Mobius Knight/Twilight
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
He was covered in blood and ichor, his armor nearly torn to shreds, barely trudging through the blighted landscape simmering with brimstone. He wiped the blood out of his eyes with his right forearm, his left arm hanging useless with a bone jutting out at an odd angle. Yet he trudged on through the burnt landscape, carefully avoiding the flames that flickered hungrily around his path. The ashen winds blasted him with a cloud of soot which he nearly choked on, his raspy wheezes indicative of a broken rib or two.
Still he continued, despite his serious injuries, heading for some destination known only to him. He heard an unearthly howling behind him but ignored it, consumed by his journey. When the hell hounds surrounded him, their grey pockmarked hides splattered with the blood of previous victims, he merely formed a fist with his one good hand and prepared to strike. The smallest of the three tested the situation by snapping at his mauled arm. Kyle dodged out of the way and rewarded the monster for its effort with a solid punch to the eye.
The other two were more cunning. One leapt up to rip out a chunk of what was left of his armor, providing the distraction the other needed to sink its teeth into his ankle. He let out a howl of pain and rage that carried over the sound of bones cracking. He snarled as he lunged towards the pack as they circled for the kill, still ignorant of the large humanoid creature that was closing on him from behind, sharp claws ready to strike...
Terra woke up gasping. It was the same dream again. She had dreamt of that man crawling through some hell-scape for a week now and it got worse every night. Each nightmare would become more vivid as she saw more and more of his suffering. She could almost taste the sulfur in the air that time. The nightmare never ended, only ever showing him become more and more injured as and increasing number of horrific creatures continued to assault him. She didn’t need to see the end; she didn’t want to see him die.
After all, who wants to see the one they love torn to shreds?
Terra shifted a bit. The nightmare had made her fully awake; she wouldn’t be sleepy for a long time. It had been several months since she happily accepted Kyle’s proposal, and one month since they moved in together. The bond between them had never been stronger, both figuratively and literally. They had nothing but a beautiful future together, so why was she still having those dreams?
Because this was Paragon, that’s why. And if there was anything Terra learned from her time here, it was that the city had a way of pulling the rug from under you when you least expected it. It didn’t help that he once said that he’d “Fight through hell” for her; it was like asking for trouble in this town.
"Mmmm, Terra, are you okay?" Kyle mumbled sleepily. Terra reached over to cuddle him, if only to put her mind at ease.
"Just a bad dream, honey," she said softly. She felt a twinge of guilt for waking him up; neither of them had time for a full night's sleep, what with being heroes on call all hours of the day. Of course, that didn't mean that she could ignore an opportunity to wiggle him into a promise.
"Kyle, could you promise me something?" she asked. Kyle murmured something incoherent. "Remember when you said you'd fight through hell for me? Promise me you won’t.” Given the weirdness in the day to day life of this city and Kyle’s penchant for trouble, it was a good idea to nip any self-fulfilling prophesies in the bud.
"Mmmm, nope," he replied sleepily. Even half asleep he could be so stubborn.
"Please? For me?"
"No, and if this is your idea of taking advantage of me in my sleep, I have to say I'm pretty disappointed," Kyle yawned.
"I'm serious," Terra said, the exasperation in her voice evident. She sighed as she rolled over tiredly; if she mentioned the nightmares, he'd just think she was being a basket case. "You know, never mind. I’m sorry I woke you up."
"You didn't,” he said as he rolled over to wrap his arms around her, “Your comm's been beeping the past couple of minutes." He ran his hand through her hair. "You weren't kidding when you said you were a deep sleeper." Terra reached across to grab her comm from the end-table. She checked its caller ID.
"It's Josh,” she said, sitting up.
"Who's Josh?"
"A good friend of mine." Terra shifted over to the edge of the bed and sat up, wincing slightly when her feet touched the cool carpet. She looked out the window as she checked her voicemail, shaking her head blearily at the darkness that encompassed Paragon City in the early hours of the morning. She quickly clicked off her comm when she was finished. "I have to go honey."
"Something wrong?" Kyle sat up, looking a bit concerned.
"No, Josh sometimes works for the police as a consultant and they want my magical expertise in an investigation." She grinned, "We'll be talking magic stuff, nothing you'd be interested in. Go back to sleep honey, this shouldn't take too long." Kyle easily obliged, curling back under the covers.
She got out of bed and with a snap of her fingers her pink flannel pajamas were replaced by her black and gold superhero outfit. She carefully made her way around the bed, making sure not to wake up their dogs. She walked over to her fiancé and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Sweet dreams, honey." she said softly before making her way out of the townhouse.
Kyle didn’t hear her, already deep in a nightmare of his own.
Terra deftly maneuvered her way through Skyway's aerial traffic. She was grateful that there were few people in the air; her mind was on other things.
When Terra mentioned Josh was a good friend of hers, she’d told the truth. She didn't mention that he helped her out with supernatural chores from time to time. Tired of watching her teammate's eyes glaze over every time she started talking magic, she started confiding in Josh, her landlord at the time. He knew a little something about the occult and was more than willing to give her advice. He’d left the real estate management business when their building was torched by Hellions, and was employed by the city soon after as an occult social worker. Superheroes didn't have the time to exorcise great-grandma's ghost from the kitchen, or to close the portal to the Dimension of Nothing-but-Shrimp in the attic; those caliber of tasks went to a small league of occultists, mediums, and researchers. Josh was always glad for whatever magical muscle Terra could provide.
When one of Josh's former 'cases', Bert – a man with the power to alter reality as long as it conformed to a movie cliché – latched onto the pair claiming they were 'interesting', the three of them realized that they had a chance to clean up some of the 'weirdness' around Paragon. Together they were the 36th Street Cabal: a trio of occult-minded people that dealt with the day to day oddities of the supernatural. They did their part by making sure to catch what other heroes would miss: baldness hexes, finding homes for abandoned familiars, and getting rid of pesky garden gnomes. Their main focus, however, was making sure that magical relics were kept out of the reach of MAGI's revolving door policy.
Despite their differences in backgrounds, they made a good team. Terra wasn't surprised Josh asked her for help; even though his own unique talents were in constant demand by the police department, he didn't mind asking for help now and then. Back up was always a good thing to have.
The police on the scene must have been inured to the sight of heroes flitting about in the air since not a single person battled an eye when Terra floated down and set foot near the police cruisers.
"I'm Terra Skye, here on request from Joshua Klein, I believe he's an outside consultant on this case," she said to the nearest policeman as she pulled out her identification. The man in uniform took her card and walked over to a cruiser to radio in her information. She couldn't hear the conversation exactly, but she could tell by the look of surprise on his face that the dispatcher must have mentioned her security level. He waved her over so that he could direct her to the crime scene. Terra gave the officer a reassuring smile, "Favor for a friend." She knew from experience that having a superhero on what should be a normally routine investigation usually made the police nervous: did they have to prepare for some kind of superpower attack? Were they all in danger of being sucked into a black hole created by a demon on a power-trip?
Terra was led up several flights of stairs to an apartment at the end of the hallway. She slipped under the yellow tape blocking off the door and entered the domicile. The most immediate observation was the incredible state of disarray. The living room was in shambles: book cases were thrown over, the closet was open with its contents strewn all over the floor; even the couch cushions were overturned.
In the center of the room was Bert, holding his fingers in a rectangle as if he was a film director looking for the right angle to set up cameras. She could tell that, with the beige trench-coat and plain leather loafers, he was trying to pass himself as a police detective, but his purple round sunglasses, green bellbottoms, freckles spread over his fair skin, and pile of curly orange hair styled to look like an 'afro' made him look like a reject from 'Starksy and Hutch'.
"Josh managed to get you in here, too?"
"Yeah, he's talking to the victim now." Bert shook his head making a soft clucking noise, "Worst faking a robbery ever."
"How do you know it's fake?" Bert's background in law enforcement pretty much consisted of watching police shows.
"This whole set up feels fake. The electronics are all still here and that's a bitchin' HDTV. The bedroom was left alone, so no rifling for jewelry there. Just her purse was missing, and I'm willing to bet whoever took that dumped that in a trash can somewhere."
"You think he might have been looking for something?" Terra asked.
"He pulled off the couch cushions. What was he looking for? Loose change?"
"So, any cinematic insights, mister Armchair Criminologist?" As much as she liked to tease him, it was eerie how easily Bert could predict events by 'thinking cinematically’, as he put it.
"It's not a mystery flick, the setup's all wrong. The messed up room's just to make the police waste their time. It's not a stalker film either: the victim's sure ain’t a young college co-ed. Which means that this is just the lead up to the main event," he took off his sunglasses and looked Terra in the eye. "Something about this is just plain wrong. It worries me. It worries Josh. He got weirded out the second he set eyes on the building....well, more weirded out than usual."
"Is he finished with questioning?"
"Should be. He's been there for an hour or so. Down the hall and to your left."
Terra followed Bert's directions and carefully made her way through the apartment, making sure not to disturb any of the evidence.
The owner of the place had turned the second bedroom into a study that was in just as bad a shape as the rest of the apartment: bookcases and papers were strewn about here as well, the remains of either a massive struggle or, if Bert was right, a careful cover-up. Kneeling next to the desk was Josh, holding the hand of a woman lying prone on the floor as he asked her questions. He murmured soft words of encouragement as he gently squeezed her hand. One could almost confuse Joshua for a medic giving comfort to the wounded if it wasn’t for the fact that the woman was clearly dead, having long since succumbed to the multiple stab wounds in her chest. Instead, it was obvious that he was having a deep and meaningful conversation with a dead woman.
For Joshua Klein was a medium, and if he was called in to consult on a police investigation, it was likely to be a homicide.
Bert had decided to follow Terra into the study, and was standing behind her, out of the way of everyone, still looking at things through the “screen” created by his fingers. Two detectives recorded notes as Joshua interrogated their late witness.
"Who was she?" Terra asked Bert.
"Gina Hanson. She was a historian living alone. Neighbors called police when they heard screaming, but they didn't get to her in time. She was dead when they arrived." Josh said his final goodbyes to the woman and stood back up, coughing profusely.
"That's all I could get, gentlemen" he wheezed to the inspectors crowding him. "She's moved on now." He pulled out a handkerchief and began coughing into it. While Joshua could commune with the denizens of the Netherworld, his body was never prepared to handle the experience. His pale complexion, lanky hair, and arthritic movements – the physical effects of his abilities - gave the impression that he was much older than his actual age of 28. Josh slowly trod his way to them.
"The police have their deposition, you'll be getting a copy of it soon,” he said without any preamble, “I called you over to stop this guy as soon as possible, I don't think the police can handle this and time's running out." Joshua smiled weakly, "And you're the superhero of this ragtag band."
"Running out?" Terra said, trying to keep the worry out of her voice. Joshua had never asked her to track down a criminal before. He tried to keep a fine line between her superhero activities and their work, preferring to stay to the smaller stuff. If he was calling in the superhero and not an advisor, it was Really Bad.
"She's not his last victim, just the first link in a chain of death. I could see it from outside the building. If we don't break the chain, a lot of people are doing to die. And that amount of death on the horizon screams a supernatural perpetrator. I won't risk the police trying to stop this one and failing."
"Did she get a description of this guy?"
"Yeah, it's in the deposition,” Josh replied, and he coughed again before continuing, “Tall guy in black, cliché I know. He hired her the week before to do some research for him. Didn’t give a name, paid in cash.”
"And she wasn't suspicious?"
"The bad guys around here just kidnap people to pump them for information. She figured he was a vigilante, researching something on the side."
"What did he want?"
"Information on the Falanmar Gate. Seventy years ago a rift opened between here and another plane existence. A group of demons called the Falanmar escaped and wrecked havoc on the city. Three hundred people died before a group of superheroes could fend them off. A witch had to sacrifice her life to seal off the gate and keep it bound. The binding held for all these decades, even the Thorns couldn't break it."
"The Falanmar?” Terra wondered aloud, searching her memory. She’d gone through a demonology phase in college so Josh picking her brain over the different types of demons wasn’t new, “I've…heard of them. From what I remember, they're notoriously nasty." Terra nodded confidently as she remembered more, "Very difficult to kill, can't be bound, and they're very hard to banish. The good thing is that they can't be summoned: they have to travel here through a gate rift. And those are pretty rare in their home dimension. If this guy wants to bring one of those things over, we'll have problems. And if he brings a pack, we'll have a bloodbath on our hands. Why would anyone want to open a rift there? The Falanmar demons can't be controlled, it's not like he'd get a powerful army or something."
Joshua ran his fingers through his black hair, sighing. "She said that he killed her when he got his information,” he replied, “but she kept a copy of her report on her desk. Bert, can you find it?" Bert was a master at coincidences, things just happened to fall in place around him. It was a major time saver.
"Sure thing," Bert pulled out plastic gloves from his pockets and snapped them on. He bent over, looking under the desk, "Lesse, perps rummaging through papers normally knock something over-oh, hey here's something. He pulled out a folder and started flipping through it. "Hey these are pretty detailed notes, got a map, even a report from GIFT psychic. Did you know these Falanmar things are immune to mind control and have completely no sense of empathy towards people?"
"The mind control was something I didn't know,” Terra said grimly, “but the empathy not so surprising considering what they do to the poor people they get their hands on.” She turned to Josh as he coughed into his handkerchief again, “Don't worry Josh, we know what he's after, it's just a matter of time before we sniff out his trail. We'll lock him up in no time." She gently placed a hand on Josh's shoulder to give him a reassuring squeeze.
At Terra's touch, Joshua flinched then grabbed her hand and stared at her. His eyes searched for something, widened, and then quickly looked away.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
"What is it?" Terra asked quietly, unsure of whether or not she wanted to know the answer.
"Remember the chain of death I mentioned? You're a link in the chain. You're going to be his next victim."
Kyle Masters woke up with a gasp.
The nightmare quickly faded from his memory, the pieces of it breaking off and disappearing as quickly as he tried to remember them. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs that had formed in his mind while sleeping, but it didn’t help.
The visions from the nightmare scared him, even if he couldn’t entirely remember them. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had a semi-prophetic dream, despite his best attempts to stave them off. It was bad enough when he’d once dreamt of killing Terra Skye, his fiancé and the love of his life. Now he was dreaming about someone else killing her. He couldn’t remember the face of the killer, only the expression of joy that he’d had as he’d slipped the knife into her body.
It filled him with a quiet dread. Even though his dreams had never really come true before, had never really required action, he felt that there was something different about this one. He couldn’t explain why, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. If his dream was accurate – which again, he reminded himself, had never happened before – then someone was going to kill Terra.
He pushed himself out of bed, wincing slightly as his bare feet touched the carpet floor. He made his way to the bathroom for his morning ritual, and when he emerged, he went right to his heavily fortified closet, opening it carefully and pulling out his hero clothes. Normally, he would at least have breakfast before hitting the streets, but he couldn’t get that image out of his mind. He needed to talk to Terra. She didn’t know about the dreams, but the spiritual bond between them, formed through his sword, was strong enough that she might know something he didn’t. It was certainly a strange connection they shared, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it today.
Once he was satisfied that his costume was in place, he exited his home through the window, dropping a story down to the street, and running off into the early morning light.
It didn’t take too long to pick up the next ‘link in the chain’; Joshua was able to track down the next victim through his Sight. The murder had happened shortly after the historian’s death, before the trio was even first called in to investigate. Unfortunately, as occasionally happens in a city full of legal mumbo-jumbo, red tape got in the way. The Talos police wanted to investigate the death before letting any “consultants” inside, even registered heroes. Terra, Josh, and Bert patiently, watching the sun come up as they waited for the police to give them permission to enter the crime scene before they crossed the threshold, Joshua in the lead.
The body was in the den, and Joshua was already conversing with the deceased woman as Terra and Bert entered the room. Terra respectfully averted her eyes, taking in the rest of the room as she looked for clues. There were so many similarities to the last crime scene, with the general chaos and disorder of an apartment that had been violently rearranged, but something felt off. She didn’t even need to ask Bert to confirm her suspicions; the last crime scene had been carefully staged, but this one seemed to be much less planned.
She noticed papers and sketches spread all over the coffee table and kneeled down to take a closer look. She wasn’t surprised to find that the piles of paper on the table were detailed notes on a binding circle. It was an elegant design, created to seal the most powerful of gates. The design was brilliant in its simplicity, and as she looked them over, Terra realized she could easily reproduce the effects without much effort. As she continued to examine the details of the notes, she noticed a small note on the margin, written by someone other than the original author, that made her involuntarily shiver: “Design too simple for standard magic. Life energy required. One? Many?” Terra tried to memorize the circle as best she could; even if she didn’t plan on using it, it never hurt to be prepared. Still, it was positively eerie to be told she was potentially about to die, and the come across a ritual that would require her to do just that. She pushed it out of her mind, though she couldn’t stop that little voice of hope that told her that she might just make it if she could just get there in time. She might not have to do anything permanent. Personal sacrifice was part of the heroing business, but it was one thing to jump into danger without concern for your safety; binding your life energy to fuel a spell was another entirely.
Terra continued looking through the notes on the table and noticed a map that showed the location of the gate.
“This must be notes on the bindings of the gate,” she said quietly to Bert, who looked at them over her shoulder, “Seems like the creator of the binding left detailed notes behind before sacrificing himself to close it.”
“Could you cast it?” Bert asked.
“Yeah, I could, if I had to,” she replied hesitantly, trying not to think about it too much. Terra stood up, momentarily distracted. She turned to the direction of the front door. She couldn’t help but smile a bit as she said, “Kyle’s stopped by. He must be checking in on me.”
“Miss Skye?” Terra turned to see a uniformed officer standing in the doorway to the apartment. “I’ve got a guy out here looking for you. Says he’s your fiancée.”
“I know you’ve told me about that bond thing before, but it’s scary to see it in action,” Bert said. Months ago Terra tried to cast an identification spell on Kyle’s sword; not only did it backfire, but it bonded Terra, Kyle, and the sword together. Terra and Kyle were able to sense each other’s presence, and could sometimes sense each other’s emotions.
“Let him in,” she said. The officer stepped aside and motioned to someone, and Kyle Masters, otherwise known as Mobius Knight, dressed in his armor and mask, came into the apartment, “Hey Kyle.”
“Hey Terra,” Kyle replied, the mask muffling his words slightly. He looked around the apartment curiously, and carefully picked his way around the disarray to reach Terra.
“You’re up early.”
“Still not sleeping well,” he said as he gave her a hug. There was something about the hug that she couldn’t quite place. It was as if he wasn’t so much hugging her as holding on to her, afraid to let her go. She tried to find out what was wrong, tried to probe the bond that they shared to find out what he was feeling, but she couldn’t feel anything, as if he was hiding his mind from her.
Finally, he let her go, and looked around the apartment again.
“Man, what the heck are you into this time?”
“You don’t have to worry about me honey,” Terra said, “Just looking into something with my friends here.”
“Okay,” Kyle replied, drawing the word out to show his skepticism, “Anything I can do to help?”
“Actually, if you could talk to the police, see if they have any leads, that’d be great. I’ll fill you in later.”
Kyle hesitated, seeming to want to say something, but shrugged and left the apartment without a word.
“You’re not going to tell him anything?” Bert asked, confused.
“He’s definitely not into the magic scene,” Terra replied quickly, “and this stuff would just make him uncomfortable.”
“If you say so,” Bert replied uncertainly before turning back to the scattered remains of the apartment, holding his fingers up in a frame to try and capture the scene.
Terra inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t lying; she would fill her fiancée in later, but right now she was more worried about the potential implications of whatever was going on. Someone was planning to screw with dimensional barriers, potentially unleashing a demon race that was frightening in its power, and she had no idea why. Combined with her nightmare from the last few weeks, she was seriously concerned about Kyle getting involved in anything relating to this case. Not to mention the fact that she might have to do something really crazy if things got out of control…no, it was best to leave her fiancée in the dark, at least for now.
Josh had finished talking to the victim and was giving a deposition to a detective. Terra walked over to Bert and whispered, “Same guy?”
“From what I can tell,” Bert replied in a quiet voice as he eavesdropped on Josh’s conversation, “Guy in black hired this dead lady to research the bindings, killed her afterwards.”
“This one’s a little different,” Josh interrupted as he walked over, coughing shortly afterwards. The detective he had been talking to was kneeling over the body. “She explained to him that there was no way the bindings could be broken. The nature of the spell saw to that.”
“Yeah, I saw the notes,” Terra nodded, “That ritual would be nigh impossible to crack.” Life bindings usually were, powered as they were by one of the strongest energy sources available. “In fact, the gate would have to be opened from this dimension. The Falanmar have no empathy; someone sacrificing their lives for the greater good would make that gate impossible to crack from their end. It’d be a magic beyond their understanding.”
“Well, after that, the guy in black got angry, screamed ‘Nothing will get in the way of my evolution’ and started stabbing her.”
“What did he mean by evolution?” Bert asked, scratching his head. Terra shrugged.
“Well,” she said, “since he’s apparently not using that gate to summon an army or just play games with dimensional barriers, there has to be something those demons or that dimension can provide for him.”
“Maybe he’s a demon returning to his home dimension?” Josh asked.
“Those demons aren’t shape-shifters or illusionists, there’s no way they could take human form.” Of course, she admitted silently to herself, this was Paragon City, and if there was an exception to that rule, it was almost guaranteed it would happen here. The city had a sizable demon population, and quite a few people had at least some demon blood in them. Demon blood…
“I think I’ve got it,” Terra exclaimed with a snap of her fingers. “Demons are willing to breed with humans; let’s say we’re dealing with someone with demon blood. If someone with demon blood doesn’t have their powers manifest by their twenties, then there’s a good chance they’ll never manifest unless that person has contact with infernal energies. And this guy’s not brain dead, he’s not going to the Thorns.”
Josh nodded, following her logic, “And since these demons are so hard to find…”
“He’d have to go to the source,” Terra said, finishing the thought, “He’s not looking to control an army of demons, he’s looking to join them.”
“Wait a minute,” Bert interrupted, clearing his throat, “if there’s no way the guy can unseal the rift, what about this ‘chain of death’ Josh mentioned?”
“Well,” Josh replied, looking down at his feet, “it’s been upgraded from a ‘chain’ to more of a ‘leaking dam’. If we don’t stop this guy a lot of people are going to die.” The expression on his face told Terra she was still on the list for some reason.
“Right, so he has to have a Plan B. We need to find a clue to what it is and fast. Step to it, Bert,” Terra ordered.
Bert ran his fingers through the mop of carrot orange hair with a sigh, and began posing in a failed attempt to ‘recreate’ the scene. “Right. Spread out. Need to think. Murderer comes in to question the victim, they get into a fight, they struggle, the perp drops something….Oh here it is.” Bert pointed to a folded piece of paper, then pulled out latex gloves for everyone to use, ostensibly to avoid disturbing any fingerprints. Terra didn’t want to know why he kept those on hand, but put a pair on anyway. Bert picked up the paper and read it aloud, “Twilight, the Edge of Night, Winter’s Wrath, Guiding Light. What are these, soap operas?”
“They’re magical artifacts,” Terra replied. “Any others on there?”
“Just two more: The Key to Damascus and the Ocean Sword.”
“Those relics either cut through dimensional barriers or rip apart magical spells,” Terra said after a moment, “but they’re all in pretty secure locations or have been completely lost to history. I’ve never heard of the Ocean Sword, though.”
“Really?” Bert asked, “Isn’t that your fiancée’s name right next to it?”
“What? Give me that!” Terra snatched the paper from his hands to look at it herself, ignoring his protests about smudged fingerprints. Sure enough, ‘Mobius Knight’ was right next to ‘Ocean Sword’ on the list.
“I have no idea what this means,” she said, trying to quiet the uncertainty that was ringing through her head, “Kyle…he doesn’t, I mean, his sword doesn’t have a name.” She was emphatic, as if simply by saying it forcefully, she could make it true. If she was involved in this “chain of death”, did that mean Kyle was too? Was Kyle in danger? It took all of her willpower not to call out for him to make sure he was safe.
“Well,” Bert said quietly, “You said yourself that he’s not into the whole magic scene. Maybe he has this Ocean Sword and doesn’t even know it?”
Terra shook her head uncertainly, and made an effort to put the coincidences out of her mind as she looked at the list, “Wait, he’s got Twilight circled.”
“What does that one do?” Josh asked.
“It’s an extremely powerful blade,” she explained, glad for the opportunity to take her mind off her worries, “It can rip through any barrier: physical, magical, dimensional, whatever. It was usually used to open rifts between dimensions. If anything could rip open that gate, this would be it. That binding’s almost impossible to break, but Twilight can definitely beat the almost. That was one of the reasons my order tracked down that blade and made sure it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Where is it now?” Josh asked quietly.
“My order made a bargain with an astral being to hold it for safe keeping.”
“So there’s no way he can get to this thing?”
“Oh, that astral guardian’s one of the easiest ones to contact. But, when my order made a pact with it, we made sure that only our members can take the blade away from the guardian’s hands. Anyone else ends up dead or dying. It’s something we don’t like to mention. We don’t like our name connected to that blade.”
“Why?”
“The blade is practically pure entropy molded into a metal weapon. Its wielders generally suffer from some sort of corruption, whether it’s physical, mental, or moral-there’s no telling with Twilight, but it’s always bad, and gets worse the longer you hold it. Now the question is, where’s this guy going? He can’t get the blade because it’s on the astral plane, so is he going to find another relic to get there, another mystic, what?” Terra’s concern about the situation was almost overshadowed by her concern for Kyle. A maniac was looking to open a rift to a demonic plane, and seemed to think that her fiancée had something that would help him do that. It was bad enough that the man in black was killing everyone in his way, but even if Kyle’s luck held out and he didn’t die, a dimensional rift meant that her nightmare might become reality.
“How about ‘Rita’s Wholesale Relics’?” Bert suggested.
“What?” Terra was puzzled.
“It’s on the back of the list.” Bert pointed to the flyer she was holding. Terra turned it over. Sure enough, it was an advertisement for a wholesale magical supply store offering a selection of relics. Terra read a bit from the ad, “Charms, Amulets, and Rituals custom made.” Terra groaned as she read the fine print, “This month’s special: contacting the astral plane.”
“Twilight is on the astral plane right now?” Josh asked. Terra nodded, not liking where this was going. "And you mentioned that hardly anyone knows that only your order can retrieve it?” Terra nodded again.
“Yeah,” she said with a shudder, “He butchered people that performed to his expectations, I don’t know what he’s going to do to that poor person when he finds out she can’t get him that blade.” Terra checked the address on the flyer, “Looks like I’ve got a warehouse to go to.” Bert and Josh understood: they weren’t superheroes; they’d get eaten alive if they tired to tag along. Not to mention the farther she could keep Kyle away from this nutcase, the better.
“You mean ‘we’ve’ got a warehouse to go to.” Kyle said from the apartment’s doorway. She turned to see him leaning on the doorframe and wondered just how long he had been standing there. She’d been so concerned, so involved in the case that she hadn’t even been aware of him, despite the bond. She could tell that he was worried about her, that he knew she was hiding something. The look on his face said it all: he wasn’t letting her out of his sight, and if she knew him as well as she thought, he wasn’t going to be dissuaded.
“My mistake,” Terra smiled weekly, silently cursing his stubbornness.
Terra memorized the address of the warehouse, set the flyer down and headed for the door, Kyle following her closely. With any luck, they’d prevent this madman from adding another victim to the list.
Bert and Josh watched them go.
“That chain of death you mentioned?” Bert asked once they were alone. Josh coughed before answering.
“I wish I had good news, Bert.”
Bert nodded confidently, “Don’t worry, those two are bound by a higher force none can sunder.”
“Love?”
“Nope. Booty.”
“Why is it always a warehouse?” Kyle asked no one in particular as they arrived at Rita’s Wholesale Relics. Not unusual in a city full of the huge buildings, Rita’s looked like it had been converted from simple storage to a storefront with a massive amount of inventory space.
Terra glanced at him as she approached the door, and he got the feeling that she didn’t want him there. She made no other indication that she heard him as she opened the door to the storefront and flew inside. Kyle, unsure of what exactly to do, hesitated for a moment before following her. Terra summoned her golem, nicknamed Mister Poo, and made her way through the warehouse, all business.
It didn’t take long to find the man in black, mostly because he didn’t seem to be hiding. True to the testimony of his previous victims, he was clad entirely in black clothes, his face partially obscured by a hood. His victim, presumably Rita, the owner of the shop, was still alive, though held within a ritual circle, the pattern of which was unlike anything Kyle had seen before. The man was holding a ritualistic dagger in his hand, and something in Kyle’s mind clicked. The last time he had seen that blade, it had been moments before it had buried itself in Terra’s stomach. His dream. He suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of panic that was only amplified as Terra flew towards the man in black, with a shout of “Go get ‘em Mister Poo!” as she started to magic a windstorm about her. Even as magically illiterate as he was, Kyle could feel the energy in the room, the incredible impending sense of something about to happen, and, fearing for the life of his love, he couldn’t contain himself.
He raised his sword and rushed towards the man in black, cutting Terra off. She cried out, but didn’t have time to do anything as Kyle stepped into the ritual circle and, with agility honed from intense practice, stepped over the prone victim and swung his sword at the man in black. The man looked up at the last second, and his eyes flashed.
And then all Kyle saw was white.
It took a moment for his vision to clear, but when he was finally able to see again, Kyle was surprised to find that he was no longer in the warehouse, but instead in a seemingly endless space full of white light.
He tried to move and found that he couldn’t. He was all there, all in one piece, but his body simply refused to follow his commands.
You are not of the pact!
The voice boomed out of nowhere and everywhere all at once. It echoed in the unfathomable space, and it simply couldn’t be pinpointed. It was loud enough that it gave Kyle a headache just listening to it.
“Pact?” Kyle replied, or tried to. His mouth wouldn’t move, but regardless, he heard the words echo around him as they formed in his mind, pitifully weak compared to the voice that had addressed him.
Those who are not of the pact have no place here, and must be punished!
“I don’t understand,” Kyle “said”. Without warning, he was wracked by the most horrible pain he could imagine. It was as if his entirely being was under assault from a blast of energy that threatened to tear apart his body cell by cell. He tried to scream, tried to get it to stop, tried to curl up in the fetal position, anything to get away from the pain, but he still couldn’t move.
After what seemed like an eternity, the pain instantly vanished, as if it had never been. He felt whole once more.
You are not of the pact, and yet you are not punished.
“What the hell is going on?” Kyle asked, the thought radiating out from him without effort. He was surprised to find that he couldn’t even remember the sensation of pain he had experienced. It was almost as if someone had rewritten history so that it hadn’t happened, but he could still remember it.
There was a brief but uncomfortable sensation that someone was pawing through his brain roughly, looking for something in his memories. He was more or less accustomed to having his mind read, what with all the people that thought it fun to peruse his entire life out of boredom while in Pocket D, but this was somehow different. Whatever was crawling through his mind was doing so in a manner that could be best described as a bull in a china shop. It hurt, and he would have winced if he could just move.
You bear the Ocean Sword, and are bound to the magus. The power of Twilight is not yours to claim, yet it is possible for you to do so. This is not what was promised, or what was foretold.
“Twilight?” Kyle asked out of curiosity before he remembered what was going on. “Look, I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t want to be here. Terra is in trouble. I need to get back to her.” There was another brief pause.
If you do not seek the power of Twilight, then you shall not claim it. Know that you have come here without purpose, and such a breach of the pact will not be allowed again. Go. Save your magus.
And everything faded.
Kyle came back to himself at the exact same place he had apparently left, in the middle of the ritual circle, standing over the prone form of the kidnapped woman. He took a moment to regain his bearings and see exactly what was going on.
It occurred to Kyle that maybe Terra wasn’t the one that needed saving; she had unleashed her full elemental fury on this man.
“What did you do to him!” Terra yelled as the earth rippled below her and stone spikes burst out from under the floor. The man managed to jump to the side, but had to quickly fall to the floor and somersault away to avoid a punch from Mister Poo. Frustrated, Terra charged forward, spinning the winds she summoned into a nasty twister. Unfortunately, she got too close to the man before she could release the spell. He deftly delivered a powerful kick to her stomach, shoving her right into a stack of boxes. The spell she was forming went wild and the tiny tornado she summoned ended up knocking boxes everywhere, some of them on top of her.
Kyle saw that his sword was still in his hand, and charged at the assailant. As he ran, he reversed his grip on the sword, holding the blunt edge forward. He came up from the man’s blind spot, directly to the side, and swung his sword as hard as he could. The swing caught the man right in the ribs, and Kyle felt the satisfying snap of broken ribs transmitted through the vibrations of the sword. The man was sent flying, landing heavily a few feet away. Satisfied that the man would not be any further problem, Kyle turned to the pile of boxes that Terra was underneath and hurried over to dig her out of the pile. He set his sword on the ground and began pulling the cardboard crates away. A muffled, “Mister Poo, a little help, please?” from under the heap led the golum to the mess and the stone construct began to pitch in.
As soon as Terra was freed from the debris, she pulled out her pocket medical kit and let it work its magic. Her healing magic was weak; the one dinky spell she could do couldn’t be used to heal herself, so her kit compensated for that. After her bruises and cuts were mended in a flash of green light, Kyle asked “Are you okay?” She didn’t say a word and just wrapped her arms around him, holding him tight. She then quickly broke free and shouted, “Kyle, he’s got your sword!”
It seemed the man behind this ruckus had recovered faster than either Kyle or Terra expected. “Is this the best you can do?” he chortled as he held his ribs with one hand, Kyle’s sword in another. Terra noticed that his breathing got better with each moment; he may not have all the advantages of his demonic bloodline, but he certainly had some. “I honestly was going to pass you over. After all, who would have thought that a second-rate hero like you would have the Ocean Sword?” the man in black cackled as he held the sword aloft, seemingly unaffected by the dreadful wound he had just received. The deep blue glow of the sword had, surprisingly, dulled in the seconds since it had left Kyle’s hand, and Kyle felt something inside that told him that the bond between himself and the sword had somehow weakened. “I may not have Twilight, but at least I’ve got something that will still do the job.”
“Give it back or I swear to God I will rip off your arm and beat you to death with it,” Kyle growled, settling into a fighting stance. Unarmed combat was definitely not his strong suit, but he couldn’t let this pompous moron get away with his sword. He tightened his hands into fists, feeling the uncomfortable pressure of the metal rings in his gloves settling around his knuckles, forming crude brass knuckles.
“You? You’re only human,” the man laughed again. Kyle balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to lash out with a vicious punch to the neck that, he had read somewhere, would probably knock out any opponent, when Terra suddenly flew past him, her hands glowing with magical energy as she summoned up her impressive arsenal of magic to blast the man.
“Terra, no!” Kyle shouted, rushing forward to try and stop her, knowing he would be too late even as he did. But it didn’t matter in any event; just before Terra reached her target, the man reached under his shirt to pull out an amulet, and with a short incantation vanished in a flash of light.
“What the hell does he want with my sword?” Kyle asked a few minutes later, after Rita, the hostage, had left to check on her employees and wait for the police. “It’s a freaking sword! It’s not the holy grail of villainy or something.”
“What happened to you?” Terra asked as she examined the magic circle still inscribed on the floor of the warehouse, “Where did you go?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted, “It was a place with a lot of white, and there was this voice saying something about twilight and a pact or something. It was all very bizarre.”
Terra stood up suddenly and looked at him, looked right in his eyes. He had the sense that she was a little uncertain, but trying very hard to hide it. Anyone else wouldn’t have been able to see it, but Kyle knew her, perhaps too well.
“Are you…alright?” he asked hesitantly.
“I thought I…” she started, then stopped and took a breath, “I had a dream last night, Kyle. I saw you, trapped in some kind of…hell. Tortured. Tormented. I thought I lost you to that place.”
“Well, wherever I was, I don’t think it was Hell,” Kyle said after a moment.
“No, it wasn’t.” Terra stopped to take another breath. “Remember what I said to you about how our spiritual bond made you a co-owner on any magical contracts?” Kyle nodded. “Well, you just ran headfirst into one. My order actually sealed away Twilight a long time ago, because…well, because it’s a dangerous weapon.”
“Weapon?”
“Twilight is a sword that was designed to seal dangerous creatures,” Terra explained, rubbing her eyes tiredly, “It opened small scale dimensional rifts, and was a pretty damn powerful sword as it was. The problem was that something went wrong with the magic, and almost everyone that tries to use the sword, well…bad things happen to them.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. My order sealed it away, but I wasn’t involved. It was before my time. But there was an agreement between the order and the being that guarded the sword that if ever it was needed, someone from the order could go to the pocket dimension where it was sealed and retrieve it. You ended up there accidentally, but because you and I are connected through the bond, well, you had the opportunity to take Twilight.”
“I don’t need another sword. What I want to know is why that guy wanted it, and why he took my sword.”
Terra sighed. “I know why he took it.”
“Why?”
“The occultists he murdered all had knowledge about a certain gate that leads to a dimension full of powerful demons. He intends to open that gate, most likely to jump start his latent demonic powers.” She shuddered, “If that’s the latent version, I’d hate to see what the full blown demons look like.” She snapped her fingers to dismiss her stone servant. “He needed Twilight to open that gate since it’s powerful enough to break the ritual keeping the gate sealed.”
“But he didn’t get Twilight, so far so good, right?”
Terra shook her head and headed for the door, “Not exactly. He had a list of other relics he could use, your sword was one of them. And since we don’t know exactly what that sword can do, it’s safe to assume he does and he plans to use it to unlock that gate. Fortunately for us, he wasn’t good at hiding the notes of the researchers he killed. The gate’s in Astoria. If we’re lucky, we can get there in time to stop him from opening the portal. If that thing opens, demons are going to be pouring out and they’ll head for the nearest source of fresh meat: Talos. Who knows how many will die until enough heroes can band together to stop them.” Terra opened the door and strode outside; by now she was talking to herself more than him. “I can do this, I won’t have to do anything drastic.”
Kyle cleared his throat, “We can do this.” He knew she was planning to leave him behind in an effort to protect him. “It’s going to take more than losing a sword to make me sit here while you charge into danger. I’m going, like it or not.”
Despite the fact that the little speech went against every single one of Terra’s protective instincts, she couldn’t help but smile a bit. “Okay, but there’s one little flaw in that plan.”
“And that is?”
“I can fly, you can’t.” And with that, Terra took to the air. Kyle sighed as he broke into a run, wondering just how many miles he would be putting on his shoes today. The life of a hero…
Kyle was able to catch his breath as Terra landed in front of a tomb in Dark Astoria. He caught up to her a few seconds later, inwardly proud that he had managed to keep up with her, and they charged inside.
Kyle felt distinctly uncomfortable, and for once, it wasn’t the oppressive atmosphere of the cursed area. He felt strangely powerless without his sword, and he realized that he had come to depend on it, that he had, without even knowing it, specialized too much with it. He knew that Terra was hiding something from him. The bond between them had been weakened by the absence of the sword, but he could still sense that there was something she wasn’t telling him. He tried to shrug it off as paranoia caused by the sense of weakness that he felt, but found that it wasn’t so easy.
It didn’t take them long to find the ritual chamber where the man in black had set up shop, though Kyle took a moment to wonder just how many ritual chambers there were in this city. The man was in the center of the chamber, an intricate web of ritualistic circles drawn around him, and Kyle’s sword stuck in the ground at the very center. He was chanting something that Kyle couldn’t understand, though he was sure it was some kind of magical language. The man still had that bizarre ritual knife that had haunted Kyle’s thoughts all day, and filled him with a sense of dread even now.
Magic was definitely not Kyle’s strong point, but he got the feeling that something bad was about to happen here, especially when he saw Terra’s reaction to the scene. To say that it scared him was an understatement: she was terrified, and that certainly didn’t help his uncertain state of mind.
The man in black looked up as they entered the chamber and smiled crookedly, as though he knew out things would turn out, never stopping his mind-numbing chant. A white light started to rip into the air in back of him. The seals on the gate had been broken. Kyle started to rush forward to attack, to grab his sword and swing the blunt side into the arrogant bastard’s face, but even before he took the first step, he felt the earth ensnare his feet as a small stone cage erupted around him. He struggled against the stone barrier ineffectively, and was about to call out to Terra to help him when he saw that she was already there. The look in her eyes said everything.
“I’m sorry, Kyle,” she said, her voice barely a whisper, “but I didn’t think the ritual would be this close to completion. There’s nothing you can do now. I have to stop him myself, and you…you wouldn’t let me.” Her voice wavered slightly until she took a breath to steady herself. “This kind of ritual…it can’t be stopped with brute force. It needs…something more, and you would try to do it yourself. I…I can’t lose you like that, Kyle. I’m sorry.” She turned away from him, and he couldn’t organize his thoughts enough to say anything. He wanted to ask her what she was going to do, to know how he could possibly interfere with any magical ritual, to tell her he loved her, but nothing would come. She jumped into the air as her magic set her aloft, and she flew towards the man in black as Kyle struggled to break free of the prison that held him.
The villain’s chant was getting louder, more energetic as he grew closer to his goal, and Kyle could tell it was reaching some kind of climax. The rift grew upward and outward. Just as Terra broke the edge of the outer ritual circle, there was a blast of magical energy from the rift that sent everything that wasn’t nailed down flying. Kyle felt it wash over him as he watched Terra fall to the floor, crawl back up, and press on through the blast wave, fighting with all her power to reach the man in black. He couldn’t understand why she wasn’t using her magic, why she wasn’t summoning a storm cloud to blast the bastard with lightning bolts or calling on her elemental to pummel him. What was she doing? She murmured a low chant, as if she was preparing for a spell, but it looked like she was waiting for something before she cast it.
By now the rift was threatening to consume the ritual circle. The man laughed at her. “Come to undo what I’ve started?” Terra stopped briefly and concentrated. The spell to seal the almost-open gate was ready; it just needed one more thing. Terra continued on, heading straight for the man. He laughed again, “You must have read the same notes I have, but something’s missing. Forgetting something aren’t you?” As she came within a few feet of the man, it seemed as if time slowed down. Kyle could clearly see the man ready his ritual dagger, and he tried to scream out to Terra to be careful, to watch, anything, but his voice caught in his throat, and he could do nothing as Terra willingly took the blade right in her abdomen.
It seemed as though everything became deathly quiet, and all Kyle could hear was his heartbeat as he watched the man in black pull the dagger out of Terra, the blood glistening in the bizarre light of the chamber. “You forgot your sacrifice, witch.” He had a malicious grin on his face that quickly vanished as Terra, despite her terrible wound, glowed with magical energy. Kyle watched as her blood dripped onto the stone floor, obscuring some of the ritual circle, and, amazingly, the blood seemed to flare with light. It was as though someone had flipped a switch, and the terrible feeling of danger that had emanated throughout the chamber was replaced with a cold feeling of emptiness. The blast wave of energy that had been pushing everything out of the area suddenly reversed itself, pulling everything into the center of the room. The white light of the gate turned a blood red, the course of the ritual had been reversed.
Terra smirked even as she stumbled and had to steady herself. “Looks like you’ve inherited your ancestor’s lack of empathy. The sacrifice is right here, jackass.” Terra mustered all the strength she could and grabbed onto the man in a soon to be literal death grip. “It never occurred to you someone would give their life for others. That’s why you’ll lose. That’s why people like you always lose.” Terra tightened her hold on him, he wasn’t getting away only to open the gate again. “Don’t think about crossing over, the seals are in place. You won’t let a horde of demons out today, not on my watch.”
The cage around Kyle’s feet rapidly started to crack and crumble, and he struggled even harder to break free of it. The rift was shrinking as crimson light seeped from it. The sinking feeling in his stomach grew as he realized what she was doing. She was giving up her life to stop the gate from opening.
He finally managed to break free of his captivity, only to immediately lose his footing as the vacuum in the center of the room became more powerful. He stood up and charged towards his fiancée, sacrificing safety for speed as he stumbled over the myriad obstacles. He ducked as a dislodged piece of rock flew past his head from behind, not even stopping to wonder how he had known it was coming.
The gate began to pulsate, pulling the man in black towards it. Terra was still locked in a struggle with her adversary, but her face had a sense of finality to it, as if she knew that the end was coming. Kyle was still too far away to do anything, and he tried to run even faster, but the wind was reaching hurricane levels, and things were dangerously whirling around. Even so, Terra was only a few feet away. He could-
The man in black tried one final desperate effort to keep himself from the red light. He broke free of Terra grasp and grabbed the Ocean Sword in an attempt to change the seals again; but it was too late: he and the sword disappeared into the rapidly sealing rift, and Terra was only inches away from being consumed herself. Kyle tried to run, tried to jump, reaching out to grab Terra’s hand, but he was too far away. Even as he flew through the air, the rift devoured Terra as she looked to Kyle with a look of absolute sadness on her face. Kyle cried out as she disappeared, and the rift immediately contracted into nothing.
Kyle hit the stone floor and slid to a painful halt. After a few seconds, the tears began, and he pushed himself to his knees, balled his hands into fists so tight they began to hurt, and screamed to whatever God would listen his anger and anguish, his voice echoing around the chamber until he was spent, and he fell the ground, sobbing quietly. His eyes were red from crying, all hope lost as he realized that he would never see Terra again.
When gate sealed, Terra was surprised to find that she was still alive. Surprise quickly turned to panic when she realized she didn’t have the use of her senses. She couldn’t see or hear anything. She couldn’t feel anything, the pain from her wound gone. She tried to reach out to feel her surroundings, but found herself completely immobilized. She couldn’t even thrash about frantically; she was utterly paralyzed.
Terra quickly began mentally tracing her steps, trying to figure out what went wrong. The ritual to seal the gate worked, she was sure of that. The ritual or the tomb it was in had to have interfered with the emergency transport system, otherwise she’d have been waking up in the hospital and the seals would have failed. The wound to the stomach had to be fatal, or the rift couldn’t be sealed in the first place.
Terra remembered a grisly detail: it can take a long, long time to die from a stomach wound. The wound was fatal enough to kick off the ritual, but it didn’t kill her before she got sucked into the seals. Now she was stuck between dimensions, the magic of the seals keeping her in stasis, unable to do or even sense anything. She was trapped.
Terra tried to calm herself down, after a few minutes she was stable enough to sense a wave of despair and anguish coming from someplace far away. It was Kyle; their bond was still active. She could feel his grief. Her heart reached out to him; she didn’t think to try use their bond to communicate to him, she just wanted to ease his pain. She focused on him and used every bit of willpower she had to just let him know she was still there.
She could almost see him in her mind, huddled on the floor of that tomb. She felt her mind stretched to the limit, he was so far away. She didn’t know what to say, and she was running out of time; she didn’t want to exhaust herself, not while she was stuck into a magical seal. She reached out to him and tried to comfort him. I love you, Kyle, she thought before she had to break contact, the strain too much for her.
He would never know how long he stayed in that chamber in his grief, unable to move as the full implications of what had just happened hit him. Terra was gone. He was still numb from sorrow.
And then he felt it. Felt her. It was brief, and faint; but it proved that the bond they had was still there. She was still alive. He just had to find a way to get her back.
He knew, somehow, that the rip in space had been the portal that the man in black had been summoning, that both the man and Terra had been pulled into the seals Terra was able to cast at the last minute. Kyle didn’t know how he knew it – probably some sort of residual memory passed to him from Terra via the bond, but the knowledge didn’t help him. He managed to pull himself back to his feet and stagger out of the chamber, trying to think of anything that could work.
A thought struck him as he exited the tomb, and he felt a fierce fire start deep inside, a wellspring of hope that he could scarcely believe in. The man in black had settled on the Ocean Sword to open the portal, but that wasn’t his original plan. He had wanted to obtain Twilight, the sword Terra had told him about. It was barely feasible, and he had no idea how to make it work, but he couldn’t give up now. Terra was counting on him, even if she didn’t know it.
He would find a way to bring her back, no matter what it took.
It took several hours, but he was finally ready.
Rita wasn’t easy to convince, having just been a hostage because of Twilight, but she now stood uncertainly in the middle of the ritual circle that still remained on the floor of the warehouse. When he had explained the situation to her, she had been more willing to help, even though she was still shaken from her experience earlier in the day. After tracking down the right ingredients, the ritual to contact Twilight’s guardian was ready.
Rita began chanting, and Kyle felt a familiar sensation of being pulled away from himself. Within seconds, the world faded away and he found himself back in the white space, once again unable to move.
You return, the booming voice stated simply.
“I do,” Kyle “said”, the strange sound of his thoughts rippling away from him as if through water.
You were told that you would not be able to return here without purpose, and yet here you are.
“I have a purpose.”
Then state your reasons.
“I want the sword, Twilight.” The voice paused for a moment.
You are not of the pact, and yet you are bound to it. Were you any other, you would have been destroyed the moment you entered this sacred place. The power of Twilight cannot be claimed by any not bound to the pact.
“But I am, through Terra,” Kyle objected, his thoughts ringing loudly.
Were you of the pact, you would be able to simply claim the blade, so long as a promise was made to return it when the necessary task was complete. The power of Twilight cannot be controlled by any normal human.
Kyle wanted to say something, to tell the voice to hurry by, but kept his thoughts to himself.
However, you bear the burden of a link to the Ocean Sword, and therefore you are not a normal human. This is not what was foretold, but so many prophecies are ruined by that blade…
“Are you telling me that I’m not able to take the sword?”
Not only are you able to take Twilight, but you may keep it, provided you can pass the test.
“But, the sword is dangerous. I don’t want to keep it, I just want to use it.”
You are not of the pact. The laws set forth do not apply to you. If you take Twilight, it shall be bound to you. That the bearer of the Ocean Sword would one day seek Twilight is completely unknown. There is no doubt that such an occurrence was not anticipated by the order, but your nature prevents any possible prediction of the outcome.
“My nature?” Kyle asked, confused, but the voice didn’t answer. Instead, he felt that strange sensation of something pawing roughly through his memories. He could tell that the presence here was trying to find something, and for some reason, the memory that it focused on was his promise to Terra, made weeks before.
You would fight your way through Hell for your magus?
“Without hesitation,” Kyle replied.
Then so shall it be. Fight for your life, and that of your magus, for both will surely be at stake.
The voice seemed to disappear, and Kyle found the white space dissolving before his eyes, to be replaced with a landscape full of rock and red, hot and alien. Lava boiled through in the rock, and choking gas filled the air. It seemed as though the voice was taking his promise quite literally.
That was fine with him.
Far off in the distance, he saw a distinct glint of light that seemed entirely out of place in this place of rock and heat. He judged the distance to be at least a few miles, and set his shoulders, preparing to head towards it.
Before he had taken even the first step, his mind was assaulted. Horrific images of terrors beyond his comprehension ripped through his mind, eliciting a sensation of terrible pain and fear. After what seemed an eternity, the images stopped, and Kyle struggled to regain his composure. Hell, it seemed, wasn’t just a place of physical torment. Undeterred, he took his first step into the awful landscape.
That was when he saw the demon, a creature straight out of a nightmare, not ten feet away, hostile intent evident.
He clenched his hands into fists as more demons seemed to come right out of the landscape. He stopped counting at thirty, and still more appeared. Without any other option, he clenched his fists, settling himself into a fighting stance, prepared as much as possible for the coming battle.
It was almost midnight when a broken and battered figure staggered into the ritual chamber underneath Dark Astoria.
Kyle could barely move, the pain in his body forcing him to stop every few steps before he could move again. His armor was in tatters, nothing more than rags now, and numerous cuts and gashes oozed blood. His mask had long since been lost, and his face was barely recognizable through the bruises and blood. His left arm hung limply at an odd angle, the bones obviously broken in at least two places, and he wasn’t so much walking on his right foot as he was dragging it, limping as much as he could to keep from putting too much pressure on it.
And still he continued walking, even if just barely, the gleaming black blade of Twilight clutched tightly in his right hand.
He finally reached the center of the ritual chamber, the markings that the man in black had etched still visible, drops of Terra’s blood long since dried up, but still identifiable. Not knowing exactly what to do, Kyle simply raised Twilight and swung it, his mind concentrating on his fiancée.
The effect was immediate, as a bright white light followed the trail off the sword, a cut in dimensional reality that quickly widened to become a doorway of glowing energy. Unsure of what to do, Kyle thrust the sword into the rock and reached with his good hand into the doorway.
Something grabbed his hand, and he pulled with all the energy he could muster, which admittedly wasn’t much. The light flared, blinding him momentarily. When he was able to see again, he saw Terra, lying on the ground, holding his hand. He collapsed to his knees, wincing from the pain, and wrapped his arm around the beautiful woman. Terra also winced as a wellspring of pain erupted from her stomach. She moaned as she clutched her bleeding belly while Kyle dug through her pockets for her medical device. He used it on her as her wound closed in a flash of green light. He used it again for good measure, then one more time, draining its battery. The second her wound closed, Terra started using her healing magic on him even as he was busy trying to save her.
It was only after a few minutes that Kyle became aware of another presence in the chamber. He looked up to see the man in black, completely exhausted from his time in the seals, lying not far away, the Ocean sword nearby. Gathering what little energy he had left, Kyle pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and took hold of Twilight’s golden hilt, pulling it out of the rock with little effort. He took a step towards the man and almost lost his footing, steadying himself at the last minute.
“All that bother and for nothing,” the man said as he rolled over on his side and crawled into a crouch, getting ready to stand up, “I’ve still got the Ocean Sword. There’s nothing stopping me from trying again. What do you say to that?”
“Go get ‘em Mister Poo.” Terra replied. The man in black looked up in shock as Terra’s stone golem materialized fast enough to send a granite fist right into his face. The man collapsed, stunned.
Terra unsteadily crept up to her feet. “Kyle, the gate,” she rasped. Kyle strode forward and picked up Twilight again.
“Terra, can Twilight seal rifts too?” he rasped, his voice barely audible.
“Yes,” Terra answered, nodding.
Wordlessly, Kyle tightened his grip on Twilight, and concentrated on the gate closing. Within seconds he sealed the hole he made.
The man responsible for all this moaned, as he began to recover from Mister Poo’s punch. Gathering what little energy he had left, Kyle took another step towards the man and almost lost his footing, steadying himself at the last minute.
“Kyle,” Terra breathed, her voice weak. Kyle merely shook his head to her unspoken caution, and slowly advanced towards the man until finally he was standing over him. He didn’t speak, couldn’t, really, his voice having abandoned him after the effort of speech mere moments before, but merely lifted the black blade, letting the point rest lightly on the man’s chest.
“You won’t kill me, hero,” the man said, his voice stronger than he looked, his mouth smiling that crooked smile, “Go ahead and arrest me, but one day I’ll get out, and I’ll make sure that I succeed next time.”
“Kyle,” Terra said from behind him, “Don’t do it.”
Kyle merely glowered at the man on the ground before him, knowing inwardly that the man was right. He was no murderer, no matter how much this guy deserved it. The point of the sword fell a few inches, and Kyle staggered backwards. Terra was there to steady him, and he relaxed in her arms slightly. She made sure he was stable, then moved to the man in black, reaching for the amulet he had used to teleport away before. He wouldn’t be escaping justice that easily.
She somehow missed the knife, distracted as she was with her worries about Kyle’s injuries, and it seemed as though everything would be for naught as the man brought up the dagger to stab her between the ribs. There was no time to react, no time to do much of anything at all but tense herself for the end.
But the end never came.
Instead, a war-cry of incredible ferocity shook the chamber as Kyle swung Twilight, using all the energy he had left. The blade quickly cut through the man’s forearm, then continued with barely a pause to cut through his shoulder, severing the arm from the body. The man cried out in pain, holding the bloody stump of what had once been a limb, even as his latent demonic power staunched the terrible wound. Demon heritage or not, Terra could see that the arm was completely ruined. Even modern medical science, as advanced as it was, would be unable to reattach that arm. The man in black was out of the dimensional rift business.
Now thoroughly exhausted, Kyle slipped to his knees, Twilight almost falling from his grasp. Terra was there almost immediately, wrapping her arms around him. She didn’t touch Twilight directly, instead taking Kyle’s hand and forcing it to take hold of the weapon as she slid the man in black’s amulet into a pocket. She took hold of the Ocean Sword, taking the sheath from Kyle’s belt and putting the sword away. She then carefully helped him to his feet, and guided him back to the surface, leaving the man in black to writhe in agony as he waited for the police.
