Justice in London

Holy light moved to clash with pure nothingness. Creations attempts to fill the empty space writhing beneath it, to only slim effect but effect nonetheless. Even still Erebus remained on course, seeming to weave and move through the air around the massive golden explosions that lit up the sky.  Even still, a crescendo of brilliance that lit up the sky and caused the two dragons to be near blind from the radiance.  When was the last time that he saw something this bright? It made him think back to his world, when he clashed against that one angel. Thinking back brought the phantom pains  and exhilaration along with it.

That was when he felt this angels own light smash against him. Meeting with a rapidly  increasing durability, as it threw him into the embrace of the nothingness below. Giving like water, yet accepting him differently than how anyone else would have felt. No destruction, only the understanding that they were both the same. Quickly the tide closed around him, unseen to the one above who might have thought him dead. Destroyed perhaps? It was always existence that thought they could destroy something so above them.  So he moved through that inky blackness, unseen as the surface didn’t even ripple.

”Deimos?” Jordan questioned, his voice tinted with fear and concern as he looked to the half dragon who seemed to be in a very bad shape. What had happened? Was it something to do with the mage he had been fighting? That brilliant flash of light had left him blind, long enough not to see what had happened. Without even thinking he moved to Deimos’ side, keeping up the field which kept many buildings from falling into and fading in the void below. Right now he felt no strain, yet he wondered how long they would be up here.

Would they be able to stop it? Looking out all he saw was the black liquid spreading,  buildings of various size sinking into it. What would be left? ”hey angel guy! I don’t know about this guy but it looks like this stuff is gonna eat up the city if we don’t do anything!” Jordan called out, hoping at the very least he could hear them.

”He’s right. Don’t figure that out soon and your whole city and everyone left in it are basically all fucked.” Erebus seemed to pop up, propping himself on the edge of the building Jordan and Deimos were on. He raised a fist, slamming it into the building which caused massive  cracks to spread outwards despite the force holding it up. Jordan extended his claws , slamming them into the part of the building that wasn’t falling into the depths. Deimos however didn’t seem as lucky, the tendrils rising to drag him into the depths.

Apparently oblivion but that wasn’t all.

”He’s needed elsewhere, so don’t worry about that,” He chuckled, looking up to the angel, brilliant grey blades forming around him and preparing to launch out if they tried to do anything. to stop Deimos.

For Deimos however there was something different now. A painless, liquid embrace as he was dragged further and further into the void. Images beyond reckoning, colors of all kind flowing past him like a strange slideshow. Worlds he knew nothing of, yet they seemed to mean something.  ”Interesting, a little dragon steps through The Void to my seat,” A voice resounded through the darkness, worlds like stars scattered around in the distance.

”At least Erebus knows when to follow my orders. Like now,” It was masculine, yet reverberated like a legion before solidifying into one. ”Welcome Deimos, child of dragons. I was wondering if you wanted to make a deal with me. ” Even looking upon him, he could tell what he saw and knew that it was beyond even Erebus by boundless metrics. A cloak of fluttered void and skull mask beneath the hood, faint shape of a smirk beneath that mask.

”You’ll need my blessing afterall,”

09:00 (GMT+ 01:00)

The brilliant white light cleared, its celestial shockwave having totally blown away the smog of destruction for a few miles in diameter that had choked the skies over London – the morning daylight shone brilliantly down on a city in utter ruins…with worse still yet to come from this unrelenting cabal of darkness that had violated every eternal moral law just by its mere existence, let alone it’s insatiable rampancy that had broken through to the material realm.

Ascendant reduced his speed as he surveyed the damage done and thought that if this darkly void calling itself ‘Erebus’ was gone then he would waste no more time and move to heal his two allies and then transport them to the site formerly known as Westminster. But it wasn’t so simple, it couldn’t be. His focus was momentarily interrupted by a call from one of his allies below ”hey angel guy! I don’t know about this guy but it looks like this stuff is gonna eat up the city if we don’t do anything!” and with an ad-joining momentary glance that accompanied his focus from his patrol position higher in the air he saw Erebus from behind the veil of this realm appear through inky black smoke with a fresh bowl of all consuming demonic force, snatch the great dragon like a tiger that had mercilessly and connivingly stalked and snatched an unsuspecting fawn, dragging the dragon down into the seemingly endless void and out of his sight.

“NO!!!” cried Ascendant in his own mind, not wanting to break his steely-eyed gaze. Quickly regaining his mental composure. Again, the void opened around him, minor slits in the material fabric of reality that he saw form the same grey blades as before, materialising before him in an exaggerated slowness of movement due to his angelic cognition processing time much faster than that which was relative all around him. As they came into creation, Ascendant gracefully snatched one into his grasp out of the air with a lightning-fast grip using his left hand. He gazed at it very curiously for what appeared to be the very briefest of moments to an onlooker, but in his ‘time’, in his perception, he has been staring at it for much longer. Studying its feel and source in his hand, as it struggled to hold its form in his hand which had divine white fiery energy roaring triumphantly around it and from within it. With a slight squeeze of the blade in his hand, the blade incinerated effortlessly into nothing as it was destroyed in totality, its embers like glassy paper as they burnt out into white fiery sparks. Ascendant raised up his left hand and extended his index finger to just above his head height, whipping his hand around his head in a snapping motion, creating an air-burst ring of divine energy to push itself outwards and consume the blades, again achieving the same effect by incinerating them all.

The heroes here, if they could be called that, given what little they had managed to achieve so far, had found themselves outmatched and outwitted up until this point. Ascendant felt like the enemy was one step ahead each time and having come to this conclusion he deduced that this was no random attack. A far more sinister plan was at work. In his zeal to take on all evil entities and to destroy them, he had taken his eye off the much bigger strategic picture and hadn’t stopped to consider it as much as he should whilst he was essentially wiping Central London clean from all the nightmarish unclean-demonic spawn that took physical form from the fears of mortals, along with the power of the void which dragged the material universe into an eternal emptiness. ”Why(?) Why did Erebus appear at the very same moment I had set my sights on the epicentre of this problem at Westminster(?) What is it keeping me from(?) Is something else being fuelled by this(?) What if these two things are just the side show for the main event(?) pondered Ascendant as he found himself wondering if he needed to call down the power of the angelic army from The Heavenly Kingdom to handle this.

But he couldn’t allow himself to call for aid in prayer, not out of pride, but because there was still hope left in him. He would press on in faith – he believed he had the power to hold this evil back until it was vanquished, or he would die trying. Either way he was resolved to bring this problem to a conclusion one way or the other. His lips parted again as he recalled his words prior to engaging this unyielding enemy “No fear”.

Surveying the damage below and the regrouping of the void to spread itself out, Ascendant saw a total wasteland for many grid square miles in every direction. It was clear to him that nothing in the human military arsenal could cope with this, humans are simply not prepared, and neither can they be equipped to deal with energies and destructive forces that are from eternal sources of void and life everlasting that flow from behind the veil of creation across every realm of existence and realm with a lack thereof. Ascendant could not tolerate the out-pouring of evil any longer, it was time for him to flex his powers even further. But first, he had to help the draconic man below who was caught between him and Erebus. He had seen Erebus use the draconic man once as a shield – and Ascendant would not let him do that again.

Raising his left hand up and then slashing it down like that of a sword, he aimed the tips of his fingers directly at Erebus. Ascendant’s arm began to rush with energy and glow brighter as it quickly flashed in a bright white light, sparking as the light dimmed, a huge blade of fiery celestial energy had formed from his elbow onwards, extending out for another twelve feet from the tips of his fingers. Ascendant’s eyes flashed even brighter and hotter as his battle power was beginning to surface. Calculating the time it would take him to reach the draconic man, Ascendant began to shrink the blade of pure divine energy down to six feet in length from the point of his fingertips.

Completely aware that Erebus had looked directly at him, Ascendant made sure to reinforce the fact that he also was looking directly at what passes for Erebus’s eyes beneath his helm. In the near nanosecond that passed between their eyes locking and Ascendant dashing forward to attack, there was an understanding of sorts between them. Two opposing forces that could never be reconciled, destined to be opposed to one another. Ascendant’s body lit up with divine energy from within him as he launched himself forward at Mach-8 leaving a fiery shockwave in his wake. His eyes never breaking the locked-in stare he had with Erebus’s eyes beneath the black helm.

Everything around Ascendant and Erebus was now completely stationary in the fragment of time it took for Ascendant to move from his aerial position to almost within striking distance. The speed of perception known only to Ascendant and Erebus in this moment – this unique clash of wills. With his left arm extended using the divine energy blade like a spear, Ascendant fired the blade of energy off of his arm at an even greater speed than his current momentum, on a pin point vector so that the very tip of the divine energy blade would impact right between Erebus’s eyes if it hit.

Surprising even Erebus in this moment, Ascendant decelerated in the shortest of gaps. With both still perceiving time around the nanosecond level, Erebus collapsed existence around him as the searing heat of the blade could be felt tantalisingly close to the outer void that followed him like an arms-length aura but was invisible to those who could not perceive divine and other worldly energies of that type. Disappearing into the world of void behind the veil of creation, the divine blade of energy sliced straight across the path where his head previously was and continued on, through what was left of the rubble below and into the ground leaving a white hot trail of fire that continuously burned anything it touched.

Near simultaneously whilst Erebus was slipping between realities, Ascendant had opened his arms up and swept off to the right of his attack vector, clasping the draconic man in his arms and then immediately changing course into a vertical climb on a ninety degree bearing, accelerating rapidly whilst clutching the draconic man securely, adjusting his altitude vector as he cleared the area, now curving away by a few more degrees as he flew upwards.

Five thousand meters-ten thousand meters-fifteen thousand meters-twenty thousand meters.

Ascendant came to a dead stop, still holding the draconic man close, he politely relaxed his grip but kept both hands onto him. Placing his right hand on his solar plexus, whilst the left was on his shoulder, Ascendant’s angelic healing flooded through the draconic man, repairing the minor scuffs and minor internal damage he had taken earlier and restoring what blood he had lost. Having touched him to heal him, Ascendant attempted to speak to the draconic man through his own soul, so that the voice felt as if it was coming from inside of him – now they could communicate.

“My friend….do not be alarmed, it is I – Ascendant. I could not understand you before, but I do speak ‘soul’ and now I have healed you, I know you much more and I can communicate with you through your own soul.” To Jordan the language was coming through in Draconic and anything Draconic would come back through to Ascendant in English. With a sense of urgency he continued, “time is short – we are losing. Your friend appears to be gone, I cannot see where he is or if he is even alive... I do not know. But I must now take a more firm approach to level the board once more” spoke Ascendant, releasing the draconic man from his grip. “I know you can fly, for your safety you must stay up here until it is done. I recommend staying in flight but do not remain static in case Erebus attempts to grab you” closed Ascendant.

With this, Ascendant’s body began to glow brighter, he looked upwards and thrusted off from their position up into the troposphere where he clenched his fists, driving his arms downwards and exploding forward into massively hypersonic speeds, glowing brighter with every second that passed. Igniting into a wider fireball for a mere handful of seconds, Ascendant cleared the thermosphere and into the exosphere where he slowed his ascent to become stationary.

The brilliant flex of the sun’s light illuminated the curvature of the earth below him. Ascendant allowed his head to roll back in an embrace as he clenched his fists and raised up his forearms to waist height, summoning more power. His body now one solid state being of pure divine light, with a roaring white fire of divine energy expanding several feet around him and continuing its growth. He tiled his head front and centre again and looked below at the earth.

Without hesitation, pure indomitable will of consummate strength spoke from within his own soul:
“I AM justice for the oppressed. I AM wrath to the enemies of The Almighty King of Kings and Lord of Lords – I AM the light of the truth for all people and the voice of righteousness – I AM, ASCENDANT”

Instantaneously, Ascendant blasted himself back down towards the earth at massively hypersonic speeds once more, an enormous pillar of white divine fire following in his trail without dispersing. Ascendant busted straight through earth’s atmospheric layers and extended out his arms in front of him, making fists with both of his hands.

Back on the streets of the Greater London area much further away from Central London, the media crews heard the huge thunderous rupture of the atmosphere being breached with a light as bright as the sun and a trail of fire following after it. Thinking it was some form of missile strike or something akin to a meteor, a mortal panic quickly swept the media crews as they scrambled over one another to try and look for something hard to take cover under. Soldiers stationed nearby had no warning prior of a ballistic missile strike and therefore were half stuck on whether to move or remain stationary; their commanding officers quickly reaching for their radios for a situation report. Media helicopters hovering a few hundred feet above them seemingly rocked as the pilots wanted to bail but the media crews demanding they stay so they could keep broadcasting live to the world.

K R A K - K O O O O O M!!!!!!!!

An enormous bright light emitted from Central London with the pillar of bright white fire making ground impact and pushing itself outwards in a shockwave. The enormity of the fiery blast wave tore across the sky itself, have a much wider clearing affect in the skies by removing the smog and smoke and dust and fog of death which had intermingled in a cloud of unceasing terror over London. The blast wave of holy light and fire from the impact stretching out as far as Camden Town to the north, Southwark to the east, Lambeth to the south and Hammersmith & Fulham to the west as it fizzled and sparked before its energy transfer ignoted this area in fierce holy fire, with its outreaches fizzling and sparking back through the layers of creation itself, disappearing from mortal sight.

Ascendant had impacted just south of Westminster, across the River Thames at Waterloo Station. Demonic manifestations of people’s fears that had been stored as a repository managed to regroup and some to newly emerge from the Iron Pit to spread out again in their thousands across Central London, were instantly destroyed within the blast wave of judgement in holy fire. The thunderous impact seemed to echo on for an eternity, reverberating across the sky and through the layers of the earth itself.

From within the enormous crater that Ascendant had just turned the area around Waterloo Station into, Ascendant levitated upwards with his divine white fiery energy roaring from within him and all around him. He was quick to observe the blast wave had completely cleared the battlefield, the corrupting force of the black void he could no longer see either, having been cleansed also – all except for one place – and that was the epicentre of the problem which he had seen prior to being engaged by Erebus - it was as if a dome of some form had materialised and all around it had been cleansed by holy fire. He continued to elevate himself higher until he was roughly one hundred feet in the air and adopted a combat position ready for a counterattack from this epicentre of the invasion or for Erebus to appear also. He couldn’t be sure which would arrive first...

Using his Soul Sense, he scanned for the draconic man who’s name he didn’t exactly have much of an occasion to ask for previously, and saw him handling himself just fine a few thousand feet above his position having steered clear of the blast wave. Ascendant re-focused his glance across the water at the epicentre of the problem, charged divine celestial energy in his eyes and in his hands and began his cautious cruise through the air across the water towards the root cause….

Deimos’s ears rang so badly so he could only hear murmurs of Jordan’s voice as he stared into the bleeding stars as they collapsed from the sky as his magic began to escape his control, scattering into the heavens and moving stars and moon alike. It was his one focus at the moment, the moon staring at him like a window into the past. Visions from the egg, thoughts implanted by a brooding mother dragon whispering knowledge to further aide their babies upon hatching and his first implanted thought was this. The bejeweled night sky and the sigil of their great house, the moon.

Just as soon as he feels right enough to even attempt any motion he is ripped from this world, vision eaten by the black void as it pulls him in. He supposed this was death, oh wait no… this was worse. He didn’t feel the pain anymore, but recognizing that he was not dead made him realize something larger and more eldritch was responsible. And by god did he despise the eldritch. He couldn't help but breathe an unapproving groan under his breath as the many colors of decay swirled even before the voice of the void called him.

All he could think about is how awful this thing was, the magic all these worlds held, squashed in this creature’s reign of mass terror, is own magics shying away from it. “I wouldn’t call this ‘stepping into the void.’ more like being hurled through it.” He grumbles, contemplating his own end. On one hand, the fact he was here probably meant in either scenario he was not going to make it out of this alive or at the very least in the condition he liked. In his mind this was not an offer of life, but a hostage negotiation in which the world he loved was the hostage.

“I need for nothing you can offer me. All I wish is to sleep in peace without you.” Deimos rolls his eyes, throwing caution to the wind. His tone suggested he was speaking to simply nothingness. This thing wanted him to do his bidding to destroy his world, he’d be damned if he allowed that without at least a taunt. He might be as good as dead, but a dragon never died without one last angry roar… just in Deimos’s case it was him collecting his strength to raise his hand, folding it into an incredibly rude gesture involving his middle finger and a strained laugh between a smile that screamed for an end. “Go back to your dark hole, Whatever the flying fuck you are, and find some other sorry sucker to take your deal.”

Just then his lungs catch on some kind of fluid as he spits it into the mask’s face with spite. Diseased blood drops out into the void, but it just pushes the point that Deimos was having approximately none of this on what he would assume was the last moment he’d be alive. It wasn’t the end of fire and blood any self-respecting dragon deserved, but it was a good consolation prize.

Jordan didn’t really know what happened next. One minute he was standing, staring at the void which dragged Deimos down. Next thing he knew he was wrenched from the spot, high above he assumed because the earth stretched out under him like a massive plain. The vagaries of cities visible but that was about it. Did the angel guy really just fly him all of the way up here? His body felt warm, a cold kind of warm that made his insides boiling. How high was he? Each gulp of breath felt a little difficult, like it just wouldn’t take to his chest.

A voice spoke within his mind, resonating and speaking as if he were...wait when did he speak draconic? His mind roiled with the concept, trying to pick through when he did that. Sounded like something Deimos would do, but he wasn’t Deimos. Wait did this guy think he was Deimos. He wasn’t as hot as Deimos.  Well,  that sounded like one of those opinion things but that was his opinion. Now he found his mind running, working over anything just to push away the pain of being what he thinks was in space. That did explain the cold/hot feeling he had around him?

”Wait...where am I?” he spoke barely able to breathe, though the words didn’t really stick to the near void of space. Leathery and scaly green wings snapped out from his back, flapping best they could to keep him from floating further out. How high was he? He usually didn’t fly that high, so it was one of those unknowns that he just didn’t think about. As the angel plummeted to earth he felt his skin burning, healing and burning. That was when he noted something else.

He was starting to fall.

Giving a turn he noticed his wings had refused to work. A primal fear wracking his mind as he realized he couldn’t fly. There was no oxygen, only the feeling of pain, fear and something else. Skin bubbling. Was his skin bubbling? Was he dying? Jordan didn’t know, all he did know was that he was way too far and the earth was too far. The energy tether between them was distant, close to fraying as if it would snap any second. He felt absolutely abandoned now. The blossom of light in the distance, bright enough for him to notice within his frenzied state.

There was only one thing he heard before he swore consciousness was ripped from him.

”I swear, the angels of this world are far too negligent,”

--


The entity looked down upon Deimos, eyes unseen within the mask that covered what could be assumed to be a face. That was followed a low chuckled that echoed through The Void. A kind of sound like an earthquake, shaking the nothingness around them.

”Sleep in peace? I doubt that,” He shook his head, cloak about his head flowing in a wind that did not blow. There seemed to be no reason for this laugh, yet it did persist anyhow. ”You mortals do amuse though. Always shouting about things you know nothing about. Yet something tells me you expect to die here. Well...who am I to disappoint?”

Blood and spittle drift through the void,  buoyant in the nothingness as if drifted closer to The beast and then fizzled away. Boiling before becoming like vapor that faded into nothing, as if it had never existed in the first place. A faint sizzling sound before nothing.  ”A shame, but I think I’ll be doing your world a favor here,” It raised a veiled hand, seeming to coalesce the outer darkness around it into a shroud and then a blade.

A wicked and sharp thing, jagged yet smooth. As if it were many blades and none of them, the form uncertain when perceived. The advantage of any weapon possible, manifested within the incomprehensible beings hand. ”I hope the next dream is better than this.”

So the blade swung. A supposed death no one could escape, and yet that didn’t happen.  Instead the sound of metal and something else clashing against a solid surface echoed out through The Void.

”Going a little too fast here?” What appeared before Deimos was what looked to be a child, human perhaps with shaggy sandy brown hair in a dark baggy hoodie, as well as what looked to be slightly worn jeans. He could easily be twelve or eleven, eyes a strange indigo color with a multitude of prismatic shades outlining  them. One hand raised with the baggy sleeve falling back and the blade held barely away with an energy radiating from it.

”What are you doing here? This one isn’t one of yours, I can see it!” A little more force into the blade, though it didn’t seem to push the child back much.

”He is now. I liked the fact he was willing to spit in your face, even if he didn’t know what that would cause. Mortals need a little more guts like that,” That was his response, an almost angelically sweet smile forming on his lips.

”That’s not how this game works! You can’t just change the rules when they suit you!” The Beast spat, not angry but irritated with the being settled before him. A wave of light, colored in many shades washed out over the void and forced it to step back. Gliding like a ghost across nothing until it was standing on the strange throne that rose from nowhere. Landing with a faint, yet audible sound.

”I didn’t. I just chose before you struck the final blow, just to see how angry it’d make you. ”

”Well, you’ve made one mistake. You’ve slighted me one too many times. I might once have tolerated that, but now things are different. I can’t have you getting in my way forever,” He said, breathing deep as if trying to control an all consuming anger.

”Is that a threat?” He sounded coy there.

”No, just a promise. I’ll remember this next you try to stop me,” There was a faint smile in the shadow of the mask.  ”Just so you know Deimos, When your world is on fire, sleep never peaceful and all you love in ruin perhaps you'll remember I offered salvation. That you spat in its face. Yet he disappeared all the same.

With that the kid turned to Deimos, considering his damaged state with a small frown. ”Not good. Can’t have a champion of mine looking like that.” So he snapped, releasing the merest sliver of power and closing the injuries that plagued Deimos. His body was restored, and that was all. There was something he couldn’t seem to touch, so he didn’t bring it up. ”Feel better?” he questioned, cocking his head to the side. He was sure of the answer however, so he spun around on one heel and walked forward a few steps before spinning back.

”Hi there Deimos.You might not know who I am and that’s fine, but I know plenty about you. You see, your potential is the kind of thing rarely seen in this or even most worlds.  So I’m here to offer you a more equitable deal than he ever would have offered you. ” He pr4essed a closed fist to his mouth, coughing as if preambling a speech.

”Your world is is danger, the kind of danger where it risks being utterly destroyed. All within your reality swallowed up whole, and that isn’t a good thing. ” He traced his index finger through the air, creating what looked to be a small display of many different colored spots like a night sky and then with a dash shattered it to pieces. Scattering the brief visage to The Void. ”Normally that’s par for course but your world still has too much life to call for that. So a little game between us has started. He gathers his champions to weaken and destroy this world, and I...well I try to pick people to protect it. That’s why I’m here, you’re one of those people. I want you to help me save your world, if you think it’s worth saving.”

He slammed the palms of his hand together, creating a resounding prismatic spark that shone through the void and created ripples. Changing it to something else. A place Deimos likely would remember, a place from his past where he felt the greatest warmth. A place deeply settled within the very core of his existence, a place that defined him as a person.

A familiar castle of spectral books, filled with warmth that was close to Deimos.  ”If you don’t want this gift, I’ll understand but I wouldn’t suggest it,” He offered,  drawing his hands apart as what looked to be a scintillating fragment of prismatic existence. ”This is a shard of  pure potential. Accept it and...you’ll gain the power you need. To save your loved ones, London mostly and maybe even your world eventually, ” he held the fragment up, offering it to Deimos and waiting to see if he would accept.

It would take whatever form best suited for the half dragon. For short while he would even gain the power to save London, but that was upto him. Savior or destroyer, that was the man now. Here in the his safest and closest place, he made  a choice that decided the sheer fate of the entire world.

What would he do?

---
The divine power scorched the earth around where it landed. Pushing back the liquid void, and  lighting up the sky.  Erebus watched silently, arms crossed over his chest as the light washed over his pitch black plate. ”Huh, maybe he has a little light after all. Still, gonna need more than that if he wants to stop me,” He noted casually,  seemingly rising through the shattered and ruined street as the liquid void slowly began to return to the point it was pushed away.

”Two dragons down, which leaves us with one angel,” Space warped around him and he appeared above the impact point, sitting in what seemed like mid air. A whistle echoed through his helmet, rising up to the angel. ”Down here big guy! I know we’re having fun here but you know this whole fighting back is pointless right? Like I was having fun letting you think otherwise but getting a little sad here, ”

Once against a blink and he was floating before Ascendant. ”Actually, pretty sure I’m not supposed to be even fighting you guys. Oh well, he can’t complain if I kill all the witnesses. I know you won’t follow along but that’s always fun,” Once again gone, standing in the center of the blast point as the liquid void continued to pour into the city.

”I know you’re not just gonna off yourself, so I guess keep struggling.” He drew upon the power within, the ultima that the body could use and augmented his body as well as powers to the max. Black, red and silver energy crackled around him in an ominous aura.  ”I can destroy the whole city, but…how about this and upper london? Let’s see if you can stop that.”

He snapped a finger, as a multitude of blades appeared in the sky over the city. A kind of blanketing cloud that seemed to black out what natural sky remained, scintillating and overwhelming darkness. ”Before you die, know a little despair angel,” He spoke with a laugh, as section by section the executioners blades began to rain down upon the city. With force greater than the greatest of weapons man could produce, contained through an unknown process and means to destroy only what the director desired. If they weren’t stopped London would be reduced to ash and ruin.

Ascendant focused on the corrupted dome of chaotic nightmares that was swirling and seemingly regathering its strength. He wasn’t about to let that happen since he had just wiped Central London entirely clear of the outpouring of corrupted entities and mortal nightmares manifested as a result of their human sin.

Oddly, he felt the urge to turn and look back to the impact site, like a force was directing him to turn around. That sickening feeling of a presence ungodly, unholy and altogether evil; had returned. ”Erebus”, spoke Ascendant in his mind with a tone of absolute disdain.

A whistle echoed across the open space between Ascendant and Erebus, “…Down here big guy! I know we’re having fun here but you know this whole fighting back is pointless right? Like I was having fun letting you think otherwise but getting a little sad here, ”

Already poised and in a fighting stance for battle as he levitated across back across the blasted and charred gap, the divine energy in Ascendant’s hands and eyes roared with confidence and a bright white brilliance as he slowly moved forward to engage Erebus. In the time it took a human eyes to blink, Erebus has sifted through the mortal reality and reappeared just in front of Ascendant. Undeterred, Ascendant kept his focus directly into the eyes of Erebus. A voice echoed again from within the pitch black helm of Erebus ”Actually, pretty sure I’m not supposed to be even fighting you guys. Oh well, he can’t complain if I kill all the witnesses. I know you won’t follow along but that’s always fun”, and then Erebus shifted out of reality and back to the centre of the impact point Ascendant had made a few minutes ago.

((OOC: Play this as you read on at approx. 3-4 words per second – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEUKnQQTbVQ ))

Erebus snapped a finger, as a multitude of blades appeared in the sky over the city with a thunder accompanying each of them as if to announce the coming otherworldly destruction. A kind of blanketing cloud that seemed to black out what natural sky remained, scintillating and overwhelming darkness. ”Before you die, know a little despair angel” spoke Erebus with a laugh, as section by section the executioners blades began to rain down upon the city. With force greater than the greatest of weapons man could produce, contained through an unknown process and means to destroy only what the director desired. If they weren’t stopped London would be reduced to ash and ruin.

Ascendant’s eyes flashed brightly again in the urgency fitting of the absolute disaster he now faced. He lifted off at hypersonic speed as a roaring torrent of holy fire towards the weaponised blades of mass destruction which were now raining down towards London from thousands of meters above, the likes of which the world had never seen. In the nanoseconds his angelic cognition was processing the events around him at, he would have to let off a deeper side of his battle power and risk it – he had been pushed into a corner and forced to make a knife-edged decision. Having already flown well above the entirety of London, he had a good idea of how much energy he was going to have to let off to stand any chance of resisting this city-wide onslaught. Furthermore, it wasn’t just the already destroyed Centre of London that was at risk – it was now all of London itself, and perhaps even further. All Ascendant knew was that wherever Erebus touched, turned into bleak nothingness and was eaten as a whole by the void of abyss that he brought with him. Ascendant had to assume this destruction would continue unabated if these blades impacted the ground…

He extended out both of his arms at shoulder height and began to furiously spin his body in an unrelenting cyclone, causing the torrent of holy fire that followed him to turn into a tornado of divine energy that began to expand all the way from his body down to the base on the ground. As he twisted his body at massively hypersonic speeds, he pushed himself further and further above Mach 100 as he let lose with massive blasts of concentrated white fiery celestial energy from both of his hands at the finger tips, and pushed it out at lightning speed across the entirety of London, giving his best calculation in the nanoseconds of time-space allotted to him by the circumstances in order to give his best ‘guesstimate’ as to how far the edge of London from his position, relative to the speed he was both spinning at and the speed of his blasts from his fingers (Distance = Speed x Time) – it would have to be enough, even if it wasn’t…but he didn’t want to think about the consequences if it wasn’t.

With the resulting output of divine energy and the speed with which it was rotating, an enormous hurricane wind picked up and travelled across the entire city from the forces being generated. The concentrated beams of white fiery energy had all but become a blur and seemingly merged into an enormous spinning shield-plate of bright divine fire that was igniting unrelentingly and roaring as it covered the sky across London. Deep inside the centre of the cyclone of holy fire, Ascendant concentrated further, utterly determined to do all he could do to save the people who were still fleeing via military evacuation from the outskirts of the Greater London area.

The military had lost control of the crowds which had now turned into stampedes, abandoning all civility to desperately get away. A mixture of fear and awe all too much for the normal human psyche to absorb, with no one being able to explain what they were seeing other than what looked like the end of the world to them. But it wouldn’t be, so long as Ascendant had any say in the matter – at least that is what he had told himself.

The impact of Erebus’s blades seemed to press down against the city-wide covering that Ascendant had made, the blades of mass destruction had not been destroyed on impact but instead were forcing their way forward with a weight that began to feel as if the entire world had been heaped onto Ascendant’s hands and shoulders. With an unrelenting pressure mounting, Ascendant knew there was quickly becoming only one way to stop this.

Having built enough momentum to maintain the cyclone of fire both around him, that had expanded outwardly approximately a hundred meters in diameter and with the accompanying fire that had formed a spinning shield over the entirety of London also, Ascendant brought his hands in, still emitting huge amounts od divine energy as he brought them in at shoulder height, with his palms facing upwards and with his fingers bent upwards to continue to further merge with the spinning shield of divine holy fire that he had created. Ascendant’s body was now glowing bright white hot with no distinguishable human features that could be seen due to the intensity of the light. The pressure from above became more and more intense, like a force of overwhelming hyper gravity reminiscent of cosmic phenomenon such as black holes and it pressed harder from above, compressing the shield of holy fire and pushing it down slightly forcing Ascendant to urgently brace as if he was just about to go into an overhead press.

((OOC: Play this as you read on at approx. 3-4 words per second – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTQozH5TF1A ))

Ascendant gritted his teeth under the pressure, but he remained undeterred as he began to vastly draw from within the divine power he had been blessed with, the cyclone of holy fire around him had now turned into a column of pure white light as his power expanded. The thunderous clash of two opposite systems of energy and lack thereof had already begun to make the earth itself shake violently beneath its circumference and rumble for many miles outward from the edges of London. Ascendant began to push upwards and push hard, his fingers now merging completely up to the knuckles his hands inside the shield of holy fire which had now merged as one constant output of solid light with the pillar that surrounded him to the base of the earth below.

The shield began to lift as Ascendant strained further, even now finding himself letting out surges of determined and angry groans – he would not be denied and he would sooner let this entire thing consume him, maybe even killing him in the process, before he let it make contact with the earth. He ignited his forces of flight as his arms reached their full extension, knowing that even a slight break in his concentration could very well mean he loses control of the earth-shattering forces being held up above him.

With the force of his flight thrust now giving him and the entirety of the shield and the attack above him some uplift he began to take the enormous consolidation of holy light and deep abyss into the sky and away from the city and most important of all, the earth itself. Gaining momentum now, Ascendant had cleared a further few thousand meters and it dawned on him that there was no-where safe on earth that he could let this loose. He would have to take it out of earth’s atmosphere and own it until it exploded. He knew that he had no choice but to detonate the shield of holy fire once he was clear because the weapons would otherwise come crashing back down to earth and do damage many magnitudes higher than they previously would have done.

Clearing the troposphere the city sized celestial energies ignited further with friction on earth’s atmosphere sending wild flares of their combustion across the planet’s atmosphere in all directions, easily being seen in across both Northern and Southern hemispheres and causing all kinds of wild, fantastic light shows but also some momentary and some lengthy disruptions to human communications that had a reliance on satellites, as Ascendant took the two colliding energies out of earth’s atmosphere; having to push himself even harder to achieve escape velocity carrying the weight of an abyss in the form of a great many blades of mass destruction which felt like it got heavier and heavier with every few seconds that passed.

The consolidated ball of diametrically opposing energies peaked outside the thermosphere as it entered the exosphere, Ascendant looked down at the earth as he came to the final moments in this exchange. With faith he would do all that was asked of him and with faith he would meet any end. His lips parted as he spoke with deep reverence and love for those he cherished the most, his loved ones .“For you, Jeni, my darling wife – and you, Elijah, my son… I love you”. Removing his gaze from the earth below and lifting his head up to the creation ending bomb he held above, he resolved with consummate strength in faith to now detonate these colliding energies of utter destruction as they moved towards the outskirts of the exosphere, the strain of the combined forces now pressing through and straining Ascendant through his hands, forearms, shoulders and spine.

The enormous pillar of light that was present with its base on the earth all the way up to Ascendant suddenly took off as it travelled upwards towards Ascendant as fast as the human eye could see. The pillar of light collided with Ascendant spreading outwards into the shield of holy light and along with the energy holding the blades of mass destruction from Erebus, travelled through the shield and detonated on contact with the blades of abyss, causing an immediate chain reaction, detonating with an explosion more powerful than the Tsar Bomba – something the inhabitants of the earth had not seen for many decades since the Soviet Union’s thermonuclear testing.

Millions of people now stood still all around the edges of London, across the UK and even more beyond the United Kingdom in other nations also, as they saw a type of second sun resonate and furiously blink as a result of the holy divine energy colliding with the forces of the abyss and exploding into a dispersing white fire that flickered as both opposing forces consumed one another in singular force of destruction never seen before by humanity.

09:30 (GMT+ 01:00) – Ajay and Jeni’s home; Snowdonia.

Jeni sat glued to the TV screen with her hands clutched together, it was the best she could hope for in order to see what the media crews had managed to capture. The live shots of the brilliant white light above the earth which could easily be seen were being aired whilst the reporters tried their best to describe what was going on. She remained motionless, unsure of what to do – What’s just happened to my husband?! Was everything now over??...What about my husband?! – question after question raced through her mind.

Her concentration was interrupted by the sound of smaller barefooted steps reaching the bottom of the stairs. She turned around and saw their seven-year-old son Elijah, with a head full of glorious bed hair, bright blue eyes and a handsome countenance for his age, all of which seemed mildly dampened due to the confused expression on his face as he then spoke…

“Mum…where’s Dad???”

He swore horrible beings beyond comprehension were always so long winded. He just stared into the void, eyes glazed over as he was fully set in his decision. At least he’d finally get to find out if the old proverbs about dead dragons still dreaming was true or not. “Surely it will be. Have fun on whatever your big stupid evil plan is.” He groans, closing his eyes and waiting for a death that never came.

He opens his eyes to find a child just casually deflecting this thing’s attack as if it were a game. Now he just wanted to be sick realizing the scale of just how bad of an idea getting snarky with things he did not understand probably was. It’s amazing what realizations one comes to when not dying is now an option on the table. Deimos is plagued with just one thought… Did he just swerve the consequences of his own actions? It was probably the most inappropriate time to do so, but he couldn’t help it. As the child and the beast argued, he burst out laughing. Laughter not of amusement, but more of a release of stress, nerves and pure confusion. He knew how to do nothing else at the moment but just crackle like some mad hen.

The ragged laughter only reduced to giggling and labored breath as this shadowy horror addressed him which he just rolled his head over to make eye contact. “Right, right, Salvation, sure. I’d do it again too.” He waves his hand before plopping it back down at his side and just staring into the ceiling, trying his best to compose himself and his many confused thoughts as this little boy mends his wounds.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I do feel better. What the hell is happening?” Deimos breathed as the last bit of his nervous giggle fit was leaving him. He sits up to have a real and proper look around now that he wasn’t clinging to life and sure as hell he was definitely not in London anymore. Hearing this child out he realizes he’s stumbled from one warlock deal right into another, however this one seemed a bit more appetizing than the doom and gloom the other guy was peddling. “I suppose that really is a problem. I do rather like this world. Jordan is in it. My parents are in it.” He reasoned as he realized the gravity of what exactly they were fighting with Erebus. Beforehand he had assumed Erebus was just a mad man with a bone to pick and incredibly ominous powers. If his job was to knock the knees out from under his world so that thing could eat it, then that meant this battle was not just for London.

Lost in his own mind, he comes back to reality as his home comes into view. He knew this place and always had longed for a return to it. The twilight castle, a giant marble fortress with almost every book imaginable lining its walls. The place was illuminated with magical flame that burned cool to keep the place at a nice ambient temperature and to keep the eternal night to just a bit dimmer than it would be if lit by just starlight. Around the shelves were occasional figurines of gold or silver, some were puzzle boxes but they were most definitely toys for a young dragon and in the center of the room was a small round pile of plush pillows, surrounded by candle light and sprinkled with small fragments of what looked to be a dull black metal. This was the nest he hatched in and the nursery he was meant to grow up in. All that was missing was the mother he was meant to have.

“Whoa, wait. Me? You picked me for this?” Deimos blinks. “I mean, I won’t turn you down but you have your pick of half dragons ever. Jordan, June, Niao, I think they’d all be way better choices than me. I’m just mage with a party trick of a dragon form. Don’t get me wrong, the world IS worth saving…” He then came to the realization Jordan had been left to deal with Erebus virtually by himself. Ascendent was more focused on Erebus than not leveling London and killing people in the wake of their little fight that was going absolutely nowhere other than further weakening the world for a gluttonous monster to come swallow up later. If he didn’t take this offer, it only hurled the world further into an apocalypse.

“I accept. I just hope I can do what you need me to do.”



XXXXX


Erebus watched. The holy flames and solid light spread across the horizon, like a membrane over the humans that ran like ants under threat of his attack. It was an unexpected feat of might, especially from the angel but he did so. Despite that all he could do was laugh, clapping mailed hands together in frantic mock applause. There was no anger behind that laughter, only a sheer amusement that belied something else. Even the brilliant explosion inn the atmosphere, like the death of a star.

”Okay, I’ll give you a little credit there. You managed to stop my attack, that’s worth complimenting. Even still, it was a little short sighted I bet, Afterall, now that you’re not here what are you gonna do about the second attack?” He mused, extending a hand outwards towards the heavens as that black void dripped from his form like a torrent. Rapidly escalating into the sky, further and further until it looked like nothing more than massive black clouds looming over the city. Undulating darkness that rapidly spread across the city, taking the place of the mass of blades formed from pure energy.

”I suppose you should die grateful, knowing you matched the merest fragment of my efforts,”

XXXXX

Just as the sun threatens over the horizon, the moon stands her ground, growing fiercer and more vibrant, as if on fire with white flame of the cosmos. The stars in the sky only shift ever so slightly, making way for their king as he descends the clouds in essential invisibility as the night sky reflects along the bottoms of his massive wings. Nonetheless, the almost impossible to spot dragon was out of the sky in an instant, stardust funneling down into the rooftops into the form of a winged man with a crimson warhammer of dragon bone. Deimos’s face lacked the innocence of youth and seemed a bit more touched by the draconic, a crown of horns interlaced with threads of silver and gold with ivory beading and glass, a woven crown fit for the great Tyr (Draconic for ‘king’) to be.

With a deep breath and a voice befitting the Tyr he growls, extending a hand, laced with strings of magic as he tore through the fabric of the universe and stitched it back together as he weaved spells with the skill of Arachne. Jordan clutched in his spare arm as he gently sets him down, a kind gift from a friend returned his lover to the safety of under his wing he supposed. “Erebus. You are done here.” He grumbles in a low tone, only ringing out to be overheard from the crowds of screaming people on the outskirts. The stars grow brighter as the void begins to be filled with stardust, condensing and heating to form new stars in hues of every color. It was so bright it almost didn’t even seem like the night sky anymore, more like an astral lights show.

A massive wing extends, at least 40 feet from his spine to wingtip, 80 from one wing to the other spreads out and above the dragon king spreads the outline of star-swirled wing membranes as the rain of void drips down upon it like a giant umbrella, while the astral wing seemed to bear no damage, the kings physical one saw blood and holes bore through it , but his face conveyed no pain as stardust only served to eat the void like ants on a discarded crust of bread. The stars consumed then shot up to the sky like reverse asteroids, filling the space then taking it elsewhere.

With a flick of his wing, the protective starry sky receded into the actual, much more vibrant sky, free of void as the glimmered with magic and rage as the air around the dragon king crackles as he stares down Erebus. His draconic booms with a lower tone that commands authority as he pulls the warhammer from his back. “Stay and fight, or leave and live. I care not what you choose, Just tell your master I regret nothing.” With that he clenches his fist as the stars shift and settle, some spare dust shimmering down to the city. Deimos shifts as a deck box full of cards comes into view as a tarot card slips from the deck and displays its face, The Tower Reversed ,a card representing a restructuring or a rebuilding of sorts. As if on cue a clock-like ring with strange sigils to denote time expands from around the Tyr’s feet as the song of time rewinds itself, settling buildings back up from the rubble and dust. Meanwhile another spell was being concocted. While not as powerful as the one currently rebuilding London just as it was that morning, it would at least help cure some amount of the despair caused. A mass revivify spell, it worked to revive the dead, but it was far from foolproof as Deimos was no cleric. Rather than the several millions who lay dead in the streets, the death toll would now only be paid by 50% of London’s population, rather than the near desolation it was surely experiencing. Sadly for those who could not be saved, their vessels fell lost beneath London as it restructured and lay virtually untouched as the magic faded from the king of days to come.

His last bit of time was spent tending to Jordan, his hands glimmering ever brighter with the stars, slicing through magic resistance to push life into him. “Hey, come on now, You can’t leave me here like this. You’re supposed to be the tougher one.” His voice begins to grow youthful again as the appearance of the battle hardened Tyr is replaced by the mage adept. The magical healing weakens as he can only hope it is enough. "I-I thought I was dead." Tears fall down the half dragons face as he pulls Jordan in closer, just desperate for some grounding. This was just too much for him.

As far as Erebus was concerned he had wonder. The angel was no longer in sight, having blown himself to oblivion with a mixture of existential and void explosions he was sure ripped him to apart on even the spiritual level. That alone was enough to put a smile on his face, even if his helm was covering it up. Shadows of void hovered over the city, threatening all below with their final rest. Transition into a blissful nothing where even their fears would fade into nothing. ”There we go, no witnesses. Just like I said,” He mused to himself,  snapping as the clouds would open and release their payload to annihilate the entire city. Reduce it to nothing more than a massive hole within the earth. Perhaps level the countryside with magma too.

Now that would be nice.

At least he thought so before something changed, an opening within existence that heralded a sensation he did not like. A dragon crowned with fine metals and gems emerged from that rip, resplendent with a power that made his very core shudder. The fragment within him sang the danger of this dragon, despite that he was curious what that meant. Was he an actual threat? Stars began to form within the void above, rapidly forming existences that filled out the voids. Unable to outdo the creation that was filling them, before nullifying a massive amount of power he had put into them.

”An actual contestant came now. Now that’s weird, ” Erebus noted, a booming voice reverberating from the draconic being that had arrived. No, it wouldn’t be right to call him a mere dragon. This was something more than that, a presence that seemed to exude from one spot and spread throughout the entire city.  It produced an almost primordial feeling within him, as if he were dealing with something simply beyond any other puny being before in this world. Anything his vessel had ever clashed with before.  With that came a kind of excitement he had not felt for a long time, not since he last clashed with a powerful child of balance.

Finally this would be fun.

”Finally! A real fight worth having! Lets rip this planet asunder, smash the stars and destroy the whole goddamn Milky Way!” He proclaimed, a mad excitement bubbling up within his voice as the image brewed within his mind. This dragon was one of them. A being with power meant to clash with his own, bubbling with that limitless kind of potential that only chosen by him. The large blade within his hand began pulsing with the same energy he had nearly destroyed the entire city with. Another fight was close, and humanity was not ready for the results of that.

”Erebus, you’ve done enough,” A sharp pain pierced through his chest along with the nearly see through blade as he fell to his knees. Grasping at his chest; the source of the pain as blade spurted from his mouth. How had something managed to slip past his perceptions and even struck him? Despite that pain he realized nothing had broken through his armor, eyes turning to the woman in pointed mask and strange katana in hand. Her armor was lighter, yet made from plated black metal with a skirt that flowed around the metal leggings. ”You were told to observe not to fight, and yet here you are breaking the rules. It seems I’ll have to take your place for a while,”

His voice raised to speak, but not quickly enough as she turned to slice a hole within the air. A black portal which sucked Erebus in. ”The second champion has been chosen. We don’t have time to play around with victories that don’t matter.  The time of this worlds testing has yet to come. For now The Lord of Pain can deal with this angel,” She stepped through the portal, seemingly disappearing with Erebus.  Leaving London for now safe from the Mad Ti’taens rampaging.

--

Jordan didn’t remember what happened after passing out. There was pain, fear even but beyond that he didn’t know what had happened. Next thing he knew he felt a sort of warmth against his body. That kind of comforting sensation that for the first few seconds made him feel like he was in no danger at all. That oif course quickly faded when he remembered he was also suffocating in the middle of space.  

Green eyes snapped open, looking up to the older guy that was carrying him around.  There was something familiar about him that kept him from struggling, even when he spoke outloud and proclaimed that Erebus should leave but he couldn’t tell if that was what he did.  The massive displays of magic that forced the city to come back together,  washing over himself as well as the many fragments of building that were and weren’t destroyed within the liquid void.

Whatever magic  had been used also seemed to blast away the liquid void, revealing unblemished streets below. He didn’t know what was happening, but this person was just amazing. What he beheld was the kind of magic he only read about in stories, mostly the ones his parents told him about ancient magic. Times when gods walked with mortals and showed their powers freely.  Today was an example of one of those stories.

As the two of them landed, he could feel more energy just washing into him.  All of the injuries he sustained rapidly began closing up, the pain he felt even fading away into nothing. Whatever magic was being used on him kicked even his naturally quick healing factor into overdrive. Eventually he was as good as new, looking down at his hands and then the large man who had been carrying him. It was Deimos now.

He wrapped his arms around Jordan, wrapping him into a tight hug. ”You’re plenty strong Deimos. Sorry for making you worry though,” He wrapped the man into a tight hug, feeling him shake with what he assumed were tears. ”Sorry for not being able to save you too. I thought you were too...it was terrifying honestly,” He held himself together the best he could,  rubbing Deimos’ back like that would do something.

He chewed on his lower lip, trying to keep them from quivering. ”Wanna leave this place? I think we did enough. I don’t want to see you get in that much danger ever again,” He let the wings slip through his ruined shirt, flaring out as if ready to take flight any seconds now. ”I think I got my ass kicked enough for both of us anyway.”