FALL SEVEN TIMES
by Ulquiorra9000
Chapter 3
"Hey... are you sure we're not still on Ravnica?"
Mizuki stopped and stared as her planeswalking gate vanished behind her. Around her loomed white-stone buildings with red-tiled roofs and fancy gardens in the balconies, plus high-spired temples and huge apartment complexes. Thick crowds of chattering people bustled up and down the street as horse-drawn wagons marched in a procession, and silver, fancy golems lumbered after their masters like obedient dogs. A warm evening sun painted the whole scene a gentle orange-gold tone, and a dry breeze picked up, toying with Mizuki's hair.
"Ravnica?" Azrael joined Mizuki as his own blue-black gate vanished. He had a wry grin as he shook his head. "Walk with me, Mizuki. This is Paliano, the High City. You'll have to see it to believe it."
But it looks so similar... Shrugging, Mizuki set off with Azrael into the foreign city.
Thick silver clouds drifted overhead as Azrael led Mizuki around a left turn and up a wide, cobblestone ramp with stone railings. The long walkway overlooked the sprawling, fenced-off gardens and ponds of a huge manor house, and white geese floated in the lily pad ponds as gardeners in green tunics trimmed the hedges.
"I don't get it," Mizuki admitted, shading her eyes from the evening sun. "This place looks fine to me. What's the big deal?"
Azrael pointed at the opulent manor house. "See the guards?"
Mizuki saw them: humans and a few burly elves in fancy silver armor, all with spears in hand. Their helmets had feathered wings and jewels on them. "Uh, so?" How does this help us against the Phyrexians?
"Those guards won't ask you what you're doing on Lord Calzotto's private estate if you sneak in. They'll send you back home in tiny pieces without saying a word," Azrael told her. "It's their right. But Lord Calzotto is powerful for more than that; he has all kinds of connections across Paliano and the towns of Fiora, and one word from him can ruin careers, make people disappear, and topple whole merchant guilds. Many pray that he doesn't exercise that power. And there's others like him all over the place."
Mizuki tilted her head as she contemplated Lord Calzotto's mansion. The place sure was beautiful... but it hid gruesome power under the shiny exterior. There were some tycoons and lords on Kamigawa like that, too. Mizuki always made a point to avoid them and their vile ways.
Which made Azreal's next statement all the more disagreeable.
"We're going to pay a friendly visit," Azrael said casually.
Mizuki halted, hands on her hips. "I'm sorry?" She looked up and fixed her eyes on Azrael's. "Is that your idea of a prank?"
"You deserve to know how... business... works around here," Azrael admitted. "Paliano is a place where wealth in coins, loyalty, favors, weapons, and magic are like food and water. No one is happy where they are; there's always the next bloody step up the social ladder."
He swept his arm to encompass the deceptively charming city. "Mizuki, assault and murder aren't illegal here. Even the king himself is already dead."
Mizuki took a step back, gripping the smooth stone railing for support. "Wh-what?"
Azrael smiled. "His spirit was kept intact so he could keep his rule. But all this was the machinations of... others. I won't bore you with the finer details. Just know that you'll be fine if you stay with me."
"By the gods." Mizuki huffed. "Can't you take me anywhere nice?"
Azrael merely kept up that smug smile and led Mizuki along a series of pathways, not stopping until he reached a pair of enchanted wrought-iron gates. Beyond lay a brick path across Lord Calzotto's ground and to the mansion.
Two elf guards convened on Azrael, their armor clanking as they moved.
"Business?" one asked.
"I'd like a visit to Lord Calzotto's armory," Azrael said crisply. "I need equipment for a little quest of ours."
"You and your mouth," the other guard grunted. "Every time you show up here, Azrael, I have to -"
"Or did Lord Calzotto forget what I did for him last time I was here?" Azrael cut in. "It would have been such a bother if that spy had gotten away and returned to his guild with the Lord's secrets..."
"Keep your damned voice down!" the first guard snapped, but there wasn't anyone else around. The breeze rustled the ivy that grew on the iron-wrought fence.
Mizuki wished that she was taller; Azrael and the other guards towered over her. "May we -" she started.
"Who are you, eh, girly?" the second guard asked, narrowing his eyes at Mizuki. "Azrael, did you bring your daughter into this? How bold."
"Wh-what the -" Mizuki spluttered. "I'm not his..."
Azrael smiled politely and clapped a hand on Mizuki's shoulder. "All humans look the same to you, don't they?"
"Sure they do," the second elf guard said.
"No, no. This is Mizuki, a friend," Azrael explained. "A capable rogue and infiltrator. Not that she'd bring those skills to bear against Lord Calzotto. In fact, our quest is for her benefit."
The first guard leaned over to glare at Mizuki from under his helmet. "You'd better watch your step, and your mouth, around Lord Calzotto," he warned her. "You hear me?"
Mizuki made a noise like a mouse and nodded hastily as the armored elf loomed over her.
"You've got one hour, Azrael." The second guard rapped his steel-encased knuckles on the gate's lock, and the lock's white-blue enchantment retracted like flowing water. The iron-wrought gate swung inwards.
Mizuki kept her mouth firmly shut until Azrael brought her into the mansion's huge reception hall and to Lord Calzotto himself.
"Azrael," the middle-aged man boomed, spreading his arms wide. "Back so soon, old friend?"
"Not without good reason, I assure you," Azarel told him, and he knelt on one knee, motioning for Mizuki to do the same.
"So... you want to borrow my high-end equipment for your little adventure?" Calzotto said, suddenly gruff. "This will cost you in at least six different ways, Azrael."
Mizuki opened her mouth to voice a question and caught herself in time. How the hell did Lord Calzotto already know about her mission?! Then she saw a brass-colored contraption fixed on the man's left ear, pulsing with blue mana.
Whoa. Can he hear everything his guards say? That's really... slick!
The advanced artifact looked out-of-place on the lord, though. He was pretty wide and had a decent pot belly that strained his purple robes and white cloak. His tri-corn hat and jewelry, combined with the robes, made him look like a... well, Mizuki didn't even know! What was up with Fiora's fashion scene, anyway?
Lord Calzotto himself had a round face and graying hair at his temples, and a stern set of eyes under thin eyebrows. Those eyes fixed on Mizuki. "So, this is your quest mate, Azrael? This peasant?"
Mizuki was aware that her button-up sleeveless shirt, knee-length, skintight pants, and straw sandals hardly made a good impression. But she was no daimyo's daughter!
"She is capable, as I'm sure you already heard from earlier," Azrael said calmly. "Now, if we could..."
"Not so fast." Lord Calzotto held up a pudgy hand. "While you were away, some recent developments changed the terms of our partnership..."
Mizuki's head spun at the web of trade agreements, secret deals, bribes, and plotted assassinations that Lord Calzotto and Azrael argued about. She stood slightly behind Azrael, hoping to vanish from the lord's attention. She didn't want that crap aimed her way!
"... fine, then. Perhaps a fine fire-sword, or an absorption shield? I have many models," Lord Calzotto finally said. "I suppose I could spare you one or two of those..."
"Excellent," Azrael said, rubbing his hands together. "Mizuki, please don't touch anything on the way there. All right?"
"Not like I was gonna." Mizuki pouted. She wasn't a child! Though she saw the man's point. All kinds of expensive-looking paintings, vases, and other art were everywhere in the gilded entrance hall.
Lord Calzotto turned to lead his guests to the promised armory.
His head came clean off in a spray of blood.
Where Lord Calzotto's rotund body lay, a single woman stood.
*o*o*o*o*
Radiah Albazan tried to keep the glee off her face. She couldn't.
In the shadow of Lumengrid Tower, the priestess stood on a twisted metal platform overlooking the Progress Engine's finest creation: a new model of inter-planar portal technology. One hundred feet wide, the coppery-silver ring hummed and crackled with white-blue mana, the energy swirling toward the center like water in a drain. It silently beckoned.
Just over thirty years old, Radiah looked the same as she had during her life as an Auriok: light skin, bone-white hair, and intense dark eyes. She wore not the typical porcelain plating of the Machine Orthodoxy's priest class, but instead, a black leather ensemble better suited to rogues and assassins on other planes. She had once been known for her beauty, and it still showed... though her real face under the flesh disguise would frighten anyone not among the Machine Orthodoxy.
Not like it mattered. True beauty came from being compleat.
"The portal's at full power," Radiah announced to the gathered blue Phyrexians that stood assembled on loading platforms just over the flat portal. "When you step through... just remember your mission. Follow my lead, and we can't fail. Got it?"
The Phyrexians all screeched, clicked, grunted, or hissed the affirmative. They were a motley bunch; some were the cyborg golems of the Progress Engine's administrative class, while others were compleat Neurok warriors or rogues. There were also mindless ornithopters in the crew, backed up by compleat drakes. Everyone had the proper chrome augmentations, oil tubing, and blue mana of the Progress Engine.
Radiah's fellow Machine Orthodoxy priests would come later. For now, Jin-Gitaxias needed to prove his minions' worth to the blue-white partnership that made this enterprise possible.
No, the real thanks are due to me, Radiah reflected as the portal's energy tossed her hair. Like Nihil before her, she'd been an Auriok born with the planeswalker Spark. But unlike Jin-Gitaxias's skull-headed thug, Radiah had bothered to properly explore the Multiverse, and her travels had located the perfect place for conquest. And the first wave of Gitaxian probes had found all the strategic locations for assault. Excellent.
Radiah raised an arm, then clenched her leather-gloved hand in a fist as the go signal.
Blue Phyrexians of all shapes and temperaments leaped off the platforms one at a time, vanishing into the portal with puffs of mana.
Radiah waited to go last. She took a deep breath and rocked on her heels like a diver, then took the plunge into the mana waters, so to speak.
Kamigawa was waiting.