Author's Note: To all my benevolent and praiseworthy readers (as well as those other ones that fail to review) I thank you for your patience, these next chapters shall bring this story to completion, and I am grateful that anyone has considered it to be worth their time to read and review. I apologise for my laxity in failing to post these sooner, and hope that you might find grace to forgive me. To those faithful left then, read on.
From Pawn to Queen
A Monologue from the Mind.
Is it not obvious Raven? You have guessed at this, a portal needs not prophesy to function. A great enough sorcery, a great enough sacrifice, and you become the slave to a greater will once again. A will so inexorable that you had no choice but to give in before.
But do not lament, there is hope for you yet!
Trigon needs you, and while you endure you have one advantage.
Knowledge is power, Raven Roth. What a blessing this monocled foreigner has turned out to be.
Once again, we have consciousness.
Raven pushed herself up, eyes burning with cold light.
"Ah, Raven! Thank God you're-"
"Where is my sword." It was a demand, not a question.
"My house, my study. Miss Ro- Raven, are you quite sure you-"
"I will send you. Fetch it, when you have it, I shall return you."
"Raven-"
She raised her hand, and he was gone.
And then he was returned, sabre in hand.
Raven snatched the blade from him, touching its wincingly cold edge to her throat.
"Now, mon cher papa, bow before your insignificant pawn."
"Trigon!" howled Raven, "Listen to me!"
She stood defiantly, facing into the wall of clouding dust, blade to her own throat, hood down, voice challenging.
The dust sphere gave nothing away, but after a handful of seconds Raven continued.
"I have your attention, and already you are staring into my mind. Shall I tell you what you shall find there?" she paused, a curl to her lips, half ecstatic smile, half disdainful sneer.
"Determination, oh dear father of mine, determination that you shall fail. Hah! See your little daughter, see how she is not content to remain a pawn. I've come to the other side of the board Trigon, and you shall recognise me as a Queen.
Why? Why? Because if you do not I shall see myself die before I shall se your dominion come about again. And you can't exist without me.
More than a portal, I am your lifeline! If I die, you fall, and the whole operation build under you is crushed as you come crashing down on top of it! You know this, and now I know it too! Knowledge is power Trigon! Azar avenges herself from beyond the grave!"
The dust wall gave nothing away. It simply swirled. Ravens posture remained the same, facing up to it, awaiting a reply with determination and defiance.
Then it came, a booming, roaring voice, suddenly everywhere at once, so that it seemed to surround you very close by.
"Very well, Queen. Let us call it not check, but Stalemate. For, my little girl, I hold your Kings, all four of them."
"Three is more traditional," quipped Scott quietly, before a glance from Raven silenced him. Four Kings, four kings, what four kings? Wait, four kings.
"You will not harm my friends." She stated, eyes ablaze with fury as she rose slowly into the air. The sword was still touched to her throat.
"They shall come to no more harm than I Raven, but I shall hold them as assurance none the less," stated Trigon, safely back to assuming the favoured role of playful tormentor.
Raven opened her mouth, then closed, gnashing her fangs in frustration. "Damn you," it was a whisper but it resonated for all to hear.
"Damnation serves me Raven, and death is my slave."
Raven slowly returned to the ground.
The Grandmaster was suffering the excruciating feeling of being haplessly unable to alter events. Threats and taunts rolled between his daemonic master and his infernal daughter, quite ignoring the Templars on the ground, or the destruction they could wreak. Whatever it was that was said about the best-laid plans, it proved to be infuriatingly true. He was determined not to stand for it.
He called his servants to him, knights and bishops, the commanders of the acolyte soldiery and their fanatic priestly inspirations.
"We shall begin as planned, the subjugation of this world shall be the finest work of the Temple. As the Lord Trigon is to busy with his bastard brat to act, we shall do so in his stead. Go to your men, the reaping of the first line of defence shall begin."
The knights cheered, the bishops offered blasphemous prayers and they both dispersed in all directions to the units of acolytes under their pious command.
Not seconds later the Grandmaster greeted the ululating sound of approaching sirens with a predatory grimace. Now, about that brat.
Commissioner Grahamson was not having the best day ever.
In fact, today was quite the opposite.
Arriving late to work for the first time in ten years of law enforcement did not make the best start to a day. However, this, and everything else, paled into insignificance when faced with the thought: Oh God there's a hole in the sky!
And even that seemed trivial when the vast ruby rose fell through it and crushed half a district.
The cars sped towards the dust cloud and the crash sight. Grahamson, who had spilt cheap coffee over himself when he caught sight of the hole opening in the sky, was simultaneously attempting to remove liquid from his suit with a dying paper towel and answer all the calls on the radio set in the back seat of one of them. Where were superheroes when you actually needed them?
"Sir, we're approaching the crash site," reported the driver.
The Commissioner spared the enveloping smokescreen a glance. It was impressive in a way, ominous almost.
"Very good."
The static on the radio cut out, the voice on the other end was cold and grey. "This is Commander Chen of the Prison Guards, we are preparing to take charge of this operation, Commissioner Grahamson will coordinate riot police movements as we instruct. Chen out." Great, thought Grahamson, the Prison Guards. If there was one group he detested more than the Titans it was them. The way they came in when it suited them and lorded it over them all with their bloody Special Weapons And Techniques made him burn with black fury. Was there no room in the city for honest policemen? Obviously not. Still, at least he would be able to, "coordinate riot police movements." How pleasant of the guards to grant him that privilege.
The Police vehicles screeched to several separate halts, surrounding the smokescreen, which still managed to persist.
Prison guards spilled from five separate armoured vans, hefting their energy guns and checking the systems on the silvery suits and visored helmets.
The column of Acolyte soldiers was nearing the edge of the concealing dust cloud, its new leader feeling confidant that nothing outside would match the terror of the beast creature and the fireball girl that were now heaped at the feet of the Lord Trigon. At most they would have to combat superficial resistance. The edge of the cloud was fast approaching, he readied his wand, signalling to his Acolyte comrades to do the same.
They were almost at the edge, the column fanned out, prepared itself one final time… and struck.
Commander Chen saw the enemy break cover in a hail of blasts. He grunted into the communication system to, "Return fire immediately," before proceeding to obey himself and take aim, selecting a robed figure and blasting away at it until it dropped.
All along the perimeter pickets Prison Guards in their psychically resistant armour were faring well enough, able to take a single glancing hit without their souls being fried, but the riot police, armoured only physically and using nought but projectile weapons were doing decidedly worse.
Commander Chen half saw a line of riot policemen fall behind their Perspex shields as if a scythe had been swept through them. An image of the grim reaper appeared fleetingly in his mind before he chased it away and continued to fight.
A group of enemies was clustered behind a barrier to his right. Ducking away from enemy fire and before rising again to open up with their own weapons. He stepped from behind his own fragment of cover to strafe them with fire before dodging back again as the ground where he had been standing was turned into a network of craters. He called out to one of his comrades on the right, who was firing on robed soldiers advancing down the centre of a street into a densely packed phalanx of riot policemen.
The Guard ran to crouch behind the same the same burnt out car as his leader, and they alternate standing to fire off a few shots before the fusillade from reacting enemies could come their way.
Policemen were falling back, (Who could blame them? It was that or die) and Guards were becoming increasingly isolated in their defensive positions.
Chen called all of the Guards in his area to him and ordered an attack.
The Acolyte soldier saw all of the silver figures break cover, crouching against the wall of a gutted building he watched them change tactics and press a counterattack.
They had safely passed him by, and many of his comrades, caught off guard, were retreating. He lifted his wand to his shoulder, and methodically began shooting the men in their backs. It had worked for the other two, it would work for these fighters as well.
Commander Chen felt a bolt of energy shoot past his shoulder. He noticed just in time that it had come not from the horde in front, but from behind.
He dropped and turned, spraying energy bolts in a wide arc as another bolt shot harmless over his helmet. There! Against a wall, there was his assailant. He levelled his own weapon and sent three shots towards him. How do you like that? Shooting men in their backs eh? Coward!
The acolyte had time to see the shots coming at him before they hit, but only just. It didn't really matter after they hit. Nothing really mattered after they hit.
Chen ducked behind a bench, and continued his advance.
The Grandmaster was being forced to suffer another new experience. Nervousness was alien to him, but nonetheless it piled onto hiss chest as he reached the edge of the dust and stepped out.
He recognised her immediately. Cowl, cloak, belt, and of course that… thing in her forehead were all just as they were before. He doubted that the experiences they had shared would allow Raven Roth to so easily identify him. But what if they did…
Raven turned at the sound of footsteps. Black robes, a deepening cowl, and a face, a face that she recognised…
Her eyes widened and her whole body lurched.
No!
In Azar's name no!
