i am the shadow, the shadow is me-
They enter in a flurry of motion, her two Bronzor spilling out of their Pokeballs and bending the metal doors open with a simple Confusion. Her smile oozes with rancor for the man before her, shackled to a chair and the lone prisoner in the interrogation room. He eyes them through a façade of calmness as they stroll in, though his eyes positively emanate fear, the caged terrorr of a tiny animal cowering beneath the shadow of a larger predator - oh, she can smell it on him, black and thick. Jupiter bares her teeth and snarls out a vicious greeting of "Saturn. How nice of you to meet us here."
Saturn's pupils dilate, bit by bit, until they threaten to overwhelm the whites of his eyes. "What are you two doing?"
"You ratted us out, dear," she coos, walking around back and tilting his head up, caressing the soft of his throat. "Did you honestly think that it would go by without retaliation?"
He sees it at that moment, Jupiter's Skunktank plodding into the cell, licking its chops and spraying foul-smelling vapors into the air - the reek of death. She smiles without a trace of pity. "We'll see how well you enjoy being the rat now."
His screams still echo behind them after his blood has stopped dripping.
i am the one oathbound to thee
At the top of Mt. Coronet stands the most ancient graveyard known to time. Untouched, the winds cease to blow once they climb to the summit, the shrouds of mist lifting, the omnipresent chill dissipating and giving way to the shape of something infinitely darker, far wilder than anything darling nature could have dreamed up or formulated from years of evolution. Standing at the standstill, they set the last of their fallen quartet before them. Charon, glasses cracked, suit torn, bares his neck, the sacrificial bull. Commitment, the vow had said, the man had told them. Suffer now, and you shall inherit the earth when I return.
There is nothing she would not do for him, for Cyrus. In a flash, the teeth of Mars' Purugly are clamped fast around the old scientist's head, pausing to lick the shape of his bulging Adam's apple, forehead slick with sweat and fear.
"Any famous last words?" Jupiter teases. Charon chuckles as the canines dig into the flesh, drawing blood.
"Only this: may the sins of our father damn you forever and ever."
we are the serpent, we are the shrine
your holy water and blood to bind
come and take the world
take what is mine
Red spills along ancient cobbles, dipping into the seams and the grooves, pulling forth whispers of unimaginable power. The stones tremble, the pillars quake, the black-inked runes snap and hiss in silent agreement as the portal opens, a retch, a cough in the fabric of time and space.
They bathe in its foul ecstasy as the gateway widens, showing a darkness so bleak and vast that all the light shivers away from it, and from the door to another world emerges their leader, proud and stone-faced, eyes like hard chips of lapis lazuli, hands clenched at his sides.
"Cyrus," they both murmur, bowing. "Welcome back."
Their god places the tips of his fingers on their heads. "Rise, my children." They do, and out of the abyss dives a twisting, leering shape, grotesque with pincers and fangs and leathery wings black as night; Cyrus smiles, a momentary lull. "This world shall be ours, now."