Heroes of Darkness 11
To include a few elements of the plot of the original version of this story which I felt like using, I decided to write another chapter myself. The battle between Necro and the Emperor is co-written by ZT. Enjoy!
Before the dagger could enter its target, the emperor dodged the attack, retaliating with a sword swing. The wood woad that was cast took the hit, and the skeleton mage threw bolts of fire at the emperor.
The Emperor blasted the wood woad with a sphere of light, hurting it. Necrosabor threw a ball of ethereal energy at the emperor, the spell forming into a ton of demons as it made contact, eating through his defenses.
"I shall rid the Kingdom of your foul prescence!" shouted the emperor, counterattacking with a beam of light and recoiling slightly when the beam failed to slow the tide of demons down significantly. Necrosabor started tapping his life, sending swarms of demons after the emperor. Thousands of demons began clawing and biting at the emperor, but before they could overwhelm him, he blasts them into nothing with a single light blast, dismantling necrosabor's wood woad at the same time.
"I had not realised dark beings as powerful as this still existed in this world", said the Emperor, twisting something on a silver band around his wrist. "The Silver Lords must be alerted"
The emperor leapt at Necrosabor, slashing at the necromancer with brutal sword attacks, but Necrosabor was prepared, magically switching his equipment to an entirely new set. "You may have got past my minions, but I won't go so easily!" He took on a fighting stance, ready for round 2. "By the time these "Silver Lords" get here, it'll be too late"
The emperor swung his sword, but Necrosabor parried the attack, following up with a riposte. Necro followed that up with a feint, tricking the emperor into blocking. The emperor saw through the attempt, firing a blast of light and destroying Necrosabor's skeletal mage, which was throwing fire bolts at the emperor all this time while he was engaging the close combat.
Necrosabor fired off a static blast at the emperor's head, flinching him. Before the Emperor could react, a color spray spell blinded him, followed with a pommel strike, bash, stomp combination, each attack leaving its mark.
The emperor's vision cleared, only to have dirt thrown in his eyes, blinding him yet again. "Cowardly fiend!" he shouted, slashing at empty air in response, leaving him open to the cleaving attack coming his way. He narrowly dodged the attack, but Necrosabor was fast, following this with an improvised chain of stomp, kick, riposte, jab, bash, kick, pommel strike, knocking the Emperor to the ground.
The emperor got back up and immediately unleashed a blast of radiant energy, destroying the vampire which Necro controlled to protect him at the last second. Necro cast a spell of harm, opening a giant gash in the emperor's chest, stabbing his sword through before ripping it out of him, blood spreading across the floor as the Emperor collapsed.
Necrosabor turned sheathed his sword, beginning to walk for the exit, before a movement caught the corner of his eye and he spun round. Cables and tubes rose up from the floor, connecting into the Emperor as he struggled to his knees. Necrosabor took his sword and lunged at the man, trying to finish the job, but a mass of cables lashed out at him. Necrosabor ducked, weaved and cut his way around and through the onslaught, but one of the cables slipped past his defences and almost caught him off guard; he dodged the attack but barely, and he had been forced to put some distance between himself and the barely-alive Emperor to do it. Before the mage could catch his breath, red panels and lines lit up across the room, the heavy doors slamming shut as five silvery circles lit up on the floor.
A spectral hand shot from nowhere, grabbing Necrosabor by the head and harshly yanking him across the room, his sword clattering to the ground as the Emperor's eyes lit up a bright ghostly blue. Bands of light appeared around Necrosabor's wrists and ankles and several cables latched onto him, pulses of light travelling along them.
"Struggle all you want, it won't help", said the emperor. "I shall purge the darkness from your body and destroy your very essence!"
Necrosabor could feel his body breaking down as the Emperor's incandescent energy was forced into him. Focussing all he had into one arm he managed to drag the shackled limb to face his fallen sword. A skeletal tendril of magical energy whipped out from his hand, ensnaring the blade. As the cables lashed out to restrict his right hand, the tendril swung round behind him and slashed through the shackle on his left. The Emperor fired another blast of light, sending the blade flying to the other end of the room, but Necrosabor turned his hand and blasted the emperor with a fireball before he could react. The Emperor cried out as the flames engulfed him, releasing Necrosabor from his ethereal shackles. The emperor released a cloud of incandescent mist from his body, quelling the flames only to see Necrosabor, having retrieved his sword, slash through first the mass of cables in front of him, then the Emperor himself.
The body of the Emperor was engulfed entirely by the remaining cables, sparks flying in all directions. The red light across the floor and walls flickered as a gigantic, final beam of light projected from the Emperor's corpse. Necrosabor narrowly dodged the attack as it tore through the throne room, destroying the mighty reinforced doors.
As the beam died down, Necrosabor weighed his options. No-one could have missed that, and those silver circles were glowing brighter now in what was unmistakably a collection of teleportation wards. He was still worn out with his battle with the Emperor, so he decided to teleport back to a waypoint he had set up miles away. Either way, he had accomplished his goal.
The Emperor was dead. The empire of light, leaderless…
"Agents of the Dawn, Eighth Division assembled"
The large group of assembled beings stood, heads bowed, as the Commander observed. Amongst the assembled group stood Takanuva, Siegfried, the White Lucario, Megaman, Ozymandias, Baxter Stockman, Buzz Lightyear, Bugs Bunny, Yusuke Urameshi, Danny Phantom, the Joker and the Medic. In addition, the group was joined by two armoured warriors, one covered in ornate armour with a helm resembling a lion, a long spear in one hand; the other a huge figure at least twice the height of a normal man in golden armour resembling a grotesque obese figure and wielding an enormous hammer. These were Dragonslayer Ornstein and Executioner Smough, two displaced relics of a forgotten kingdom called Lordran.
Beside them stood a hooded figure in a white cloak and bodysuit with a crescent moon insignia - a vigilante known as Moon Knight who was known to be somewhat... unstable. On their other side was a bespectacled teenage boy, also dressed in white - a recent recruit by the name of Uryu Ishida - and a red Mobian Echidna with large spiked fists known as Knuckles.
Reading the auras of the crowd behind him, the White Lucario sensed forty-seven amassed beings, plus the commander and a few underlings in the corridors outside the chamber. Missing from the usual total of fifty were Nemesis and Doctor Light, along with that other new recuit...
"No doubt you all know why I have summoned you", said the commander. "This resistance has been fast growing in power. If left unchecked it will regroup and attack".
"With all due respect, Commander, this incident is out of your hands", said a voice that implied no such respect as five beings marched into the room. Though their forms varied considerably, one thing they all had in common was a silver uniform.
The five Silver Lords had arrived.
"Out of my hands?!" the commander seethed. "On whose authority?"
"Only the Emperor of Light himself", said the leader sarcastically.
"There has been an attempt on his life by the being known as Necrosabor", explained another Silver Lord completely covered by silver armour, only her voice revealing anything about her identity. "Thankfully we were able to thwart this attack..."
"...but it begs the question of what the Agents of the Dawn were doing to let such a dangerous criminal slip through their grasp", finished the leader.
The commander paled. How the Undead Sword had reached the Emperor was a mystery, but now that he had, things had just become far more serious...
"The vessel is another worrying addition", said another Silver Lord. "It implies Starfleet is ready to rebel against the Kingdom, unless this ship is merely a deserter. We will meet with their top officials and inform them that if they do not wish to face annihilation they will hand over all dark fugitives"
"I shall leave the diplomacy to you, and despatch a team immediately", muttered the Commander.
"See that you do", said the leader of the Silver Lords. "In fact, perhaps you should call the First to Seventh Divisions back to the homeworld while you're at it..."
"I-I assure you, that would be quite unnecessary", stuttered the commander.
"I should hope so", said the leader of the Silver Lords. "In any case, see that none of them escape..."
As the Silver Guardians left, the commander spoke again to the assembled Seventh Division. "You have your orders? Then move out!"
His tone was normal, but any decent Aura reader could sense the panic.
The commander was more terrified of the Silver Guardians right now than anything the dark alliance could throw at them.
"Should we inform him that Necrosabor succeeded in murdering one of the Emperor's clone doubles?" said one of the Silver Lords once they were out of range of the room.
"Explaining such things to the lowly Agents would only complicate matters", murmured the leader.
I'll leave the identities of the Silver Lords up to later writers, along with that other missing new Agents of the Dawn recruit.