Chapter 9 (b) battle part 2.
A/N: The chapters 'Valentine Roses' and 'Sun And Moon' have been revised and added to. The additions do not add to the plot, but contribute greatly to the atmosphere and emotion of the chapters. Thanks.
She found herself pinned to the wall, unable to move, with an ever strengthening force at her throat. Her head still reeling from the enormous force behind Ciaran's will, for several long moments, she couldn't feel, couldn't think. Dimly, through the haze of her confusion and fatigue, she could hear his laughter, echoing sinisterly through her foggy brain.
'Dear foolish child, did you ever think, for one second, that you could break my shields, and leave me incapacitated? I am no rank amateur, I am the leader of the most powerful coven on this earth, I have cast spells that could make you have nightmares and bring you no rest at night, I have brought the dark wave down on countless towns, I contain the souls of many within my body, keeping their rage and revenge at bay. If I may weather all that, I can last out anyone of your paltry efforts to harm me. You have just made a big mistake, my dear, for with your power, you could have been truly magnificent in you strength. Such a pity, all that talent, all that potential gone to waste.
You still have a chance to change your mind, my dear. For power in itself is not good or bad, it just is. There is no good or bad, just what you choose to do with it, and both are infinitely beautiful in its strength and in that joy only the handling of power can give, be it the creation of a flower or the destruction of a city, power has the same joy, the same beauty. You have it, you know. You have the power to do just that. To revel in all the joys power and its unleashing can bring. Don't throw that away, I beg you my dear. Join me and I will show you all the joys using your incredible talent can bring.'
But deep in her mind, Raven had an idea. He had demonstrated glaringly his overwhelming confidence in his own ablities. If someone so arrogant had everything exactly as they desired, then the last thing they would plan for was, of course, something unexpected. Against someone so arrogant, the best element was the unexpected, the element of surprise. Now, if she could only get a hand free, yes!
A tiny almost unnoticed movement of Raven's hand, and a sudden explosion of splintering rock about fifty feet behind Ciaran caused him to whirl around with a startled curse, allowing Raven just enough time to break free from the force that pinned her to the wall.
She struck experimentally at Ciaran's back, but he seemed to sense it and was ready with a bolt of light that effectively negated hers in a shower of sparks obvious even to the ungifted. He retaliated for that with a fireball if his own, shooting it out from the carved wooden staff he carried. She blocked it, but he began a relentless assault on her shields and her endurance, pushing her to the limits with frequent and powerful bolts and fireballs, each greater in power than the last.
Ciaran began to laugh again. Think on it Raven, I am going to kill you, and then drain your soul, your power into me. Think of it, you, trapped within me, able to see, but not to do, watching as I kill every last one of your friends, slowly and deliciously. Then think of what I could do with your power, your power added to mine, to the power I already have inside of me.
She keeled over backwards as the force of his mind, fueled by rage, by power lust, by madness crashed full force into hers. For that brief moment, he was her and she was him she saw into the very depths of his poisoned mind, and he saw all her love for her lover and her friends, her longing to make amends for the curse she had been borne with, the sadness she felt of Alex's abandonment and her unconditional forgiveness for all that he had done to her, and her grief that she had not told him so and her inability to find him. He saw too, that she had been telling the truth of her father, and that her father truly was just using him as a means to escape into this world.
But for an instant, Raven instead of recoiling, opened herself to his mind, accessing all his powers, both his own and the ones he had stolen. Some of them having crossed him withought even knowing it. Then being murdered and trapped as they were forced helplessly to watch as terrible things were done to the ones they loved, to their past.
She could feel the weight of it, those furious souls, weighing heavily down, so many of them, all furious and longing for revenge at what he had done, what he had forced them to witness, battering themselves against his mental blocks like wild birds against the bars of a cage, longing release, longing revenge.
Then, she gathered all her fading strength and flung up the strongest blocks she could muster, fighting as hard as she could against the weight of that soul, heavy with evil deeds and the anger and revenge of so many others. It was barely enough, but it was enough. Once again, her mind was her own.
But in that fleeting moment, Raven knew Ciaran's most profound weakness was from the inside. It was the souls, constantly weighing down, battering themselves against his mind that had driven to desperation. The more powerful a soul he absorbed, for a time, it controlled and lessened the power of the previous souls on his mind. But that could not last. Eventually the rage and fury of all the previous souls would eventually rise again to torment him. Gaining in strength, as it got augmented by the anger of his new soul, at what it had to witness in his own deeds and the deeds which he forced it to witness. It was a neverending cycle that he had trapped himself in, never to be released from until his soul, and all of those whom he had held captive were released from its earthly form.
Ciaran, in desperation flung a holding and coercion spell on her, but she blocked it just in time. In retaliation, she levitated several boulders and flung them at him. These he managed to block as well. They were now at an impasse.
Suddenly, she felt a stirring deep inside her. Rage was getting stronger. Rage fed on anger, discontent, and most of all, the high emotions that came with battle. Rage beagn to break out of her and falmed into life.
The taste of battle, the taste of blood, the taste of power as it ran through their shared blood, most of all, the most heady taste of anger……
Rage broke apart her restraints, straining against Raven's mind, testing her control to its limits……..
With a cry of anger, Ciaran flung a ball of flame at Raven from the tip of his staff. His element was fire. But she was of the companion element of Earth. It would not seriously hurt her. She summoned vines to wrap around him, but he managed to incinerate them with his fire.
Fuelled with her anger and that of Rage, Raven brought forth the largest and most powerful fireball she had ever made, and flung it at him. He skillfully blocked it, fuelling her anger even more.
Yessssssssss……………… I am freeeee……………
Rage was free, and she was possessed by Rage. Calling on all the dark powers coached so gently into her by Malchior, she knew what she had to do to defeat him. Dark magic was the only counter to dark magic. That was the way of it.
And for the first time since she had returned him to the book, she found herself blessing the fact that he had come into her life, blessed his teachings and blessed the fact that he had taught her so gently, so thoroughly.
But his powers as they stood now, were too powerful. She could not hope to defeat him. It was all she could do to hold him of from invading her body, stealing her soul.
Suddenly, unknown to all, four glowing slanted eyes appeared in the rift which Ciaran hade made earlier. And in the air, an undercurrent of evil, tempered by an evil triumphant laugh.
Tendrils of power, drifted out from the rift, moving sinuously, snake like across the stone floor toward Ciaran and Raven, intent on possessing one to enable the dark being to be free.
The tendrils managed to catch hold of Ciaran, standing as he was directly in front of what used to be his circle with his back to it. He began to acquire a reddish glow, and he stood a little taller than he usually did. With a shout of pain, he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain, and when he opened them, there were four. The dreaded four eyes that were the hallmark of the dark being Trigon.
'Hatred shall consume you. And I will consume this world.' This proclamation of doom was uttered in a deep echoing, exultant voice, completely different from the smooth cultured timbre that Ciaran had shown earlier. It seemed he had been possessed.
'This vessel will suit me fine. It pulses with dark power that will be well suited to my purposes of subjugating this pathetic world to my every whim. And conquer it I shall. And I will rule this entire dimension and all shall bow down before me.'
Unlike the others, who were by now terrified, raven's mind was working at a furious pace. In order to release her father from his new vessel, she had to destroy it. But how?
She backed up against a wall for safety as her father exulted in his vessel and newfound freedom, she felt something digging into her back. Puzzled, she extracted it from her pocket and examined it closely. It was the projected boomerang that Robin had saved her life with that night she had lost her powers and had turned the tower into a pseudo-horror movie set. Since that night, she had carried that boomerang around as a good luck talisman and to keep a bit of her then-crush beside her always.
It was just the thing, sentimentality be damned. She stealthily circled around her father hoping to strike at him unawares. But she was not so lucky. He turned in sync with her, keeping her at a minimum within his peripheral vision. She had a split second in which to strike.
She struck withought hesitation, believing wholeheartedly in her weapon, her motives and her timing. All three were true. The boomerang struck true, curving in a graceful deadly arc to hit Ciaran's body in the chest, dealing a fatal blow.
With a scream of pain and frustration, the tendrils of darkness that had engulfed Ciaran withdrew and disappeared within the breach on the floor. As the tendrils lost their hold on his body, Ciaran collapsed ho his knees and then onto the floor, blood blossoming around the gaping wound the boomerang had made in his chest.
Freed from her bindings, she reached her side just as the tendrils of darkness crept back toward the void. She saw at a glance that his wound was fatal and that he would be dead in a matter of minutes.
'Raven.' Ciaran whispered hoarsely, 'a moment. I realize now just what my hubris has brought upon myself. I have allowed myself to be subverted and manipulated by a force both more powerful and ruthless than I. It was my hubris that I did not believe the words of one far more knowledgeable and familiar with this than I. It is now, on my death that I acknowledge this and offer what I have not offered anyone else in many a year. I offer you an apology. I accepted the power, the mark, I drank in the power that was offered, thinking it came from the weak. I made a mistake and I accept the consequences. I denied the mark that I now see upon me and I freely admit it. I made the error and all that I did in my life, and freely accept withought concealment, what awaits me beyond. Know this too, to fully overcome one's past, one must embrace it, become one with it, for it is a irrefutable part of you. If necessary, one has to lock it away never to be thought of again in order to move forward or the light or to the grey. This is how I gained my strength and over the years. Now I have said it, I can leave this life content. '
'I know, and I forgive you. we can no more change our personalities than the rhythm of the waves. I know the cost that apology cost you and I accept and thank you, both for it and your words on the past.' Raven replied gently taking his hand, the hand that had been soaked in so much innocent blood, now dying in it turn, at the hand of evil and hubris, the most insidious killers. For they lure souls in with honey coated promises of greatness and glory, then destroying it mercilessly, leaving behind only a sense of irony.
And with that, the breath and life left the witch Ciaran's body, and the stolen souls that he had amassed finally free. The witch that many said was the most powerful and ruthless of all, finally died.
As his body collapsed to the ground in death, his body slowly began to fall apart. It slowly crumbled to dust, until all that remained of this once great witch was a little pile of ashes that was blown away in a sudden soft wind, that blew through the still air of the underground chamber, until there was nothing left, all that remained scattered.
What they both failed to notice was that the tendrils of dark power, it had reached the rift that Ciaran had made earlier and had reentered it. Unknown to all, it was sucking all the excess power released by Cairan's death into itself, amassing it to create….
'Hatred shall consume you!!' came the deafening roar from the far end of the room, as to everyone's shock and horror, the fully formed upper body of the dark being Trigon rose from the dark depths of the chasm.
It took the second fro the shock to register in the minds of the team. Then, as rational thought returned to Raven's mind, with Ciaran's words freash in her mind, she knew what she had to do. To embrace her curse, her true legacy, and use that to defeat him. To defeat Trigon.
As she steeled herself mentally, she began to move purposefully toward the chasm, she heard the muffled screams of her teammates and the yell of negation of her lover. She stopped slowly, and turned so she could see all of them. 'He is my father, so this is my battle. Mine and mine alone. It is me he wants, me and no one else. But if he has me, that would mean the deaths of everyone on this earth. It is all or nothing, and I am the one who has to decide where this turning point will lead.' She said sadly. 'I will always love you my dearest one, never forget that.' She kissed her hand and blew it toward her lover.
Slowly, in the manner of a condemned man ascending the steps to the gallows, she made her way toward the chasm. It was there, a safe distance from the reach of her father, yet near enough for the curse within her to take its effect, she opened herself to her birthmarks.
She let the curse within her take effect, she felt herself become a portal. But a portal that was till human, with the ability to think. As her father began to use her as his portal into her world, he transferred his being, his magickal energies into her as he used her to travel out of the portal her body made.
As he did so, she grabbed him, his essence , holding on to him with every fiber of her being. She now had him trapped. But she had nowhere to go with him attached to her like that. Throwing caution to the winds, she dragged him toward the safest place she could, away from her lover and friends. She dragged him into the chasm that Ciaran had made earlier.
Together they fell headlong into the empty abyss of nothingness; into the dimension between worlds. A place where nothing but the damned remained trapped.
A/N: I do not think Ciaran as evil, he is just power hungry and yes, a very proud, very human person. That is why he is one of my favorite characters ever. I also based him a bit on another of my favorite characters, Dr Faustus, of the play by the same name by Christopher Marlowe, the predecessor of Shakespeare, so I hope the fans of WICCA will not mind too much.
Thanks for reading and may you all always be blessed be.