So Near Yet So Far

Chapter 28: Clash of the Titans

(A/N: You have no idea HOW LONG I wanted to type those words.)

Summary: Two forces, one victor. A battle of the worlds and no one seems to notice.

By: Moiranne Rose

Thankfully Beta-ed by: ShadowNx

Dedicated to: Tay Min. Because one day, I'll find out who she is on .


Janis looked up from her table, meeting eyes with her Special Powers Class Teacher Aaron. He was a good teacher, if a bit boring at times. One such time was the presence. She tuned out his droning voice (something about mutual trust between Power Partners, that they needed to be cooperative yaddayaddayadda. Whatever.) and cast around the room for something more interesting to look at.

She settled on the window next to her. The sky wasn't particularly blue nor was it particularly overcast. A few pathetic off-white clouds above trees rapidly shedding leaves by the dozens, the otherwise quiet morning session interrupted by periodic honking and hollering from the street a floor below. Just like a regular Monday.

Clouds. Some days, they were lumpy and looked about to fall from the sky with their heavy gray weights, like the porridge sometimes served at school lunches. Some days, they were merely wisps, like mist that hadn't faded away. Some days, they were black, black like the chalkboard Aaron was drawing meaningless diagrams on, swirling maliciously. Some days, they weren't even there.

Today, she concluded, the clouds were...soft. Soft like fluffy marshmallows, though not as solid, soft like cotton wool, though not as dusty, they possessed the quality of being there, yet being translucent enough to show some part of the blue expanse of the sky.

What a wonderful day. If only school could just come to halt! She thought rebelliously, frown tugging at her lips.

Suddenly, as effectively as a slap to wake her from her reverie, an ironic flash of lightning came forth from the pitifully small clouds. Everyone in class, even Aaron, looked to the window in shock.

"The weather these days...It's as bipolar as a woman!" Aaron observed. The class laughed half-heartedly at his wisecrack and returned their attention to him. Janis just rolled her eyes and stubbornly continued to stare out of the window. The clouds swirled together liked they were being stirred with a giant spoon, constantly darkening as rain began to fall.

It happened so fast she could have convinced herself that she was dreaming.

She saw, in one cloud in the foreground, as it crumpled and tangled itself and whirled, it brought forth a face within it. Most of her childhood was spent looking for such in the clouds above, but an image had never been so clear and defined as this was. The face was not human, more resembling a fox, but it had such a human expression of rage, fear and pity that she was inclined to believe that it was not an ordinary animal. The features were feminine enough for her to conclude that the creature was female. The eyes blinked once, twice, staring right at her without any questioning looks, as if the fox-woman-animal-thing had always known her.

She blinked back, once, hard. And the image was gone.

I must be seeing things. She concluded as she shakily look back down at her notes. She couldn't concentrate for the rest of the lesson and passed it off as fatigue.


Battles in most dramas were made out to be epic battles with slow-motion computer graphics, blood, carnage and poetic, no-sound dying scenes. The actual thing was dirtier, grimier and far, far more real. There was blood, but it wasn't just red like rubies and roses, wasn't just coloured liquid spattering the ground in a sporadic manner. The blood ran from wounds (of both dead and still alive) and gathered dust as it flowed out. The carnage was gory, blackened bodies (from fireballs casted by both the spell weavers of the Forgottens and reciprocated by the witches and hags of Lucifer), corpses with spears, swords and other weapons stabbed fatally through them, the fallen missing limbs and faces painted with stark whiteness of shock and death.

The plains shook with the savage war-cries and trembled with the beats of feet, paw and hoof.

"Where's General Haylen?" Geneva shouted to whoever could hear, over the din of the battle. Her cry went unheard by all but a flag-bearer. The flag was splattered with evidence of a fight, and, from the look of it, the original bearer had fallen in the hands of the enemy.

"Yes Madam?"

Taking a deep shaky breath and trying to ignore the sharp pain that flared every time she moved her left leg, her voice rasped as it tried to get past the dryness of her throat.

"General Haylen. Where is she?"

The flag-bearer's face betrayed the dismal truth.

"Well...Madam...uhh...she...they...Lucifer..." He stumbled over his words. She turned away quickly, heaving a deep, rattling breath that struggled through her bruised chest. She looked up at the unforgivable sky, the sunset bleeding colours from the horizon and liberally splashing reds and purples and oranges all over the blue. Was Haylen up there? She wondered.

Turning back to the situation at hand, she almost didn't want to look. Geneva gulped and tried not to count the rest of casualties they had suffered.


Lyra and Will were walking. It was like a dark tunnel, with no other way but forwards.

"Is that a light?"

"A trick of the dark I think. I can't see it."

They kept walking.


Lucifer smiled. A huge grin that stretched from ear to ear giving him a strange jack-o-lantern look that was not particularly flattering. The army before him fell like dominoes as his opponent's dogged perseverance was turned, brutally, against them. They didn't know when to give up, and Lucifer sure as hell wasn't going to tell them to. They were like the biggest, fattest candle, but even that much wax can be used up, and the flame would slowly, but surely, die.

The sound of thunderous footsteps grew nearer. And nearer. And nearer. So close that the tent almost collapsed by the might of them.

"Sir." The hulk of the Minotaur-General reared up and saluted him with one huge arm.

"At ease. What is the news from the front?"

"Sir, the enemies are falling like dominoes."

"Anything else to add?" Lucifer's skill at reading expressions were unmatched. The slight upturned, sausage-like lips of the monstrous figure spoke volumes of the Minotaur's confidence.

"I do not want to appear complacent, but I do believe that in the next hour or so, the enemy will fall and they will submit to your rule."


Lucifer smirked.

"That is very good to know. You are dismissed General."

"As you please, Sir." The minotaur saluted him and bounded off back into the flurry of swords, claws and destruction.

Now, Lucifer mused, not even those blasted "Parents of the World", those children, can save them.

"Enoch!"

Metatron wearily appeared at the tent flaps and leaned in.

"Yes, Lucifer."

"It is time to perform your assigned task, to prove your usefulness to my cause. I expect you will take this opportunity with eager hands?"

Metatron let out a barely perceptible sigh.

"Yes, Lucifer."


"Will?"

"Yeah?"

"Will we get out of here alive?"

"Shush. Don't think that! We'll be out of here in no time."

"Okay Will."

They lapsed into silence.

"Hey, Lyra?"

"Yes?"

"I swear that's a light over there. It's getting bigger."

"Where?"

He lifted her finger to point, but then realised she wouldn't be able to see it in the gloom.

"Straight ahead. About the size of a coin."

"Why can't I-"

"Just keep walking forward, it's right there."

"Okay Will." Her grip on his hand grew tighter as they continued down the unmarked path to their destination.


Pantalaimon woke from his half-sleep, eyes snapping open and a smile slowly growing on his face.

"Kirjava?"

The sleeping cat-daemon next to him opened an eye.

"What Pan? You just woke me from the nicest dream..."

"Was it about Will?"

"Well...yes. About him coming back and seeing some light somewhere."

"That's like my dream! Except mine was about Lyra..."

"D'you think it's true? Like they're coming back now?" Kirjava's voice rose from her initial sleepy tones to the stronger, hopeful one now.

Pantalaimon grinned, a funny expression found on a pine marten's face.

"I think it might just be so."


A/N: Finally done!

It's been such a wait, I know. I've really been very busy with school and I know most of you want my head now because this is so overdue! In my next escapade in this fandom, I'll try and get the chapters done before I start posting them up. That way, I think I'll get these to you guys faster.

Love and Cookies,

MR