Defiance: Birth of the Renegades

Chapter 51

Descent Part One: Bondage

A/N We're almost done now, this is one of the last chapters in my outline… I've been sick -I still am- but that's no excuse for lack of updates.

Magus, I don't mind the questions, however, in the future could you please e-mail or PM them to me? There are rules against answering reviewer responses in the story. I don't want some overzealous moderator to delete " Defiance" because I'm answering you in this format. As for your query… I don't think Yashin is that practical. Given a free head he'd probably get caught teleporting again.

'Fire crowned the streets. Black demons crept from the shadows and ignored natural bonds as they ran too and fro to prepare the bloody crown. Craft of corpses, embedded with bone, it was laid upon the broken Stair. And so He came, out of Suffering and Dark, He came, and placed the crown of Anarchy upon his own mad head.

And angels, all impassive, looked upon the fall of Silver, the fall of light, and did not grieve as they decreed.

"This end has come, born of Mortal sin."

Quote from "Fall of Civilization", a historical document written by the late storyteller, Kerin Halfblood. Taken from the Cruxis Archive of Forbidden Lore.

It was a strange conclusion for a half month's journey. Needing a vacation, everyone seeing that she had needed one, Rene had been given leave. While unable to totally shirk her duties, the peaceful journey to the city of Silvaria had done something to sooth her nerves. The few false Desians in her company -those possessed of the most business sense- and Subcommander Bryan had made up her escort.

On that, Rene and Yuan had disagreed. First she had spent half a day to persuaded him not to send half the base's best soldiers with her, in response to his defeat he had coolly deflected her arguments for taking Vryce with her instead of Bryan.

Thinking of Bryan, she was pleased that he hadn't come. Happy that he wasn't here to see this.

Stone could burn, if heated enough. Remembering that, as well as all her old lessons, she lifted a hand, and summoned flame. It leapt around her fingers, slithering like malovent snakes; the lines of fire came to her hand, and then surged from her palms. A crimson tide slammed into the shield of stone and battered it down. Molten rock, shards of earth, flew back towards the half elf who'd dared summoned an earthen shield against her. Wincing, more from her own fatigue than from the screams of the Desian pinned under a sheet of molten earth, she whirled. Banishing the fires with a thought, she reached over her shoulder and freed her bow from the straps over her back.

"Just an innocent little shopping trip, eh Bryan?"

"Who said that we needed to go to Silvaria for supplies?" The adolescent snapped, his voice breaking and twisting into an inelegant squeak as adult baritone and childish soprano melded. Holding his short sword in one hand, the package of anti-venom tonics and healing gels tucked under shoulder of the free arm.

"That would be Yuan." The green haired half elf snapped.

"Who said we were straining the economy of that stupid sea side town of…" Bryan's eyes shot to a nearby alley. Before Rene could turn he dropped the packets of medicine and drew his throwing knife. "Bloody Hell. Down!"

Rene ducked, and instinct told her to roll away from the shadow that blotted out the light around her. There was a scream of something cutting through the air where she'd been and from the corner of her eye she saw something green stagger back.

"What the hell?" Picking herself up from the earth, Rene tossed her head back so that her hair fell away from her eyes. She stared, and her eyes went wide as she registered the... thing before her. It was green and yellow, the colors of rot and decay. Limbs too long to belong to a human, yet jointed and ending in something too akin to hands to be called anything else. The creature reached for them both with a weird jibbering howl rumbled out from it's chest. Bony protrusions that could have once been nails gleamed like talons in the day light.

And it was oblivious to the knife blade that was imbedded into its head. Oblivious to a mortal wound that would have slain a man, or a monster...

"Back up!" Rene snarled. Then reaching down she stroked the earth. In response to her touch fire spewed between the cracks in the pavement, licked through the lines of the cobblestones, than she and the monster were lost in an upwelling of earth and flame. A few moments passed, a few seconds in which the younger half elf could faintly register the sounds of those around him. Humans screaming, deawn, deasi-erfn... Archaic words, ancient words for demon, fire bearing demons. Bells rang, the guard would be summoned, the streets would soon be dangerous.

Silvaria was an old city, it's people cherished the fact that it was the heart of Asguardian... and Sylvarant's civilization. And unannounced, unwarned, it seemed as if the black spear of the Desians, the real Desians had been sent to rend that civilization to nothing. Tearing his gaze away from the blaze Rene had summoned, Bryan cursed softly as he realized why the light seemed to dim. Smoke, bloomed from the gathering ruin of the far side of the city.

"Rene, is it dead yet? We need to leave, now!"

The fires that the Second had summoned, shivered, and then went out. Unhurt, unburnt, Rene stood, a faint red aura hung about her. Then with a slowness that made Bryan want to scream, she staggered to her feet, the red light dimmed then was gone.

Pale, shaking, Rene opened eyes that she had closed. Whether to blot out the sight of the fires she had summoned, or the creature's final death throws as it cooked alive... Bryan shuddered at the thought, and once again thanked whatever real gods there were that he had not inherited such powers. That such responsibility, such duty, wasn't his.

"We've got to go, Rene. Desians."

The last word was met with a hissed curse. Shaking off her reeve of hatred, she meet his gaze and managed a curt nodded.

The fire in her eyes, the hate in their depths, it made the fire she had summoned -fires that had blackened stone and left her foe little more than ashes- seem as nothing.

X

Blades out, kill all the tainted that you find.

Simplicity incarnate, yet difficulty due to the tenacity of the tainted. The audacity of the fleeing to evade, to scatter… Still, purity is the easiest path due to the unresisting trail cut from the slaying of conscious. Unresisting is the path set for an arrow, for there is a hollow line already carved. It is a crimson tunnel that leads unerringly to the steel's final destination.

From below, surging out of the darkness, came an army. Scattered by hate, by battle lust, they killed indiscriminately. They killed the tainted and untainted with impunity.

Having no orders on what to do with this situation they merely applied their previous orders to the current scenario. After all, the word of the Lord of Light could never be wrong, no matter how it was applied.

Behind them they left a trail of feathers, a rain of feathers, to spiral down from heaven and land in ever widening pools of crimson.

X

"You did what?" Yuan screamed, his poise of control, indifference, and his hard learned facade of servitude -lessons which Vryce, once an aide for some minor Lord, had been drilling into his head- abandoned.

"The people of Silvaria are impious." The Lord of Light said, no pronounced. "They've turned their backs to the Church, so the Church and its protections will turn from them."

"You swore..." Kratos rumbled, fire flashed in those abyss eyes. "You swore to spare the populace, you gave me leave to arrange a political assassination so that the church leaders would gain absolute authority..."

Shaking with fury, both at Yggdrasil's indifference to the massacre that was happening at this very moment and at Kratos' indifferent pronouncement that he would be part of an assassination... He was grateful that he was receiving such news in his base, in a place where he could actually do something about it. Clenching his hands into fists, he glared at the image of Yggdrasil, grateful that the magi-tech projector was so limited so that Yggdrasil could only see directly in front of him. And that Yashin had found a way to lock the device's visual sensors, so that Yggdrasil -though he could turn- would see nothing. This made it easy for him to keep his present subcommanders in the room, to hold an emergency assembly so that they could see and hear the enemy for the first time without fear of being caught. Similar precautions had been set for Kratos' image disk. The setting kept Yuan in the center of the enemy's sight, and it was a good thing that they could only see him. His subcommanders were being open with their expressions of anger and disgust.

If impiety was an excuse for an attack such faintly veiled hate would have been excuse for a total massacre.

"I've people down there." Yuan hissed. "I sent them for a simple supply run, and you've all but..."

Yggdrasil pinned him with his most venomous glare, and in the face of such hate Yuan's voice faltered. The Lord of Light was threatening him with his gaze alone. Daring him to speak, for to speak would lead to immediate punishment. But he remembered. He knew who was down there, and to hell with any punishments.

"You might as well have slaughtered my people with your damned decree."

"All Desian's in the vicinity are to be eliminated. Cruxis' attack is simultaneous with a full scale attack planned by the Silvaria Ranch." Kratos explained. "Yuan, while I understand some racial loyalty you might be feeling they are Desian's. They aren't worth saving."

"If you think my people are the same as Ranch Master Cris'un the Bloody you're more an idiot than Yg-" Yuan began.

"Enough!" There was a hiss as the Eternal was formed out of nothing more than a thought. "Yuan, for your blasphemy-"

"Blasphemy!" The Seraph roared. "How is trying to save lives blasphemy? How is trying to take care of your own evil?"

"-and for your rampant tongue." Yggdrasil continued coolly. "I curse you, and all who follow you. You are all bound to all territories you've marked as your own for two weeks time. Next time," Yggdarsil promised. "I will do worse."

Grimacing, Kratos looked away from them both, perhaps finding something fascinating to stare at from wherever his real location was. The show was startlingly mortal. Shockingly human, but then at the end of every Regeneration he had such lapses for a few years following each journey.

"If that is all, Lord Yggdrasil, I've some matters to attend to." The auburn haired Seraph said. Only that, but the look he cast Yuan had something of a promise to it.

"Do not interfere with what is happening, Kratos." Yggdrasil warned. "Or you will join Yuan in his punishment."

Silence fell, all was quiet, yet the friction of raw nerves and worry hummed in the back of Yuan's mind. Between the hatred that the Seraph felt for their "lord" and the hatred the half elves gathered felt for Cruxis it was a wonder the room didn't explode into arcane or mundane violence.

It was only the fact that the subcommanders knew that they couldn't reach Yggdrasil that held them in check. Only that, and if this dragged out any longer he could see a few of them willing to try to kill the Lord of Light anyways…

"If you're done with your customary posing and posturing, my Lord, I've business to attend." Kratos said, once more. As if by mere repetition he could break free from this meeting to get to whatever he felt he needed to do with greater haste.

"Go to it then." Yggdrasil snapped, and Kratos' image shimmered and was gone in a heartbeat. Then he turned to Yuan, the Seraph's storm hued eyes held boundless amusement. "I do hope that you've enough food, air, and water, to last the duration, Ranch Master Yuan Vore'sse." The Lord of Light drawled. "Because that barrier cuts both ways. Nothing gets in, nothing goes out. You might consider killing a few of your people, so that the supplies can be stretched amongst those worthy of life."

And with that, Mithos Yggdrasil's image disappeared, leaving only the Seraph's parting chuckle behind.