruption with a breadth of purifying flame.
(Inherent Smite)

[Zaleramancer]

When they power came, fishing metaphors were all that came to mind.

Perhaps it was because of this place. Of the slow drifting of her memories. An ocean of the damned things. She knew plenty about nautical terms, because of that one world where she worked with a mortal who hunted a giant white sea mammal. Zaya had been but a daemon of a larger force, working to manipulate powerful and fateful mortals. The old sea-dog had never ceased with his jammering about wind-speed and barnacles.

Damn. This place was driving her slowly mad. Focus. Focus.

The springing power streaked towards her, taking on the form of a fishing hook and line.

With a flourish, the goddess snatched onto the hook and jerked once.

As it pulled her through the chaos and away, she shouted the most vulgar insults in the oldest languages she knew to the plane in general.

In the world of mass and energy, the memories of Zaya began to blur. Already undefined, they became a colored mist that flowed into her unmoving body. With a sigh, Itself and Sonia too gave up the ghost and joined the flow.

Tez, Dez and Gant glanced at each other.

"She'll totally let us out later." One of the twins muttered, as they vanished.

In a sudden burst, Zaya's body jerked up spastically. Bones snapped and muscles steamed as she adjusted herself. Flowing flesh took on the form of a woman of indeterminate age with long silvery hair.

As her facial bones moved into place, the goddess glanced at the Watchman with eyes burning from the high energies involved.

"Oi! It's Watchie. How goes it?"

[Zaleramancer]

"Er, I-I can try."

The young god turned to face the road and began to speak slowly. He strung strange words together with the care of a jeweler stringing pearls, the inflection going up and down.

With a final cry, he spread his wings and uttered the final word.

Just in time, a goblin wandered onto the road. It paused and sputtered as a spark danced from the road to it's foot.

Then, it stood on it's toes and began to dance.

"Not.. What I was going for.. But It works I guess?" Hazet Jr laughed with an edge of hysteria.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Not well." he said grimly, panting heavily and lifting himself from the floor. "Everything. I've botched everything. All burns. Again." She muttered in a daze.

He fell to his knees. He had given up is stores to Mik, of course. Personally, he had nothing left. That last miracle should have been, by all rights, impossible. The Veteran knelt beside him, supporting his weight.

"Zaya!" came the sound of a childish voice. "The Babysitter threw herself at the goddess, wrapping her in a hug and letting the Pithos on the floor.  "You don't get to do that! You don't get to save me while I'm saving you, that's not how it works. That not how it works at all."

"They aren't back." came the strained Watchman's many voices. "She ordered your army back, but they haven't yet returned. Please tell me you know what's happening."

[Tsubasa & Wen Tien]

Mina and Kyuuketsu fight there way to the area of major power and come upon the crystal fortress of Mik Hael's and enter looking for others within.

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Koriko and Fubuki follow along the path of carnage that Mina and Kyuuketsu left behind, fighting to make their own path through the nightmare creatures, often freezing and snowing in their enemies.

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Several mortals and mythos gather along the borders of Mina's lands and the ones on the end opposite of where the goddesses are begin to launch attacks at the barrier of black blood.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"Hell yeah it does!" Horizon said, punching him in the arm. "They'll never be able to fight like that! You want to come with us? Like I said, we're looking for people who are hiding out. But there are some really nasty things out here, and some of us have been reduced to Pitching rocks from the street."

Two sharp *pings* sound around the corner as a Watchdog appear up the street.

"There's one of our scouts now. So, how bout it?"

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The Glass Dome buzzed with activity as Pessimal and Torbin dragged Mileena inside. The buzz of worried voices, watchers swooping in and out, sharp and low *Pings*, and above it all the old voice commanding all around it. The Witness who had ushered them inside escorted the pair to an empty space of floor between and old ragged shifter and a pair of goliaths trying to calm a crying baby Durhian. Then it left, only saying that a Healing spirit would be with them momentarily.

Pessimal was worried. About the cuts where the gibbering horrors claws had bitten deep into Mileena. About the way her breathing was so shallow. About the fact that her evil viscous pigeon was now cuddling against her neck, by all accounts like a scared child.

But it was mostly the talking.

Since the fight in the alley, a brutal no finesse brawl that had left her like this, she had not stopped talking. She was the definition of curt. Mileena said all that needed to be said in a single sentence. Noe paragraphs were glowing out of her in intervals between her gasping for breath. It was like there was only a certain amount of words she could ever say in her life, and she was trying to get them all out before-

"I used to hate them." she said, having gained back enough air to talk again. He looked down at his lap, where her head lay, eager for any distraction from that particular line of thought. She slowly reached up where tippy nuzzled her, gently stroking it's head with a claw that Pessimal had seen, not thirty minutes before, engulf a goblins head and crush it to pulp. The inky black it had been made of was still there, leaving a black stain on the birds head. "But now, I can't stop worrying. Are they safe out there?"

"The only thing that will happen to those monsters" Pessimal said brightly, if only for her, "Is that they'll get overfed. They'll be way to fat to fly. Deliveries will be delayed for weeks while you put them on a excessive regiment."

She laughed at that, a little strained laugh. "Thank you, Pessimal. Thank you, for everything."

"Oh, don't say that. It's because of me your like this." he said, guilt flaring in his stomach. He though of the first thing she'd told him after the fight, when he and Torbin had lifted her from the black ground. Leave me. I'm heavy.

"No." she said, shaking her head limply from side to side. "Do you know why I hated them? The pigeons? No one needed them. Milteo exist for the good of Durhians, to provide for them what they need to create. But I could offer nothing. I couldn't grow grain. I couldn't mine ore. I couldn't blow glass. I could work with nothing, except these pigeon, these things that no one needed and no one wanted. Until you. You wanted what I could provide. You were the only one. Don't you understand?"

Pessimal could only shake his head stupidly.

"I must have been created especially for you."

He felt his cheeks grow hot despite himself. She smiled up at him, and gently let her eyes fall shut.

"Mileena? Mileena!"

"Move, ya halfwit!"

Torbin shoved his over as something draped itself over the Milteos prone body. A gentle light began to glow through it as the spirit of healing went about it's work. He looked over a Torbin, then up at the Watcher floating beside him. The Dwarf spoke first. "They were waiting patiently for ya to stop staring in each others eyes."

"Well, excuse me for not wanting to ruin a moment." The Watcher said.

"The moment would have been completely ruined if she'd DIED!"

"No, it just would have made it a tragic moment. Tragedy has it's own romance, you know."

"Then it's about to get really romantic for you!"

Pessimal watched the two, not bothering to intervene. He needed some levity right now. Idly, he flipped open his notebook and began to compose a human interest piece. He jotted down part of a title, bit his lip, and wondered to himself. Was that bias creeping into his work. No, no, couldn't be. It was his pried as a journalist, after all, that everything printed in the Daily was an undeniable fact. He finished it.

News Crew Saved by the Actions of Beautiful Bird Keeper.

[Zaleramancer]

"You'll be fine Watchie. Give it some time. Bah. Self sacrificing fool." She muttered as BS glomped onto her.

"Calm down darling. I knew I'd get out eventually, I just wanted you to get out first. Because -er- I needed someone to launch that army. Yes." She nervously patted the Babysitter on the head, obviously unused to someone enthusiastically greeting her.


"Ah. Yes. The army. Where did your Second in Command go?" She glanced around.

[Gentleman Vaultboy]

"He marched in with the others, didn't he?" She asked, releasing Zaya from the embrace. "Didn't he?" She asked again, looking around. The Vet hauled the Watchman to his feet, still supported him, and swiveled his own head around.

[Zaleramancer]

Wincing slightly from the pain in his arm, Hazet Jr cast a nervous glance at the sky.

Taking a deep breath, he nodded.

[Zaleramancer]

The room remained curiously vacant of any Janite.

"I'll get 'em for you." Zaya announced as she swayed upwards, heading for the Pithos.

With a flourish a street magician would be proud of, the goddess rolled up her sleeves and reached in, pulling out a helmeted head.

Greetings, Old One and Commander.