FALL SEVEN TIMES

by Ulquiorra9000

Chapter 23

Mizuki clapped her hands over her mouth. "What the... I know this place. Isn't this supposed to be Mirrodin?"

Azrael glanced around. "You must recognize this plane based on the arrangement of nearby worlds. Right?"

"Y-yeah. But..." Mizuki slowly lowered her hands, her breaths coming in gasps. "We're supposed to go down there?"

Under her feet, the plane's gray, sickly clouds churned and writhed, punctuated by streaks of purple lightning. In the clear patches of sky, Mizuki saw a mottled, metallic surface that ran thick with black Phyrexian oil. Crooked spires, mesas, dunes, and valleys interrupted the smooth, flat plains.

"This," Azrael said grimly, "is New Phyrexia."

Mizuki glanced back at him. "New?"

"I never saw the original Phyrexian homeworld," Azrael admitted. "It fell before my time. But I've heard stories... a group of very potent planeswalkers destroyed it and slew the Father of Machines, Yawgmoth. His tomb is on Dominaria. I've visited it a few times during field trips at my university."

"Okay, but..." Mizuki worked her jaw. "You'd better have a plan, Azrael, if we're gonna put ourselves right in the middle of all that!"

"This is a world run by machines and artifice," Azrael said, a grin spreading across his face. "And I am an artificer, Mizuki. haven't had much chance to prove it on Kamigawa, but here, I believe that I can find something to protect us from the Phyrexians back on your world."

Mizuki swallowed. "Something like what?"

"I'll find out when we make landfall. Now, then..." He took a step toward New Phyrexia's tortured sky.

Mizuki clamped a hand on Azrael's wrist. "Hang on."

Azrael halted. "Yes?"

"Just..." How could Mizuki voice the terror, the dread, the shock that swirled in her mind? She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Uh... good luck."

"And to you, Mizuki."

Azrael eased himself through a planeswalker gate and toward New Phyrexia's surface. Mizuki followed him in an adjacent gate.

The bitter tang of oil and rust jammed itself right up Mizuki's nose when she stepped out of the gate.

"Whoa." Mizuki stared in awe as her planeswalker gate faded behind her. She stood on the edge of a plain composed of hexagonal chrome plates, interrupted by patches of dry, stiff grass and loose rocks. In the near distance, she heard an ocean lapping on a shore, and jagged, metallic hills filled the horizon. Even more impressive were the crooked metal towers that rose at random along the horizon, each humming with blue mana. Chrome thopters glided to and from nesting sites on the spires' upper levels, and odd, bat-like birds flew in formation to the west.

Azrael took up a position by Mizuki. He shielded his eyes from the five suns that struggled to shine from behind a thick, gray cloud. "This is the blue-dominated region of New Phyrexia. The Progress Engine, I believe this faction is called. Stay on your guard."

"No kidding." Mizuki drew her Fiora sword from her pack and held it at her side. "I'll follow your lead."

Azrael set off. "I need to find a workshop or armory," he explained, his voice low. "The Phyrexians are brilliant inventors and tinkerers. I've visited this plane before, you see, but only for brief scouting trips. Now, I've got a proper mission. One to prevent this all from happening to Kamigawa."

Mizuki merely nodded. The hairs on her arms and back of her neck were standing up; her every instinct was screaming at her. She kept expecting oily claws to seize her throat.

"Get down." Azrael hissed the terse command as he knelt behind a large boulder atop a hill, and Mizuki joined him. Mizuki peeked around the boulder and saw a patrol squad of cyborg humans and a golem marching along.

"Are we gonna sneak around them?" Mizuki asked.

"Yes. Wait for a good opportunity," Azrael muttered back. He pointed. "See that cluster of huts and buildings over there? I bet that's a supply depot. We must be close to the border with another faction."

Mizuki couldn't really tell the difference, but she trusted Azrael's analysis. Raiding a Phyrexian weapons cache... what an adventure.

Azrael gave the signal.

Keeping her head low, Mizuki smoothly and quickly crossed the chrome hills, taking cover behind boulders whenever she could. Meanwhile, the patrol kept on marching, their backs to Mizuki and Azrael. Good; at this rate, Mizuki and Azrael would -

The patrolling cyborgs and golem shouted something in their strange language and spread out into a defensive formation.

"Dammit!" Mizuki dove for cover behind a boulder, her body tensed, her heart racing. "Did they find us?"

Azrael stared intently in the distance. "No... someone found them."

"Huh?"

Mizuki dared to peek.

Loud roars and shrieks filled the air as new creatures mounted a hill and came crashing down on the blue Phyrexian patrol. What looked like two severely mutated, oversized boars gored a few cyborgs with their long, oily tusks and threw them aside. The beasts had copper plating at random spots on their skin, and metal barbs ran along their backs and on their legs. Patches of skin had apparently been torn away by an earlier battle, revealing muscle slicked with black oil.

The blue golem rammed its huge needle-arm into a boar's head and injected its blue liquid; at once, the boar went slack and collapsed, grunting in a stupor. Three blue cyborgs hurried over and extended their arms into surgical hacksaws that separated the boar's head from its body.

Mizuki's breath caught in her throat. "The Phyrexians... are fighting each other?"

Now a trio of copper-skinned elves with long, braided hair appeared, and their long swords cleaved through the remaining cyborg's bodies with impunity. Sickly green mana hummed between their copper plates, their eye sockets empty.

Now alone, the chrome golem snarled and swung its needle like a club. One elf was thrown aside as the needle caught it in the stomach, but the other elves, backed up by the boar, pinned down the golem and shredded it. The whole battlefield was soaked in mingled blood and black oil.

The elves barked orders to each other in the Phyrexian language, and the boar snorted and trotted off, its snout sniffing to root out any other blue Phyrexians while the elves' formation fanned out.

"Indeed, Phyrexian infighting," Azrael murmured. "Strange that the Phyrexians who lead the Kamigawa invasion are being attacked. Is this an isolated incident spurred by a rogue green Phyrexian commander... or do the green Phyrexians resent the blue ones for their success on Kamigawa? Or..." His face darkened. "Do they object to the invasion for some reason? Are they trying to sabotage the Progress Engine?"

Mizuki scratched her head. "Beats me. Beings of blue mana and those of green usually don't get along, yeah, but these are all Phyrexians."

"But the green Phyrexians are not joining the invasion, while the white ones are," Azrael pointed out. "Blue and white mana have a common essence. Though I doubt that these green Phyrexians are attacking the Progress Engine for primal reasons alone. No, the blue Phyrexians have done something to anger the green ones. Something recent. Probably related to the invasion."

Mizuki shook her head. "All I can say is that if those green Phyrexians had also invaded Kamigawa, we'd be in even bigger trouble."

"Indeed," Azrael said, sounding distracted. "Now, what of the black-aligned Phyrexians? Where do they stand? Will they step in at the last moment and claim the bounty of the invasion for themselves? Or do they, too, oppose it?"

Mizuki patted Azrael's shoulder. "Why don't we find those weapons you wanted, and we can figure this out later?"

"Not just weapons, but sensory devices, infiltration gear, repair kits, modular parts, anything I can find," Azrael told her. "The Phyrexian factions are feuding... which means that they're developing countermeasures to each other. I could modify whatever I find, and have it work against all Phyrexians. Then I take it all to Kamigawa and duplicated it with whatever spare materials Daimyo Kirinji's coalition can secure for me."

"Okay, now that's a plan," Mizuki said, hands on her hips. "While those green Phyrexians are lookin' for blue guys, why don't we get a move on?"

"Yes. Follow me." Azrael carefully stalked across the boulder-strewn hills and toward the supply depot up ahead. Mizuki stayed close to him, her short sword always held at the ready. She strained her ears for any sound of attack.

Thousands of little legs clicked across the hills.

"D'you hear that?" Mizuki hissed, and Azrael nodded. Azrael took cover behind an even bigger boulder than before, his blue-black mana aura manifested in full. His red hair and cape fluttered in the intense aura.

Then Mizuki saw them: hundreds of housecat-sized beetles, their long legs clattering over the chrome hills as they swarmed around the two trapped humans.

"Insects," Azrael said tightly. "They must have a nest nearby. Or -"

"Or that," Mizuki said grimly.

A lumbering... thing... crested a hill, surrounded by the copper-plated, oily beetles. Its pod-like body strode on two crooked legs, and its four arms waved everywhere, flicking droplets of oil. Several toothy mouths gasped and grinned all over its body, and every few seconds, another beetle would emerge from a mouth to join its hundreds of fellows thronging on the hills. The beast's head looked every which way, its mouth gnashing its sharp teeth.

"A mobile hive," Azrael commented. "Possibly an adaptation to guerilla attacks employed by the green Phyrexians' enemies."

Mizuki fired up her own mana aura and activated her short sword's enchantment. Red-white flames glowed in the air as Mizuki waved the sword back and forth, trying to figure out the best attack pattern. The familiar flames were only a minor comfort against the countless beetles that massed before her.

Azrael clenched his fists. "Let them come!"

*o*o*o*o*

"There had better be a good reason for this," Radiah muttered to herself as she stepped forth to the massive gates before Elesh Norn's palace. She lowered her hood to reveal herself, and the two guard golems nodded and tapped the butts of their staves onto the ground. At the command, the massive portcullis slid downwards into the ground, hidden chains rattling and clanking the whole time. Then, with a final thud, the gate settled into place underground.

Radiah held her staff tightly by her side as she strode angrily across the front grounds. She heard the gate clank its way back up behind her, and she didn't stop until she found herself in Elesh Norn's cavernous, well-lit throne room.

"Grand Cenobite. I am here," Radiah said, kneeling on one knee before the Praetor. Around her, porcelain-armored guards stood under the Phyrexian banners and white-flame torches, but Radiah ignored them.

From her throne, Elesh Norn delicately stood and walked down the wide steps to her minion, her red robes trailing along the marble floor. The Praetor's faceless head looked down at the kneeling planeswalker. "You are late, Radiah."

Radiah licked her lips. "I left Kamigawa with... a certain reluctance, Grand Cenobite."

"So you did." Elesh Norn's boots clicked on the floor as she paced in a wide circle around Radiah. "I would rather have you arrive sooner."

Radiah didn't know what to say.

"The balance of power has shifted sooner than expected," Elesh Norn finally said. Her red robes whispered along the marble floor. "Our conquest of Kamigawa has become fragile. Cracks may soon appear in our grip. Our minions, and those of the Progress Engine, are stretched thin. Brittle."

It wasn't like Elesh Norn to acknowledge weakness or vulnerability of any kind, Radiah thought. Then again, this whole campaign was unprecedented.

"You have done your part," Elesh Norn said. "That is, on other worlds. Now, your own needs you. Vorinclex's beasts ravage the Progress Engine's borders, and the Seven Steel Thanes and their minions corrode our own border forces. I will not have that continue."

I knew it, Radiah thought darkly. Vorinclex and Sheoldred, instead of backing down in the face of victory on Kamigawa, had increased the pressure! Those fools!

The vision of Phyrexia would grow foggy if this went on.

"I am ready to serve," Radiah said, speaking to the floor.

Elesh Norn came to a halt before Radiah. "Stand, child. I would see your face as I say this."

Radiah slowly stood and lifted her chin. Her silver-blonde hair fell in wavy locks around her face, her heart racing in her chest. Face-to-face with a Praetor... no one walked away from that unchanged.

Elesh Norn traced a porcelain claw along her jaw. "Contain your thirst for conquest, Radiah, and defend what you have claimed. You alone can prevent the heretical factions frm undoing Phyrexia's greatest leap forward. This is perhaps our only chance of nirvana."

"I..." Radiah's voice caught in her throat. She nodded. "I will do no less, Grand Cenobite. The Channeler is already at work on Minamo Academy; without it, we are lost."

"Sheoldred and Vorinclex's hordes would certainly attempt to cross the portal and destroy the Channeler on Kamigawa," Elesh Norn said with distate. "The portal is not to be theirs to use. Do you understand? Do not even allow them close to it. Seal the holes in my and Jin-Gitaxias' borders at once."

Radiah ground her teeth. This was the frustration of a Phyrexian life; your greatest achievements became the object of envy of schemers and heretics and freaks. No deed could occur without deadly ripples radiating from it.

Elesh Norn carefully lifted Radiah's chin with a porcelain claw. "Say it... Radiah."

Radiah swallowed. "I will lead the counter-attack. Vorinclex and Sheoldred will have nirvana forced up on them if need be."

Elesh Norn knew the implications perfectly.

The Praetor withdrew her hand and returned to her throne, placing her clawed hands on the armrests. She said nothing. That was all that needed to be spoken.

Radiah turned on her heel and stalked down the throne room to the exit. She didn't know what bothered her more; that the green and black Phyrexians violently opposed the campaign, or that she wouldn't be there to see the glorious work finish on Kamigawa.

Unless...