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The End of Blood

The pillars can be seen in Heaven.

Reaching up to the sky, for miles away.
The ground shakes, and essence pours unrestrained.
They are lights.
Banners.
Gods.

The golem of metal and steam dancing close to the black, beautifully decaying rose, the dragon of darkness and the crucified pale angel engaged in a dance of destruction, much like lovers, in front of the violet gate.

The green tree vanished.
Crumbling to the ground, burnt to ashes in its own power, trampled underfoot by the angel.

And the Silent Dragon wails in defiance to the Fiery Hawk, a golden butterfly lost between them.

The Dragon tries to move away as torn wings of the hawk crash against its body, inflaming her, making fire crack from her insides as she cries.

And then, the pillar of wind and green light shatters.
And then... its pieces are no more, spreading on the battlefield.

Everything falls silent, for a moment.

Burnt, consciousness lost amidst smoke and flame, Iselsis falls to the ground...

Just a girl, burnt, past agony.

The banner, the silent goddess, shattered on the wind...

And Marr falls to ne knee, panting.

Gennadi: They say that patience is a virtue. They say that initiative comes to those that wait. They say timeliness is next to godliness. They say time is on your side. They say this and they say that and they say the other thing, too. You know what? Fuck them and make them ask for more. Isn't that the art of serenity?

With hurricane speed and tornado force Gennadi displays his deadly art in a madcap blur of chain, fur, and cacophonic sound. Sharp-edged links whirr through the air to accompany the gut-wrenching sound of flesh tearing and blood beating down in droplets the size of coffins, driving into the earth and churning up black mud. It's almost an orchestra, all conducted by a man set wholly apart from the battlefield, a maestro of conflict.

But like all good things, the symphony must end. The chains begin to withdraw, the Sidereal done with his fun for the evening. Links unlock, bands spiral up along mangled flesh and untangle from corded muscles. The time may almost be at hand, but for Gennadi, the chain alrady is. With one last roar, the behemoth strikes out at this impudent being, this flyspeck that hurt it, that won't fall like all the others, this irksome mosquito draining it of lifeblood and awareness. It'd be an impressive site for most, but Sidereals are hardly part of that category. Gennadi snaps back against the tension of the chain, his own hand tearing open with the sudden force as he snaps back, hurling himself forward to smite the impudent mongrel with a fist placed perfectly between the eyes.

Blood sprays forth in a torrent, and one mournful howl escapes the web of defeat woven by fate and artifice. Pearl-white teeth shine in a fierce grin beneath a crimson rainbow, a dark halo set against a blue stronger than the sky, deeper than the ocean. He waves a hand and the chains drag their way back to him like so many dejected serpents, crawling up through the air to gather in his hand and link together again.

And then the moment is gone, and a blood-drenched man spits a curse at his opponent for being so crude in defeat. Even beasts should have standards. Mud swirls up and away from snakeskin shoes as he steps off the quiet form of the behemoth, the blackened earth twisting into lewd and grotesque shapes. The statuettes dry, crack, shatter into pieces, and blow away in the wind that howls past him as he points at his next target.

Whiro: The Red Wolf did not understand. The puny being was holding him. He threashed, and gnawed, and the puny being kept holding him. And he felt... nothing. Less, at every moment. It was... like he just got tired... and his eye was struck. It howled, howled... and roared back, his mouth widening.... and then, it was Gennadi's world.

It clamped. With the Sidereal between its teeth.
The Wolf was content. It was...
Wait. There was no blood, there was no taste of flesh...

... oh. Between his teeth. EXACTLY between his teeth where he would not be hurt.

Where did that puny creature get so much luck?

Exceedingly Sublime Opal: Like a brooding storm gathering its tempests in a ponderous, off-tempo drum beat, yet the thunder came from the earth, and its tempo grew louder with each passing second.

Covered in gore and push, the once prestine varnish of Opal's white jade warstrider broke the earth underfoot. A strinking serpent staff, defamed in similar manner as the armor, was slung over her back. The links were as thick as long logs, and it was appearent that Opal had been clear cutting with it. She saw the beast, and his form darkened the horizon. She saw the dashing man in blue slide his chain from its embrace, and glide away like a dancer. She saw him fall between his teeth.

Anger rose in her. Hot as the sun, yet it made her resolve as ice. She screamed at the thing, though it echoed in the oversized helmet of the strider. Fast. So fast for something so large, she was upon it. A hand on its snout, the other on its lower jaw, she began to pry them apart.

She knew what it was like in that moment to be awash in a see of wrath. To have one's mind crystalized by one's conviction. Gennadi was going to die! She had to keep the jaws apart. She had to keep them from closing down on him. She had to hurt this monster.

She had to.

Whiro: The Jade thing came to him. He was ready to rend it and chew on its limb like he did the other...

But the chain weighed him down. He could not move... just howl in pain as she hurt his mouth, pried his jaws open...

He was fully angry now, screaming in pain and howling for blood...

Cael: "And now, you see, it's my turn."

Cael remarks as his body becomes solid once more, as it looses the dreamlike quality of unbounded words, though as he does, he pulls texts from dream, coiling them round his hands in golden scriptures.

He pulls from the living dreams of himself, affirming his place in the world. He pulls from the dead dreams of Alexsei, denying the ghost its place. Then he hurls them at the ghost pointblank.
Ten words.
A hundred words.
A thousand words.
Each one swift.
Each one sharp.
Each one hungry.

Haze Edge: Wings of pure heathaze spread, a ripple through the world... as Haze Edge curls in pain. And screams. The burning words cut his flesh, burn his flesh... and much as he tries to shift his corpus to something without wounds, he just cannot. The brands are there, forever. "You... you..."

"You are good... it burns... burns.."

Haze lifts his vision. Then. The master of Pandemonium's eyes shine in void light... powerful, all-consuming... "Now, I will show you my world. My gift.... I will hurt you just as bad, Solar..."

And then... the Heathaze took the world.
The world around Cael became a blur.
Confusing.
Dazzling.

All fire and heat.

And Edge... a mere ghost. A ghost dancing in the ocean of blur.

And then, the ghost appears. A gallery of afterimages as he dances all around Cael... and the air is filled with many mirror images. "This is the Deadly Mirage!"

And then, all of them, at once, strike.

And there is not one point there which is not filled with his heat and hit sharpness.

Cael: "Of course I'm good."

Cael says with a oh so slightly smug grin, a gesture of his wrist indicating the golden words now scribbed into the skin of the ghost, words that will remain there for the longest of time.

And then the nightmares came, burning around him .. so many attacks, some real and some fake, all unclosing, all encircling.

There is no partial dissasociation this time, Cael becomes a pure string of words, everything he has done, everything he is, flashing upwards out of the nightmarish haze of pandemonium, higher as the ghost tries to follow, the words rewritting themselves to Cael as it becomes apparent the ghost can follow no more.

"I am not so sure about the 'deadly', really."

He flaps his wings a little to gain more hight.

Haze Edge: He is still trying to follow the light.... and the words come.

And they cut his corpus. And they cut his grin.

And the Haze-Blade and the pieces of his Glass-armor fall....

And with a scream, the ghost disappears, corpus rent in the winds...

Ice: "SOMEONE KILL THAT BITCH NOW! " Selina roared.

Your wish is my command, as they say.

Well... Ice could not honestly think that she took the Dark Angel's wish as her command, but with the little red bat falling from the sky, it's up to the warhorse to even the odds... once again.

Heroes these days.

One could almost swear that the black beast actually shrugs her mighty shoulders as she claps her front hooves against the ground and lashes out at Blight Lily with her hind legs. The kick is light, dainty... Like a lady's flick of an ankle when something unseemly needs to be pushed out of sight with a minimum of fuss...

Blight Lily: Oh, damn. The Horse.

It was like the Pale Angel... black, powerful, magnificent. And you could even feel some smugness radiating from both.

And Blight... barely regained her breath again, when Ice was... upon her...

She had no choice. She had to bring her burnt hands to her blight roses dress... and rip it open! Petals fill the air, together with a sweet, sweet perfume of decay, a whirlwind around them all, the petals falling and creating corpse-flowers all around them... Ice sees ntohing but the petals. She catches a glimpse close to the Violet Gate.... but it is not her! It is the Sidereal!

Slipping behind the gate, Blight Gate catches her breath.

Alexsei Krauser: At least one of his attacks had landed, the others hopelessly deflected and aimed to strike at the Pale Angel...

But the moment to celebrate has not yet come. The imposing mount of their leader charges at the witch, seeking to bury her under a heavy hoof... And for a moment, everything is petals and winds. He brings a hand to shield his eyes, but to no avail - Blight Lily has blinded him, and for but a breath he is almost hopeless.

It is the feeling of danger that awakens him, forcing a response out of him. The petals still shield his eyes, but he needs not see to meet with this strike. In the floral tempest, he attunes himself to the strands of the battlefield, watching for their unevitrable breaking as a threat comes towards him.

And so the first one breaks, like a stirng plucked, sending a musical note through his awareness. And another follows, continuing on with the first one, picking up where it left, filling a bit of the melody that composes the attack... And so, through the arrangement of broekn strings he deciphers the nature of the attack, and the path it would take.

A hoof. A great hoof... Striking... right...!

And according to the music he sweeps away, a graceful dance step to pull him aside from the threat, a dance step perfectly attuned to the melody at hand - and perfectly orchestrated to slip away from its deadly path.

Vorpal: Blight slips out from the range of one threat... and right into the way of another. For even as Ice throws out her kick, there is a whoosh of cold ghost flame on her back. A terrible, inhumane shriek rising from the depths of her throat, Vorpal deFay bursts back into corporeal form. Not perhaps the wisest of things to do with her dwindling resources, but wisdom hardly matters to the Ghost-Blooded right now. For a few seconds, all rationality vanishes from her eyes, instinct replacing conscious thought.

The threat must be eliminated. The woman must be killed. It must be done by now, and it must be done by no-one else but the Pale Angel herself.

It is an action taken by the beast within her, the unyielding side of her nature that does whatever it takes to survive, to drink from the gutter and eat rotten carcasses of sewer rats if that would allow her to see the dawn of the next day. To place the outcome of this entire battle on a single, desperate blow that might rejuvenate her Essence... or spell her downfall.

She leaps into the air, Betrayer coming around in a great arch, her entire body spinning around, dragged along with the sheer weight of the weapon as it slashes down at Blight Lily once again...

Threat - threat - threat!

Kill - kill - kill!

Ice: Whoops. Missed.

How irritating, Ice snorts. Ah well - the strange man who got into the way isn't anyone she knows in any case.

Blight Lily: "... I will be damned." Is all she can say, her body bare, viridian skin shining now, covered with small flowers, growing and dying, four stations in one moment... the petals return to her body, covering her bosom, her thighs first, making her dress once again... and she opens her eyes wide open at the threat. Yelping, she throws all the petals in front of Vorpal, jumping out of the reach of the blade, over the field of corpse-flowers....

Those were pros. She was a pro. And she would not allow Blight a breather...

... and she had none, as the Sword hit her, throwing her away, through some zombies, her anima alone killing them all and making another corpse-flower garden, as she falls, nearly unconscious, coughing blood.... a big gash on her chest, barely restrained by her dress...

She closes her eyes, trying to focus, unconsciousness threatening to take her...

Cathak Marr: She was down. He smiled smugly, as he walked out of the circle of fire.

The bodies on the ground were ashes now.
There was nothing left, not even bones.
His fists exploding in fiery light.

Each step he takes out of the burning circle leaves the hissing of the bodies and the ground, leaving his burning footprings. He is a towering figure, the hawk hovering above him, his eyes and hands exploding in light from inside the red jade armor.

And walking towards Iselsis. Towards her fallen body...

He feels hurt. He feels aching. He feels it burning on his gut, he feels the smoke over his eyes.
He feels the righteous devil.
And he is not happy.

"Well now, mongrel..."

His fist rises... and then, he goes into one knee... mere yards from Iselsis, the smoke filling his face...

... the Righteous Devil stopping him...

"... nooo..." His grit his teeth so hard blood dripped from the mask. His eyes watered. He could barely breathe...

But then, he took another step. He would kill her. Nothing would stop him.

NOTHING.

Ryshassa: Ryshassa's eyes go wide when the demon-winged girl, who had so nimbly dodged and avoided the flurries of attacks Brael and Marr threw at her, is finally pinned by the burning wings and knocked out of the sky, her body limp and devoid of any further will to fight. She had seen Marr's rage and the sheer intensity of his attack -- but she had not moved to aid the girl -- she had assumed she would be able to take care of it, like the other times.

But now is no time for regrets or hesitation. Her eyes are all for the falling demon-girl, her thoughts set on the one possibility that consumes her mind.

Will she be in time to save her? Is there any glimmer of life there left to save?

Alexsei Krauser: And as he pulls away from the tremendous mount's mighty hooves, he catches a strange flare in the skies. Someone had just been hit by wings of the purest fire, creating a sickening flash before a body heavily dives from the Heavens towards the earth. And as the heavy hoof beats the earth near him, he realizes he knows who has been struck.

The Demon-Woman... Iselsis.

He regains his footing in one swift motion, croushing low on the gournd to gain momentum for a sprint... And, focused on the falling body of the injured woman - or so he hoped she was only injured, and not yet lost... No. Her thread was thin, but still faintly resonating within the cacophony of the battefield.

And now let me return the favor you granted me, Exorcist.

He runs through swarms of zombies and windians, his feet barely misplacing the virgin snows as he rushes towards the spot where Iselsis fell. He leaps through obstacles, intent on raching her before more damage can be wrought...

And for those around, it comes almost only as a flash. He arrives near her as if he suddenly materialized there, keeling besides her form and carefully lifting her away from the cold snows.

Now hold on, comrade.

His eyes meet with Marr's - and for a moment Alexsei can only feel one thing. The End... Death. Coming for him, relentless and uncompromising. Whatever it is that came for him - his thread would not stay intact for long...

Stand Fast, Ryshassa. His voice echoes through the ring on his finger, carrying his thoughts to the woman standing away from them... I will carry her back to you.

And Cathak Marr could swear he witnessed the image of a single purple wing of violet, bleeding heavy feathery tears upon the wind, surrounding the man who now leaps back away from him, carrying the woman he tried to kill away from his grasp...

Selina de Windia: Even as the countermagic surges through her body, even as she roars for the extermination of the necromancer, Selina suddenly spies something else. Fire, engulfing her sister. Fire, consuming her. Fire, snuffing her out. Fire, vanishing into the superheated air as her sister falls to the ground.

Time stops, for the Dark Angel. The space between heartbeats becomes hours, and she remembers.

feathers falling from his wings, blood leaking from the throat

No!

blade stabs into her chest, shattering bone, splintering it

They saw

feeling abates, power abates, looking to her siblings

I didn't!

death

death

death

death

death

kinslayer

you killed them

you let them die

now let her die

they'll make her die

hate

hate

hate

Hate

An anger colder than any she has ever experienced floods through her. And then she thinks, and the thought resonates over the battlefield, wordless as it is yet immediately understandable by all, a shadow of dread cast by the cataclysm about to obscure the sun.

I will kill them all

The air about Selina flash-freezes, her eyes shine like a turquoise sun, her anima whips into a frenzy, filled with...faces. Distorted by the flaring currents of the anima banner, the faces of all the Dark Angel has consumed. Crying out, screaming for revenge, a ghostly corus of those who are no longer even ghosts...just riven memories. And about her...fate itself fractures. Breaks, shatters as the cacophony of those memories of souls within her mirror her own wordless howl for vengeance. The pattern spiders rush to mend it, check it, that hole in the world, even as it spreads in a widening circle about Selina.

Utterly unfettered in her rage, surrounded by a terrible black storm that blasts the battlefield about her, Selina lunges at Marr with Dreamshard raised to kill, dark fire flickering along its edges, trailing behind her the last pieces of that destiny which she was wrapped in so long ago.

Cathak Marr: There are moments when Magical Materials break.

The blade went through his mask. Through its back, and through its front.

Blood splashed foward, as chaos begun to explode within Marr...

Ki... kill...

A burning hand reaches foward,.. his last act, to kill...
What is not there.
As Marr's chaos-laden body falls to the ground, the fiery power in his palm explodes at nothing, his armor broken, his mask broken, steam of his blood filling the air around Selina...

... and his power leaving the battlefield, the circle of fire gone, the fiery power with the General and Blight and Brael gone...

Iselsis: The sidereal of endings carries her away. And as he leaps backwards he can see the full extent of the damage. The girl by all rights should not be alive any longer. Her face, her pretty face, burnt, one side charred almost beyond recognition. Her bones broken in several places in her body.

She smells... she smells of cooked meat...

Then suddenly the limp girl in his arm snaps awake and her right hand coils around the man's collar, gripping it tightly. The words that come sound pained, like each syllable is taking a more than human amount of willpower.

"F-...Faina..."

"Home... have to live..."

"For ... f-for her."

And then she goes limp again, though eyes remain open, pupils shrinking to small dots as the now stereotone world, upside down from her vantage points, slowly shrinks.

As she slips away into unconsciousness, she sees a dark presence consume the man who had hurt her so.

Big sis...

Then even the duotone fades. Sound cuts off. Vision distorts.

All goes dark.

Vorpal: Success.

Vorpal's chest is heaving up and down with each heavy breath. Sweat mingles with the river of blood gushing forth from her Caste Mark. The gruesome mixture draws crimson streaks across her white face, yet the eyes staring after the mangled necromancer regain some measure of reason. Although her bestial self had taken over her mind for a second, the actions it had made her body perform had been correct ones. She had gambled everything on that strike... and won. She feels the fresh surge of power rising from the sword and into her arms and, at the same time, she senses how the invisible threads attached to her bones weaken and fade away. Perhaps her dogged insistence of maintaining control over her body has finally worn the spell's effects off. Perhaps it is the slash she struck at the necromancer. Whatever it is, she is free.

Weary. Desperate. Her body feeling as if it had been torn apart, gut by gut, from the inside.

But free.

Her head whips around, her red eyes blazing with renewed purpose, her gaze seeking out the next enemy to slay...

Alexsei Krauser: He carries her across the blood-stained snowfields, his resolve unwavering as he backtracks towards where he stood, with Ryshassa and the Pale Angel standing close to the Gate he summoned.

And he starts at the sudden movement - the hand, heavily scarred by fire, reaching for his collar and grabbing him with surprising strength. And the shock of the sudden movement is enough to make him stop, as he peers over her wounded form with concern in his eyes. "Iselsis!?" He calls out, momentarily halting his course, snowflakes falling upon the girls charred, limp form. "Faina... someone to come home to? Iselsis..."

And the arm falls again, all strength dgone from her body... And at this sight, his eyes grow wide and his jaw clenches. No! Am I too late? But her thread is still there, thin but soldiering on, against tremendous odds...

Hang on, little one. It is not yet time for you to leave - not quite yet. Not until you have met this 'Faina' once more.

His pace picks up once again, hope renewed in knowing that somewhere, beyond this battle, beyond their physical senses... Iselsis is also fighting a battle of her own.

You will not go, Iselsis - not while you still have somewhere to go back to.

Ryshassa: Thank you, beloved. Thank you!

Butterflies like flowers on the wing trail miniature comets around Ryshassa's slender form as she hurries to meet Alexsei. Together they lower Iselsis to the ground, and the blossom-flies settle upon her red, charred flesh like a living blanket of petals.

Ryshassa presses her hands to Iselsis's chest, above the breast where the fading rhythm of her heart is palpable. There is no need to examine the injuries -- she feels them as if they are her own. The burns that mar the half-demon's shattered body are a searing cacophony of suffering that echoes in her nerves. Pain! Pain beyond words, beyond comprehension! But Ryshassa understands the language of pain, and she does not fear it. She does not resist its call, does not cry out or tense her muscles to stave it away.

She embraces it.

And it comes. A great excruciating wave of agony, siphoned to Ryshassa through her fingertips, through the contact of the blossom-flies flexing and unflexing their gold-veined wings as they dip their thin Essence-tongues into Iselsis's skin. The veins darken to bloody crimson, serving as a conduit as the healer trades her lifeblood -- her flesh -- the very fibre of her existence -- so that this girl who had fought so proudly and so fiercely against the odds may once again draw breath.

"Live," Ryshassa commands, her voice surprisingly unshaken as her body is wracked with pain. Behind her recoalesces her anima in full glory, the stained-glass butterfly wings radiating the manifold shades of sunset, unfurling for all to witness the miracle of life-giving she attempts. "I will not let you go as long as I possess the strength to aid you! Live, I beseech you."

"LIVE! " is her clarion cry, and the butterflies morph themselves into the flowers of spring renewed, petals framing a thousand miniature suns.

Gennadi: The howl cracks, gone momentarily to a higher pitch before it is replaced with blessed silence. The missing sidereal walks up out of the throat of Whiro, dragging thick cords of once-taut muscle behind him. One arm knots the sinews together, and the other tugs on the chain as he works his way up. The faintest hint of exasperation shows on his face, but it is almost wholly drowned in disappointment. The ruby-tinged light in the now gaping maw of the behemoth illuminates the obvious trail of starmetal behind him, disappearing into ebon blackness at the back of the thing's throat.. He kicks a tooth as he goes by in just the right spot, a single chip from battles past that weakened it in the critical spot for a critical moment... The tooth shatters into uncounted pieces, one for each life lost to the thing's rampages in this, its last moments. He catches one and wraps the vocal cords around it, flicking the macabre tool out into the air and hooking it around the jade war machine, rappeling back down to set his feet exactly in the footprints he left moments ago. With almost palpable disdain, he reaches back behind him and throws his body weight into ripping out the chain from where it was moored in flesh, turned from anchorage to weapon as they now tear out through nerves and pain centers, setting the beast alight with unfathomable misery... that it no longer has any means to express.

Exceedingly Sublime Opal: She sees a blue glow fall, like an ember decending toward the ground. She instantly let the thing go, the warstrider dipping with suprising nimbleness as she pivots on her heal, a gigantic hand gently placed under him to cradle him like a babe as she continues the turn, easing his momentum.

However, her wrath had not abaded.

The earth cruned once more as, even as she cradled the prone being in her hands, the massive armored foot of the warstrider was brought into contact with Whiro's muzzle, loosing more teeth to fall as rain on the world.

The wolf lurched.

Battered, beaten, broken. Blood, not bourn of its dreadful breath oozed from the gaps in its maw with each weezing breath it took.

It struck the ground, and the world shook. Its paws tore the ground to find purchase once more, but found none for the moment.

She sees a blue glow fall, like an ember decending toward the ground. She instantly let the thing go, the warstrider dipping with suprising nimbleness as she pivots on her heal, a gigantic hand gently placed under him to cradle him like a babe as she continues the turn, easing his momentum.

However, her wrath had not abaded.

The earth cruned once more as, even as she cradled the prone being in her hands, the massive armored foot of the warstrider was brought into contact with Whiro's muzzle, loosing more teeth to fall as rain on the world.

The wolf lurched.

Battered, beaten, broken. Blood, not bourn of its dreadful breath oozed from the gaps in its maw with each weezing breath it took.

It struck the ground, and the world shook. Its paws tore the ground to find purchase once more, but found none for the moment.

The General: It finally happens.

The General speaks.

"Lily! "

He calls for her, as the burning in his armor dims. The fire from Marr. Marr was down.

The ground trembled and shook... and Whiro had fallen. His familiar, and he felt it like a punch to his guts.

The General vanishes, all is dark and steam.

And he appears again, in front of Blight Lily, shielding her form, standing as the only unmarred one in this battle - armor shining in soulsteel and bronze, shining in steel and souls. Essence still nearly full, brimming inside him. Eyes wide as always, terrifying, watching the Pale Angel.

He acesses the situation. They were drained. Fatigued. Hurt. He was still whole. Both armies wounded. He could win?
Even if he could...

The battle around them, Dragons shone, triumphing over pillars and corpse-flames.

Could he win?
Maybe.

"Pale Angel."

He calls, his voice calm, hard as stone.
And yet, Malfean fire burns behind his words, behind his eyes.

"Nothing is certain anymore. I have lost some of my best, you are drained."
”We could fight until we are both spent."
"And dead."
"Or not."

Vorpal: Vorpal almost chortles aloud at the General's words. The sound is chocked and wheezing, her lungs burning lungs barely capable of producing it. True to the General's words, she is spent and does not even attempt to hide it. She throws a quick glance in the direction where the Sidereal is carrying the dying young woman to safety, where the Solar healer is working her wondrous art to reclaim what should be lost.

"Welcome to a battlefield", she rasps to the General, and as she turns back to face him, there is that dangerous glint in her gaze again, willingness to step forth and take lives... and staking her own as the bet.

I don't like you, demon woman, but you'd better survive. You hear me?

"This is how things happen here."

"Surely you didn't come here unprepared for this, did you ,my friend? The sweetest dance will begin now - and I claim you as my partner."

Selina de Windia: Selina turns from the shattered wreck of Marr like a predator interrupted from a meal, and looks at the General with the baleful stare of a cataclysm that has not yet run its course. Fate continues to tear, fray, disintegrate about her as her anger runs unfettered, wrapped in an anima still resplendant with the faces of those she has consumed. Her former lovers, the solars, the dragon-blooded who fell before her. And the many, many, mortals. She takes a step toward him, rage focusing on him as the next responsible. And then another, each footfall causing a great wind to buffet the battlefield.

• Gennadi flashes a perfect smile at Opal, dashing up the long arm to sit on the warstrider's shoulder. The sinew and steel trails behind him, and he wraps it around himself like armor. He perches like a demented spirit guide there, knocking on the helm of the warstrider. "You are totally getting a bonus for that, babe. Should we let them handle it or intervene? More than two on one is a little unfair, after all."

Exceedingly Sublime Opal: Opal smiles bitterly as she raise a hand, the armor mimicking the motion. The air above the armored hand beginning to burn with an ominous, familair blue-white flame. Air and carrion, pebbles and insects began to be pulled into it, the fates of what it consumes being pulled into the pyre of freed Essence, held their by Opal's own.

"Assuming he lasts more than a turn against the angels, of course." Her voice echoed within the empty expance of the warstriders helmet.

The General: "No truce, then. No Cease Fire. Is that it?" He steps foward, crimson cape rippling on the wind, walking over the field of corpse-roses, crushing them under his massive iron feet. He watches and Selina carefully. "It seems like I overestimated you, Pale Angel. Let us dance, then, to our own ruin."

Ice: Cease fire... Did the Abyssal General really say "cease fire"?

Har, har, har! Chicken!

Chibi-Vorpy: "Oorrr, mebbe Selly should get the first round, since her dance-foot is stomping already..." ^_^

The General: He turns to Lily, and shadows and steam cover her. It is Dusk.

He covers her with his cape, and then, she is gone.

His foot crushes bone and putrid meat underfoot, heavy metal soles crushing the corpse-flowers beneath him. He watches the dark lime of Blight’s anima covering the Pale Angel’s sword. She had drank from the Dragon-Blooded’s anima, from her soul. Between them, one of the great bones of the giant whales, fallen from the sky.

And the General dashes foward.
It is Dusk. And the banners of gods burn.

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