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20th of October, 1971 – Cherkasy, Russia
Amelie Cantona POV
The hangar bay of the hovership was as silent and not unlike a graveyard during the sleeping hours before dawn, the sounds of breathing of the waiting men and women akin to the eerie rustling of leaves of the trees that stood vigil over tombstones.
Their faces had that in common with those silent, vigilant trees.
Hard and unmoving, solemn and determined, watchful and self-assured.
Looks on faces that knew full well of the importance that this mission had to be nothing less than a total success.
Her gaze fell on the armour her team wore.
They were all adorned in Adamantite armour, silver grey in hue, en-runed armour that could withstand even Fiendfyre for at least ten minutes, the magic-eating cursed fire that could eat through everything and anything including magical artefacts and people that it fed from to sustain its endless hunger.
She hoped that they wouldn't need the full breadth of the armour's protections.
The intelligence they received from home-base suggested that it should be unnecessary but then she knew well enough that things didn't always go exactly as planned, even if they had the Far-Seers watching their backs.
"T-Minus seven minutes." The pilot communicated through the Comms.
Amelie pressed her right palm into the arm brace on her left hand. A faint sloshing sound emitted from her armour, liquid metal rising from the upper parts of the armour and crept up towards her head. Her neck and then the bottom of her jaw were submerged until moments later her entire head was surrounded by the metal.
The metal formed away from her head, creating a cavity, a gush of air hit her in the face and she breathed in slowly. The metal in front of her began to turn opaque before it turned crystal clear and a HUD system overlaid the screen.
The others in her team had also activated their helmets and the HUD showed three green lights above their heads that indicated that their comms, their armour integrity and enchantments were all functioning at optimum levels.
"T-Minus four minute thirty seconds" the pilot communicated and the doors to the hangar opened and violent and loud air rushed into the hangar bay.
Three of her twenty-eight man team stepped forward and saluted her before they ran out of the still flying hovership and dove into the darkness of the night three kilometres above the forested grounds.
They would set the nullification wardstones the eggheads created that would prevent escape through magical means. Be it through portkey, apparation or through the floo. That and it would also prevent any discernible magic from being registered or escaping the nullification bubble, including any magical communication.
Nearly all magi-com or sympathetically linked magicks worked in the same magical frequency bands so it could be nullified much like travel could be.
The Ravenites within the castle would be akin to a fish in a barrel.
A signal appeared on her HUD, a signal that would have shown up on all of their HUDs, that indicated that they were directly above the castle grounds.
Her magic, steady as it was for the entire duration of their flight, was steady no more.
Not when the familiar hunger welled from within her, a hunger that yearned for the hunt and the blood of her prey. Her magic fed from that hunger with wildness, with eagerness, and it was burbling underneath her skin like burning sugar water in a pan, thickening and tightening much like the coils of her muscles were wound into a tightly wound spring waiting to be let unleashed into action.
It was on occasions that she felt most in-tune with her more beastly side, that side of hers that could gluttonously devour entire villages in her hunger.
Amelie unsheathed her bastard sword from her back whilst the rest of her team had mag-coil guns or daggers forming from their arm braces and placed into their hands.
Had it not been for the necessity to leave as little traces of magic behind, she knew they would have much rather preferred to use their wands than any weaponry.
To this day, nearly all of the Illosian Guards and the IO Agents preferred to use hold their wands for combat instead of channelling their magic through their armour like it was possible to do like she did with her bastard sword and her gauntlets.
Of course, wands were far more flexible, nearly infinitely so, but when it came to combat, she believed that flexibility was a hindrance. Combat needed to be short and final, and with training and practice, the armour and weaponry would be able to do that far quicker and simpler than wands and spells did. Magicals had a tendency to be flash and overly elaborate with their magic and it reflected in their fighting. The amount of times she'd seen duels that looked more like dances…
In any case, none of them would be using their wands in this mission.
Whilst the nullification bubble would prevent their magical signatures from flaring up on the magical net cast across Central and Western Europe and much of Eurasia preventing them being not unlike prey caught in a web sending vibrations back to the spider to come scurrying their way, their magical signatures within the nullification bubble would still remain and unfortunately scrubbed magical signatures still left a lingering trace even if none could tell whom it belonged to.
Now once their mission was over, the only signatures remaining would be that of their enemies, they would need an element of that confusion should their actions be caught sooner than Seen.
Especially given that every day, even hour, was necessary for the other missions and rescues they practically committed on a daily basis before they retreated permanently out of Ravenite territory.
Shock and stealth was their ally and best friend.
She led them towards the edge of the hangar, the large castle in the middle of the forest coming into sight through their night vision. It had six battlements with no one standing guard on any of the battlements or anywhere else on the walls.
"T-Minus zero. Plasma bolt has been fired" the pilot told them and they watched a mass of white streak down from the ship towards the castle and her night vision turned itself off as the sensors measured enough light from the environment.
The deadly wards that protected the castle would not be able to withstand the force, the temperature nor the consistency of the plasma bolt and would buckle and strain in the attempt until it broke.
"Remember." Amelie voiced out into their broad comm network, her hand gripping the bastard sword with creaking tightness as she stared at the plasma bolt hit the domed magical energy barrier. The wards flashed into brilliance as it tried to resist, but it would be to no avail.
"No prisoners."
"HA!" her team voiced out fervently through the comms in unison, the clunking sound of gauntlets hitting their armoured chest briefly overpowered the sound of the rushing air and it was at that point that she dove head forward out of the hangar bay.
She fell like a stone cast down from the very top of a mountain, crashing downward at high speeds and she loved every second of it. It reminded her of the stories of Valkyries streaking down the sky on Pegasi with righteous Fury and she felt every sense of that similarity as she free fell with a hunger they so deserved to receive.
The wards broke, bursting like balloons under the sharp bite of needles and holes opened up within the wards before they dissipated away. The plasma bolt had not lost all of its energy in dealing with the wards, merely a fraction of it, and it crashed right in front of the front gates of the castle. The sound of the plasma bolt hitting wet earth was deafening, sick sounds of sizzling, cracking and explosion echoed eerily through the wilderness.
That would have woken them up if the wards being torn asunder hadn't.
She adjusted her falling towards bottom left battlement of the castle and only when she was ten seconds from hitting the hard stone did she slow her descend to near zero. She jerked in the air as if she had a fishing hook caught in her mouth, her momentum slashed into near zero and she twisted around, her left hand moving and her magic responding, and soon she, and the others floated down towards the battlements like dandelion seeds caught in a gust of wind.
She made her way towards the farthest battlement and it wasn't long before she landed with total silence, the runes on her armour already stifling any sounds that she or her armour could make.
She looked around and saw that the rest of her team were still floating down towards their designated places. Her team would be split in five teams of five and they would make their way through the bowels of the castle together.
Amelie angled her sword sharply and the sword sang beautifully as the air was cut with inhuman speed whilst she made her way towards the door that would lead her inside. She worked at her best alone.
Her HUD pulsed and showed her a map of the castle. There were hundreds within this compound and hundreds more concentrated in the lower floors of the castles.
The thick wooden door was smashed apart, the audible sound stilling the fourteen men at the far side of the hallway before they turned around towards her direction.
The hunger that she dulled ninety-nine percent of the time was finally allowed to be felt and her canines sharpened as her face twisted in a deranged and hungry snarl.
That hunger, that gnawing hunger always felt like it scratched at the inner linings of her stomach and at the grey mass of her brain with claws made out of broken glass and infectious nails, once upon a time threatened to drive her mad with yearning she felt for the blood of her prey. Now though, she thought as she crouched down closer to the ground, that hunger was her fuel, her hatred made unwound in righteous cause. It was her weapon she wielded with deathly perfection and precision.
Moments before she would have been able to physically see them, the tightly wound coils of her muscles were let loose and she, with a speed that make her appear nothing more than a blur to the human sight, crossed that distance in less than half a second.
Men adorned in Ravenite clothing moved in tight formation, little gaps and maximum overlap, their wand tips fizzling with a spell on their tongues but it would not matter. By the time their eyes noticed that she was in front of them, her sword was swinging upwards toward the first man on her left side and it cleaved through the man like a hot knife through butter.
She wasn't done and neither was the man she cleaved into two pieces dead either for within fractions of a second, she moved on towards the next man, her upward swing bearing down in a forty five degree cut and it cut through the neck and parts of the shoulder of the second man.
By now, the now twelve strong company had barely seen her rip through their comrades and moved to attack her. By the time the first spell was fired at her, another three men had died by her sword.
Gouging, cutting, explosive and destructive spells were flung towards her, the narrow corridor was broken into pieces by the panic stricken spellfire from the Ravenites but she danced out of the way for most of them, the narrow corridors allowed her greater mobility to stay out of the direct path of the spells as she danced and weaved her way through the enemy.
Arms were severed and flung, some still holding their wands, whilst heads were cleaved off whole or in half, their screams and panicky shouts did not to dissuade her from murdering her way through them all.
By the time she was done, all fourteen were dead and the corridor in rubble was splashed painted maroon with pieces and bodies lying in pools of blood and guts.
She had no time to appreciate her work for there was an explosion rocked underneath her that crumbled the floor into nothingness.
Her only reaction as she fell down was a widening of her bloody thirsty smile.
An hour later…
A herd of hateful eyes stared at Amelie and her team, a kind of that hate felt made her feel sick to her stomach. It looked so, so wrong, the way youthful and baby faces bore those eyes…and so, so familiar, so familiar that felt like it hurt physically.
The way their faces snarled as they shouted out expletives, the promises of pain and suffering made through rabid and unhinged speech…
To see such wrongness on the faces of children the age of her Nino…
She felt her stomach somersault into complex feelings. Fury, loathing, pity and guilt dominated but above all of those feelings, there was one emotion that triumphed above them all…fear. After all…
She'd seen those eyes before gazing back at her in her nightmares.
Her gaze broke away from the children and instead her gaze swept across at this last room. It was the same as the other two dozen and more bunkrooms she'd seen. The Ravenites had them bunked together in groups of ten in each bunkroom. The beds were little more than wet paper across a stone surface and there was no privacy.
She returned her gaze to the children and sighed inaudibly as she raised her hand towards them. One day they would understand.
There was little they could do for these children right now and not wishing to bear it any longer, she waved her left hand and darts flew from her arm brace that sought out the jugular vein in the children's neck flying much like evasive Snitches.
One by one, the children fell asleep. Andreas and Lyman stepped forward with the crate and began to carefully load each child into the crate where another of their team would place them in temporary stasis pods until they could have the mental damage undone. She never thought she'd see that kind of evil again in her lifetime…
"You OK boss?" Andreas asked concerned through the private comms as she stood unmoving for some time.
"Yes, Andy." Amelie said after a few moments as she turned towards the figure clad in grey-silver armour. Andreas was taller than she was but almost a head and a half.
He looked like a giant in the armour that he wore. Lyman took the crate and made towards the courtyard where the hovership was waiting on them.
As she watched Lyman disappear past the corridor she commented dryly and somewhat stiffly "I was merely thinking that there are no depths our enemy will sink to."
Andreas grunted through comms as his helmet nodded jerkily. "I wish I could say that I am surprised but really, I'm not." Andreas said with a sigh. "It seems like its standard Dark Lord modus operandi to force people into loyalty and their ideology. Even the young." he said with a dry tone though it wasn't hard to sense the angry undertones.
Amelie said nothing when she nodded to her subordinate before she made her way out of the room. By the time she arrived at the courtyard, the crates were being floated into the hangar bay of the ship one by one.
She saw Lillian and the other two having arrived in the interim and she made her way towards the woman. Lillian and the other two placed the nullification bubble around the castle.
"Ma'am" Lillian saluted and Amelie waved her away.
"Any signals or communications escape?" Amelia questioned. They wouldn't know for certain but the fact that an hour or so later they weren't beset by enemies from all sides boded well that their mission was successful and that the nullification bubbles weren't circumvented.
The problem was, she saw a few communication mirrors that concerned her. No magic was ever fool proof or unbreakable, as much as the eggheads would like to profess and she wanted to make sure the Far-Seers didn't miss anything.
Lillian tapped on her arm brace and a holo popped up "I do not believe so." She enthused as she scrolled through the logs of the wardstones. The nullification bubble not only prevented travel, magical communication or magical signatures from escaping the confines of the bubble but it also kept a record of the frequencies that it prevented from passing through on the wardstones themselves which were paired to their magi-coms.
"There are attempts to communicate through paired mirrors, and even an ancient messenger spell – you know those folded paper bird charms – but as far as I can tell, we are OK." Lillian said with a relieved smile in her voice.
Amelie internally sighed with relief and she felt her resolve harden as hateful eyes flashed in her mind. At least she now knew that the assurances by the Far-Seers that the nullification wardstones would work in keeping the mission contained were fine.
And now that it is confirmed, she knew that the next few weeks, they would be hitting every camp like this with brutal efficiency.
It wasn't long before they were all back on the hovership with a cargo of thirty two crates. "Well done everyone." Amelie said as she stared out at the faces of every man and woman in her team. She'd lost no one in her team today – she hadn't lost anyone for well over a decade and a half now – and she was proud of them for making sure they all made it out alive with perfect execution of the mission.
She tapped her arm brace. "We're good to go" she told the pilot and soon enough, they were bound to forward base in Greece.
-Break-
Parelius Parkinson POV
He flicked his finger, the page on the holo turning, and continued read the report on the latest stirrings of the Ravenites. There was a knock on his door and Parelius looked up briefly from his holo and saw who it was, who it could only be at this hour. A look was enough for Parelius to give the man permission to enter before he continued to read the report.
"Cato." Parelius acknowledged without looking up from his holo.
"Sir." The black-haired man greeted as he approached Parelius' desk before taking a seat across from him. Parelius took a few more moments before he looked from his holo having finished reading to a satisfactory point. "The mission?"
Cato gave a thin smile. "Complete success" he said before leaning back in his chair relaxed. "No fatalities of the prizes and we still maintain a wide window."
Parelius hummed "As expected of course."
"Of course." Cato said with a nod but even though he didn't show any negative emotion, Parelius knew the man he spent years training better than the man knew himself. Cato disliked the ease with which the Far-Seers directed the IO with. Still, it was a dislike that Cato didn't let interfere with his responsibilities.
As expected.
Cato continued, his hands arched against one another as his posture took a more rigid, more controlled stance "Does our timetable change with this?"
Parelius eyed the dark-haired man. "It does. I will see it accelerated."
"They won't like that." Cato said with a piercing gaze.
Parelius smiled and it was a smile that could chill the blood of the most hot-tempered fool. "And yet it will happen." Parelius said as he slid the holo towards Cato.
Besides, Parelius had access to intelligence that spanned over a dozen timelines, timelines that the Far-Seers assigned to them weren't yet capable of seeing with the exception of Hypatia and one other. This path he favoured was one of them and it bore little consequence to the immediate and distant future.
Cato eyed it speculatively for a few moments before taking it.
Parelius watched the dark-haired man read through the report with an ever watchful gaze. Cato was one of his more successful protégés. A son of a Clan family, the Trest family, Cato was given and taught the best of both magical and muggle worlds allowing him the kind of flexible mind that Parelius shaped into what it was now.
An excellent intelligence agent who was shaping up well to be his successor.
"It's ambitious." Cato finally said after a moment and Parelius could hear the interested surprise and calculation measuredly leak out of Cato's voice.
Parelius only offered a shadow of a smile.
"They will not be able to prove it but they will know it is us. It could only be us."
"They already would know it is us from Cherkasy alone." Parelius commented without inflection in his voice. Cato nodded, understanding his point.
Illos was already known as the inheritor to the Atlantean legacy and with the King believed to having left with the expedition, any and all unexplainable happenings would fall on the shoulders of Illos. Amusingly, something that had already been happening years before news of 'Atlantis' was made public.
Even more amusingly, there were a few that certainly was their doing.
And whilst they would rightly believe it was Illos, they wouldn't know how. With their gambits in Asia and Southern, free Europe and North Africa, the Raven would be disinclined to wage open war with Illos and the Grand Alliance until he was in a better position.
"I'm all for it." Cato said calmly but Parelius knew that he was interested in taking lead in the more fruitful missions. Parelius understood. Cato, for nearly the whole of his career, had been on Illos as non-active duty intelligence agent, an agent who worked with information and could spot a still Snitch from a mile away.
And it was time for Cato to lead missions to quell the thinking that he was only an analyst instead of the Overseer that Parelius expected him to grow into becoming.
"Good. Then you can take point of the Moscow and the Bulgaria missions."
At this, Cato smiled widely and Parelius visibly saw Cato's mind run a mile a minute.
"You spoil me. Sir." Cato added the 'sir' part almost in an afterthought manner.
Parelius let it pass. It would enhance Cato's reputation in the IO and within the High Council which he would need if he wanted to be elected as Overseer of IO, especially if Moscow's haul was total without any loss. Which should be unlikely given that the hoard were in centralised locations in Moscow however well they might be defended.
With the Russian nobility having been gutted by Grindelwald and then later by the quasi-communist regime, more and more of Russia's wealth and knowledge had become centralised…including the loot they obtained from the other neighbouring Ministries and communities. Complacency and arrogance…
And once the Ravenites conquered the quasi-communist regime and imposed their rule on the Russians by taking over the old Russian feudal system – a system the communists had taken eager pleasure in replicating – the Ravenites kept the same places as the former ruling elite had kept their hoard beyond the few artefacts and texts they'd absconded with to Czechoslovakia which was their command centre.
A hoard that would soon fall in Illos' hands. They had little need for nearly all of it and most of its value was in denying their enemy resources whilst at the same time furthering their later goals of becoming the central place of knowledge of any kind.
"What do you want me to do with the locals?" Cato asked curiously before he turned serious. "There will be blowback. The Ravenites are fans of making examples."
Hmm…there would be significant blowback of course with the stitch up they'd be committing against the Russian people even if the Ravenite leadership would suspect Illos' fingers in it. But Parelius believed such things were irrelevant to Illos.
It wasn't as if there wasn't much of a population to punish. The influential families and nobility that survived the initial Ravenite conquest were all but dead now excepting of course the hundreds of scions that were now in Illos' hands.
Russia, it seemed, was served up to be an example to the rest of Ravenite controlled Europe in those days of wasteful massacres…and a warning to those who were spared the knife.
Which wasn't something the Raven or Cullaica would have to worry about insurgents any time soon. Their handiwork did enough to wither and crush bravery along with any initiative from within the hearts of most rebel cells in Europe.
Including amongst the Russians.
Not that it would have been likely given that without the nobility or the opportunistic bourgeoisie families the Russian people lacked much agency to do anything anyway.
The Russians that remained were lacking in both magic and in potential as a consequence of Russian societal structure. They had little value to Illos as it was and it would take far too much time and resources to rehabilitate them into something other than what they were. There were enough of that ilk in the magical world.
Should the Ravenites punish the inconsequential Russians for made up reasons such as treachery, as they are so keen and likely to do, it didn't matter to Parelius.
"Nothing." Parelius answered as he met Cato's gaze who, after a few moments, nodded his understanding behind a careful expression.
There was another reason why Parelius wanted Cato to take lead in Russia. He wanted to see if Cato had the heartlessness to condemn an entire people for the sake of their mission. To see if Cato could commit actions that would tar the soul of any ordinary person and if he'd come out of it stronger…or weaker.
"Bulgaria is another case however." Parelius said as he traced his finger across the table. Bulgaria, like in other regions like Germany, Austria or Denmark, there were a privileged few Houses that were exempted from total destruction.
But even those Houses didn't come out of the purges unscathed as branches had their scions taken to the same re-education camps as the other scions of destroyed Houses.
Cato glanced at the holo "The Krums." Cato stated before looking up again towards Parelius. "I didn't think we'd work with the Krums given their hand in our King's exile."
"I wouldn't call it work with." Parelius said with a thin smile before he returned to an emotionless expression which appeared as suddenly as the thin smile did.
"There will be a price to be paid for our assistance."
The Ministries and communities that bordered the Danube had little value in either artefacts or magical knowledge but what they did have was unique abilities that were passed down orally throughout the centuries in high secrecy, particularly certain kinds of animancy, the ability to manipulate the forces of life, which made them competitors to the shamans of West Africa when it came to that kind of magic.
Of course, it had little practical value, in combat, but in of itself, it was useful. Which was how the Krums had managed to leverage the survival of many of these communities even if a large of them were press ganged into servicing the Ravenites.
Whilst the Ravenites were comparatively mild in their treatment of these communities, these communities were also the most likely to join in causes they thought would get them somewhere other than dead.
Cato grimaced having understood at least somewhat where he was going with this.
"They'll want assurances." Cato remarked.
"And they will receive it." In so much that they'll be told whatever they wanted to hear. Of course Parelius would make an effort to address the fear they have of the Ravenites discovering their duplicity but in the grand scheme of things, ensuring the majority of them survived didn't matter to Parelius.
As long as enough survived that it ensured their magicks wouldn't die out along with not impeding the greater mission of magical unity, well…
The King and Queen wouldn't chastise him as long as he met their expectations.
Too much.
Cato didn't respond to that point and the meeting after that became more or less routine and soon enough he was left alone with his musings, musings that turned thoughtful as he skimmed over plans for the upcoming rescue missions again.
Parelius slid the Holo slightly away from himself as he leaned back from his seat and stared out into the dark cityscape of Celestis City.
A long while passed as he simply stared out at the sleepy, ever changing city.
He had to admit, when he first heard about the re-education camps, he'd thought it as devious as it was practical. It also furthered Parelius' thinking that the Raven was most certainly a former Grindelwald prisoner.
He even considered that the Raven was Grindelwald's final revenge beyond the grave should his attempt to re-form the world to his will and vision failed but he ultimately discarded that if only for the fact that the Raven was far more ruled by emotions in his actions than if he had been Grindelwald's intended weapon.
What he did think however, was that Grindelwald would find some sense of joy in his final legacy. The Raven was as tied to Grindelwald in a way that made it seem as if he were the deceased Dark Lord's own son, a son that bore heavy hatred towards the nobility and the power structures that facilitated Grindelwald's rise and subsequently led to whatever made the Raven the man he was.
It was a brutal vengeance too, one that ironically reminded Parelius of the classic tales of sons eager to tear down the legacy of their hated fathers, the way that the Raven reduced complicit Houses of storied and powerful bloodlines to nothing more than tools of war for the Ravenites.
Incredibly practical too.
It was a fact that wizards and witches from ancient bloodlines spawned the most powerful magicals frequently. Through centuries of breeding and crafting of family magic, wizards and witches of ancient bloodlines were more attuned to magic and they were, simply said, more magical beings than squibborns were who had their magic diffused by muggle blood or younger bloodlines who had neither time or talent to bind traits and affinities to their bloodlines that would improve the quality of their bloodline.
In any Empire or nation, to leave powerful players in position of authority and strength unhindered would spell doom for those newly in power.
After all, that was exactly what happened in Germany and Austria and the other Ministries that invited a devouring beast to their home and hearth in return of sitting atop a seat made out of the bones of their countrymen and other unworthies.
Just as it happened before with Grindelwald.
Getting rid of these families who were magically strong, wealthy and had historical entitlement to power was practical as was indoctrinating the surviving scions into tools of the Raven.
Most of the Ravenites were of insignificant lineage, those who needed something and someone to believe in. Parelius, in the privacy of his own company, allowed shades of ironic amusement to pass through him.
It was if the Raven was the shadow to the King's light.
Parelius shook his head.
Most of the Ravenites were insignificant strength of magic and as a collective they were unimpressive. There was a reason why the Ravenites attacked in groups like a murder of crows. Strength in numbers could and would overwhelm anyone.
History proved that well enough.
As much as he preferred the other option, dealing with the potential Sorcerer level scions as soon as possible was something he agreed with. Still, if he had his way, he'd write them off as lost causes however. Even if he had assurances that eventually it would be worth it like their missions scouring Europe of any and all magicks, powerful artefacts and priceless texts alike, was certain to be.
Parelius tapped his finger on the arm of his chair before he stapled together as he stared out at the sleeping City. Fortunately, he supposed, he had enough evidence from the healers to indicate that the indoctrination process wouldn't become practically irreversible if they acted within a certain window.
Not that it mattered given that the window they were operating in, the window before the Ravenites would catch on and move to counter, was far shorter than that possibility. A window they would have no problem in working to.
Irritatingly, after that, it would be years before anything happened with the scions.
The method of indoctrination – the same mental manipulation techniques employed by Grindelwald only deeper and more entwined with the subconscious – made untangling the manipulation virtually unmanageable in the immediate term for a group that ranged in the thousands.
It took the King months to untangle the mental manipulations and instructions from Ms Cantona's mind and she had been an adult with matured magic and mind and the King a master of the Mind Arts.
Their best Mind healers and Mind Arts masters indicated that, it would take years to rehabilitate younger people with flexible but fragile minds should they have the same depth of subversion as Ms Cantona once had.
Parelius sighed. Yet the King and Queen wanted what they wanted, he mused to himself. The benefits, beyond simply having a significant number of powerful wizards and witches indebted to Illos, were of course obvious.
To the rest of the magical world, it would be an act of compassion and great morality in the face of evil and monstrosity. Illos would win a moral victory and held in greater esteem by the wider magical world.
Every magical culture and society considered magical children as treasures after all.
It would also make Illos an even greater power to the rest of the more sceptical and wary magical nations. If Illos has the capability to undo mental manipulations of such degree, did they also not have the ability to make such mental manipulations?
At times, when dealing with recalcitrant people or societies unwilling to even consider the alternative, fear was a necessary tool to wield. No powerful individual feared anything more than the loss of free will and agency.
The King and Queen believed they would hit two birds with one stone…preserving powerful bloodlines indebted to Illos and the Monarchy that could never be paid off and of course the slow crawl towards Illos occupying the central moral and spiritual leadership before Exodus is set to happen.
Of course, the news of the rescue wouldn't be made public until after Illos joined the war and after the indoctrination was removed which wouldn't be any time soon.
At present, the hovership carrying the cargo and the team was enroute towards their base in the Ionian islands before taking the cargo to a facility in the Marshal Islands, a facility on some long ago abandoned island warded from muggles eyes centuries ago, where there were some sixty trained Mind healers waiting to treat them.
They were adept enough to reverse the mental manipulation and subversion but it would take them years to reverse even a few hundred patients.
It was why when they acquired the rest of the indoctrinated scions in the next few weeks they would be put into a stasis sleep that would effectively put them in limbo until the time arose for them to be awakened and treated.
Parelius returned his attentions to the holo and sat there staring at it for a few seconds before he picked it up once more. With a wave of the hand, an inkless quill flew from the cabinet and placed its tip onto his desk.
With a few motions of his fingers, the quill was linked to his magic and his mind and with a momentary flickering of his eyelids, he separated his mind into two different streams of thought as he leaned back into his chair, his Holo in hand.
He would read with one stream and in another mind-stream he would dictate the quill to put down his thoughts. The next few months had many, many things happen that Illos needed to take advantage of.
Another series of opportunities like this would not happen again in the coming years.
It would make the Ravenites cautious, akin to a wounded predator not yet backed into a corner, and it would move them nicely along towards the future of a ravaged magical world eager to fall into Illos' hands.
Warm and gentle hands that would beckon and harken these desperate peoples into their bosom.
It was hours later before he flicked his fingers.
Numbers formed in the air, thirteen past two.
It was twenty minutes later that he walked out of the Main Tower and it wasn't long before he was walking down Tower Street towards the bridge that connected the residential rings and the rest of Illos.
In this late hour, streets that were as busy as Alexandria or the muggle cities were, were bare and hardly traversed by people. It was also his favourite hour to walk down the city that was growing ever more into its bones as the years turned over.
Over time, the inner parts of the city began to host more of the affluent members of society as house prices skyrocketed when the population of Illos began to grow as more and more people arrived at the city.
The wealthy merchants, business owners and researchers who got rich off of their ideas bought up homes close to the Main Tower, the Pandrosion and the National Museum from the first settlers who'd came with the King.
The money had been too good to pass up for those people and with the assistance provided by the High Council, they were able to purchase cheaper homes further from the centres of power. It was an inevitability, this outcome.
However much the King espoused equality and meritocracy, accumulation of power and wealth were an inevitability. It was a human condition, one that transcended magic and blood. Parelius shook his head. The King knew this anyway, despite his idealistic musings. A pragmatic realist that held onto his idealisms.
When he made it home to his detached home by the bridge, he made straight towards the drink cabinet before sitting down in his living room, his right leg crossing over his left before he leaned back. He took a swill of his single malt whiskey, before he lazily waved towards the Holo screen which turned it on.
"Play Astrixus and Oberon Episode Fourteen" he said to the Holo screen and soon enough, a faint smile crept on his face as the show began its intro, the sight of a stupid brawling quasi-viking giant with his oversized battle axe and his more refined competent though shorter companion a welcome sight in this late hour.
-Break-
29th of October, 1971 – Monte Barrio, nearby Monte Pelpi, Italy
Cullaica POV
His hands rose, slowly, his wrists bending delicately as he hummed in the back of his throat, his eyes falling like white cloaks over the bodies of the enviable dead.
"Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ets…" he muttered, his hands moving in intricate sways and motions like he was performing an orchestra and the crackling sounds of the burning houses behind him was soothing, a melody that danced to his music and that momentarily flamed the chaotic fires of his soul, even if the dead music of the cries of the momentary blips of existence was a shame and a loss he felt.
"My Lord…they have activated the anti-portkey and apparation wards."
His hands fell down, back beside his body as he turned to glance at the disciple before returning his gaze, his eyes sharpening to that of a hawk, towards the array of over a thousand enemies, the momentary blips that would soon join the other blips into the ether.
A shark-like grin formed and plastered across his leather face, his hum once discontinued continued once more. The intro, the debut, had ended but the chorus was about to follow.
The Italians and the ICW were prepared, standing ready, adorned in carmine dragonhide robes layered and spelled with charms that he could see even from this distance away, their arrogance shining through as they stood to intimidate him with their inaction safe in the belief that they had him cornered.
Cullaica's grin widened even further, threatening to spread out from his face like a plague as he listened to the songs of their magic.
They were eager for blood and gore, their magic vibrating with eager and brave anticipation to cast him down into the abyss of the Lost and it was delightful. Their magic sung so determined, so loudly, with a righteous chord infected with hope that made him shiver in revulsion as he felt its touch into the ether of magic.
How beautiful it will be for that chord to be thrown into disharmony, Cullaica thought as his eyes began to shine with bottomless depths of malevolence.
For days, they've been chased by their lovely hosts across the Italian North as they butchered their ways through the few magical villages in these parts of Italy.
And for days, they'd gotten away again and again as they drew further inland all while whittling down their forces before hitting them again in smaller task forces, keeping off-centre and to draw out their most effective men.
The fact that he lost eight task forces was insignificant given that it has led to this very moment, this moment that he would savour with every inch of his body.
Front and centre of the battalion of ICW and Italian forces was Li Lei, the only one who would make all of this interesting until the rest of their peers came to play. Cullaica breathed in deeply with a shiver traversing the length of his body. The mere thought of ripping apart Li Lei into small itty bitty chunks was exciting him.
And Li Lei did not disappoint.
Even this far away, Cullaica sensed that Li Lei was different, that he was worthy, a future symbolic trophy that would hang proudly over his cold and wet abode.
He was alike Mars in the night sky compared to his compatriots who shone like insignificant specks of dusts that hung dully in the sky and Cullaica drank it all in, Li Lei's appearance and the tune of his music, like a parched man drinking water from a miraculous oasis in the heart of the desert.
Everything about Lei was a stark contrast to his fellows.
Instead of the carmine robes his fellows wore, Li Lei on the other hand…His dress was loose and flimsy looking with richly ornamented and embroidered designs on a backdrop of a regal yellow. His hands were covered in finger bracelets that gleamed under the light of the sleepy sun, bracelets that acted as a focus just as a wand would.
Li Lei looked every bit a legendary Chinaman of ancient times gone.
And every bit a champion of the parasites that sought to prevent the inevitable, the sweet blissful inevitability of the reality they were destined to spark into existence.
And with another army of Ravenite disciples attacking Lei's own people, Cullaica confirmed with intel from his informants still within the ICW that Li Lei was under heavy pressure from both the ICW and his people to deal with Cullaica and his men as quickly as possible before being allowed leave to defend his homeland.
The grin on Cullaica's face diminished, his pale leather-like face slackening.
It was amusing, infuriatingly amusing, like watching a fool fail time again at simple and mundane tasks, that Li Lei allowed himself to be so weak against those who could not stand a candle to his power and his ability, that he allowed himself to be made to bend to the whims of those who were insignificant.
Li Lei allowed himself to be bound to order, to the order of their lessers. But then…Lei did not understand, would not understand even if it stared him in the face and Cullaica would see Lei break instead before he snuffed out Lei's wasteful life.
The corners of his mouth rose minutely as he considered why he chose this magical village, this site for this confrontation. This was the site that Hannibal, Carthage's greatest hero, had lost his last elephant of his army, a death that symbolised the futility and disastrous outcome of his defeat on his march to Rome.
Where Hannibal failed, he would succeed and where else but here would it be fitting for their giant, their last giant, their only giant to be slain at this historical site?
Cullaica's wand slid into his hand, the thorny edges of his wand sinking into his scarred palm with familiar sting as the wood creaked under the pressure of his hand.
Just as blood dripped out of his wounds, his magic began to eke out of its chaotic cage like toxic fumes from the caldera of a volcano.
"Rex…Rex…Rex…" Cullaica muttered before he glanced over his shoulder.
"Activate the Seal of Solomon" Cullaica commanded, his semi-permanent grin fading as away and the skin of his face formed into pale faultlessness, his mauve eyes aglow with chaotic power.
Once upon a time, two thousand years ago, the Seal of Solomon would be used to against the marauding Nabataean magical tribes in Petra, Jordan, in a victory that would eventual lead to their submission to the warmages of Rome.
Today, it would hail the end of the last remnants of proud, proud Rome.
"As you command." The disciple bowed before retreating away into the faceless masses of the other disciples whose music of obedience was a vibrato to his rising orchestra.
Cullaica turned back towards the waiting blips, their patience wearing thinner as endless time ticked away despite their beliefs that they had him cornered and at their mercy with twice the forces and equal numbers of Archmages.
The music that ticked at the back of his mind grew louder, the Latin words of wailing women more desperate, more haunting and forever more beautiful and he stepped forward of his men, his hum stretching the note of the masterpiece as he raised his arms high and wide, as if to beckon them forth, to him and finally, finally, they began to move towards him like stampeding bison.
A quarter of his disciples moved as well, running passed him with a silent battle cry willingly to their deaths and the very sight shook his heart with quaking delight.
"Lacrimosa dies illa, Qua resurget ex favilla" he muttered in a sing song voice, all levity gone from his voice as reality began to shriek in beautiful agony, waves of power began to turmoil around him, waves of power that scythed through reality around him as if were wheat and barley in a golden field.
As cyan tendrils of magic began to boil off of him, his finger played with the signet ring on his hand, the ancient ring that worked in tandem with the long thought destroyed Seal of Solomon artefact that could lock an entire city of magicals from escaping its confines, the same magic that inspired modern confinement wards.
CRACKKKKK
His finger broke as he pressed down on it, the brief but sharp ache made his magic quiver in tremulous glee and just as the first spells were fired, beautiful in their flashes of light and murderous intent, he intoned "Confinio", the word of power pulsing into the ether of magic and he felt the very structures of the ether shift.
An ethereal hexagram encircled the battlefield, a hexagram of cerulean hue that gonged with an awful clang that sent a beautiful discordant note into the ether of magic, a note that elicited shudders within the very core of one's being.
Their enemies realised the trap that was sprung on them and the men on brooms that hovered about like pesky flies raced towards his disciples, towards him, and Cullaica's hum rose in volume, his hum vibrating much like his magic quivered with chaotic frequency as Li Lei flew into the sky riding a spiralling ball made out of air and darted towards him with magic rippling out of him with increasing power.
'Not yet, my trophy, not yet' Cullaica thought with a bright gleam in his eyes as he sensed the furnace of power emanating from Li Lei grow with each passing moment.
His wand arm, slack and loose, rose with lazy motion yet burned with intent as the tendrils of his magic began to rise into the sky before it was stood akin to a lighthouse at the top of jagged cliff with murderous waters roiling and crashing below.
Cullaica spared a symbolic glance to the sky, his mauve eyes gleaming with hungry provocation. 'I hope you're watching, Heirs to Atlantis' he thought to himself as he prepared himself for modified spell that took him and the Raven years to alter so that it was speedier at the cost of power.
He raised his thorny blood soaked wand above him, the tip of his wand glowing an ethereal silver glow, an unwanted light that chased away the beautiful and seductive abyss.
As Li Lei increased his speed with frantic desperation as he recognised the very spell that was forming, Cullaica's magic rose in crescendo, the density of the air increasing as magic soaked into it, his chaotic magic, his destructive magic, and a familiar silver circlet of hell formed above him.
As his disciples behind him ran forwards towards Li Lei, acid green spells springing forth from their wands, the very earth around him began to writhe into pained starvation, the once lush green grass around him turning brown before blackening as cyan tendrils of his magic lanced into it whilst he whirled his wand above his head in a wide unending loop that widened with each pass, with each completed circuit.
Wisps of ethereal silver exuded from his wand and latched onto the circlet in a spiral form, empowering it, feeding it and it grew and grew until it formed into an oblong disk of silver white, its radiant glow casting a massive light onto the world below before it twisted and stood vertically, its long surface angled towards his enemies.
Enemies who realised with terrified horror of what he was about to cast, but it was too late, just as Lei was too late as his disciples delayed him just long enough and Cullaica began to sing the song of the army killer "wishuea I o meniayashi luosh fasha cindiok FUIIIE"
Li Lei's horrified face was stuck on his face as he stopped in the air as if he met a sudden and unstoppable wall when the very world shifted around the words of power, words that enacted something that could not be stopped, that would not be stopped, and Lei realized it moments before he twisted a golden violet shield around him and darted away with blistering speed when the ethereal disk that had been emitting waves upon waves of silver white energy stopped.
Cullaica's eyes darkened just as the disk's surface warped into a void of absolute blackness, a void that was bereft of warmth and light, a vessel of the abyss just as Cullaica was a vessel of the chaos that belonged within that bottomless darkness.
The whine that cracked through the air, through reality, was deafening in its jagged gluttonous disharmony and the terrified terror that soaked through the ICW and Italian forces palpable cracked through the screen of disharmony like honey leaking out of its honeycomb confines.
"Ioshi yelmanush, gartush" the world shifted once more, the whining sounds that emanated from the pitch black disk stilled the very air, a chasm of desolate un-wind hung in the air and it was akin to poisonous paralysing fumes and in that half moment, thousands of silver black rocks spewed from the disk in dizzying speeds blotting out the shy sun with their sheer number and Cullaica's plasticine face melted in a contemptuous grin made out of delight when they smashed into the opposing army and his men with uncaring lack of prejudice.
The very earth shook, rumbling, ebbing and flowing as if it was a turbulent sea with each single strike, the howling screams and broken shouts a choir to the orchestra of destruction that sliced through earth and rock as easily as hot knives through flesh.
When the spell petered out, the dust settled and small craters painted the torn apart earth, and he saw that only half of the thousand plus strong army were still alive with none of the men on brooms still bothering the skies as they had done before.
"Go." Cullaica commanded of his disciples to deal with the remnants of the ICW and Italian forces all while his eyes searched out in the orange and brown hued skies filled with dust and debris and his mauve glowing eyes began to gleam with unkindness when he felt the twitch of Li Lei's magic.
Cullaica form below his waist began to twist and contort into an undulating black smoke before he jetted off into the sky towards Li Lei, a hungry, ravenous grin adorned on his face as he split the dust clouds with his speed.
Li Lei was unharmed, his loose dress fluttered in the wind, and he shone like a vengeful angel with the way his serene magic furiously ebbed out of him, an ebbing that slackened the control which with Lei had before strummed with and in its stead, when Lei saw Cullaica, an organ blazed out in full volume, his magic whipping around him with the furious power of a tsunami.
A tsunami of magic that seemed to double in intensity with each passing second, the very air crackling with the amount of magic that exuded out of Li Lei. Li Lei's face was stony, an unfailing mask, but his glowing dark eyes could not hide the malice and hatred he felt for Culliaca.
For a moment, time seemed to pause as their gaze met, cold glowing mauve eyes meeting contempt-filled dark ones, and an understanding passed between them, an understanding that seeped within the cracks of their souls, an understanding that made it clear only one of them would survive this encounter.
The moment passed, time resumed and Li Lei's arms were a blur as the very air around him altered, air that began to glimmer and howl as it formed into half arc blades.
Hundreds of blades began to circle around Lei as Cullaica closed the distance and snapped his wand forward, ahead of him, the tip of his wand crackling with sickly yellow magic waiting obediently to spring free and unleash an intro of spells.
The spiral of blades streamed forward towards Cullaica, the very air whistled around the pressurised blades, and Cullaica unleashed the sickly spell, Cume Thoden, a dark super-heated whirlwind spell that could melt skin as easily as it could shear it off.
A brilliant explosion painted the space between them, licks of hot air touched his skin as he flew forward towards Li Lei who'd also moved with vengeful speed.
Li Lei lanced his arm forward, the palm of his hand perpendicular to his arm and a wave a hundred meters wide and tall of cursed ice surged from the centre of Lei's palm towards Cullaica, a surge that tore through the air with the power and force of torrential rivers during the height of monsoon.
Cullaica knew he couldn't twist out of it in time and didn't try to as he slashed his wand around him with blinding speed, arcs of glowing, crackling cyan strands of magic formed around him like steel wires of a bird's cage, the smell of burning ozone and the sensation of bone burning heat flashed over him before he drew back his wand, the cyan strands latching onto his wand like iron dust to a magnet.
As the wave of cursed ice approached him, mere seconds away from crashing into him, he swept his wand forward and unleashed the crackling free-form magic towards the cursed ice, the burning electric strands of magic sizzling through the air until it crashed into the torrential ice, steam erupting as two streams of magic met.
Chunks of cursed ice broke free as the two spells battled for dominance, Cullaica's wand arm shaking as he poured in more power into his free form magic, chunks the size of horse-carriages rained down towards the battle that roared below.
With a snarl, Cullaica pushed more magic into his wand, his wand vibrating with the sheer volume of magic that it was channelling, and four, eight, sixteen, two hundred and fifty six additional strands poured out of his wand and veered beyond the titanic clash of magic that hung in the space between himself and Lei.
Lei wasn't idle either, the cursed ice broke into a million pieces, thousands of shrapnel were sent careening into his direction but Cullaica drew back his wand and shoved it forward, dozens of cyan strands weaving through the air to strike down each cursed shrapnel.
The strands were only partially successful and Cullaica was forced to shield against the shrapnel made out of cursed ice which peppered his shield with violent speed. He could feel his shield strain against the cursed ice, ice that he now sensed could eat through his skin and burn bone. 'How delightfully violent' he mused for a second.
Whilst Cullaica shielded against the shrapnel, Lei evaded the eviscerating strands of magic he'd sent to the Chinaman before Lei stopped and unleashed an explosion of pressurised air that tore through the strands like flesh would under the jaws of sharks.
Lei's arms swept in front of him, his arms moving in intricate motions and Cullaica's hairs stood roughshod upward as he felt the pressure of the air around him drop rapidly. Cullaica didn't stand still to wait for Lei and the battle began in earnest as both of them unleashed a hail of spells, violent and furious spells.
Cullaica's wand was a blur in motion, the tip of his wand sizzling and crackling with spells that could tear and rip and melt away even enchanted goblin silver whilst Li Lei churned out elemental spell after elemental spell in their dance of death.
As they battled in beautiful, gloriously chaotic battle, they rose and rose further into the sky, the clouds and atmosphere shifting ever so slowly as their furious magic began to alter the composition of the environment around them.
The clouds darkened, light from the shy sun was filtered out from all sight as the magic both Archmages cast turned more violent, more primal, instincts set loose from the cages of restraint, and the air chilled to arctic temperatures as Li Lei turned into the very symbol of nature's fury.
Veins of lightning formed in the dark, almost black clouds and Li Lei swept and weaved his arms like a snake charmer before he made moves to direct the shower of lightning towards Cullaica.
Cullaica cut his wand across above his head, blocks of impervious stone was conjured out of thin air and he was peppered with shards of stone as streams of lightning struck down at him and when the lightning stopped, Cullaica circled his wand around in small tight loops, the shards of stone thinning, sharpening after which Cullaica twisted his wand and enchanting the daggers of stone with a flesh eating curse before Cullaica jabbed his wand forward, the hundreds of daggers hurdling forward with blistering speed.
Cullaica wasn't done however, and he widened his arms, the depths of his chaotic magic unfurling in totality as he shone like a cyan star amidst the black clouds, his magic humming with the march of lamenting music.
Li Lei wasn't idle either and shifted into another stance, his arms wide and motioned into forming a round circle in front of him. Thick, monstrously large chains of metal began to be conjured around him, chains that bore magma-esque thorns that steamed under the presence of the wet air, circling around him like two great predators circling around each other in the few moments before a fight of dominance ensued.
As the daggers neared Li Lei, he brought his hands close to each other and after a half a second passed, he clapped his hands together, the sound of his clap impossibly reverberating through the air with the strength of a hawk's cry, and the chains of yellow silver metal shot forward, the sounds of its clanging metal a haunting sound of death.
The chains ripped through Cullaica's daggers, not that Cullaica expected any different, and Cullaica languidly drew his wand perpendicular to his body, the maelstrom of magic that raged around him rising in crescendo, higher and higher, until he simply uttered one phrase "Ardeo Atrum".
For a moment, his cyan magic dimmed, the world around him matched the same hue as the dark clouds above him, as if colour and warmth was sucked out of existence, until he flared with sickening brilliance and a blue black spell in conical shape of massive proportions shot of the tip of his wand.
The air crackled and popped and sizzled, a roaring blaze echoed with unimaginable fierceness as hell fire howled towards the fast approaching deathly chains, chains that were subsumed as the two forms of magic met.
The chains continued on their path as it was subsumed by the hell fire yet its speed slowed, more and more, and the roaring blaze deepened in volume as Cullaica increased the temperature of his spell with a biting snarl.
It was enough as the solidity of the chains began to fade and drops of molten metal began to drip towards the battlefield below until a few of those drops stopped falling and hovered into the air. Ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand drops of metals hovered before they shot towards him with maddened speed.
Cullaica stopped the hell fire and moved to defend himself with Recutio, a shield that could deflect anything save for the Unforgivables and the molten drops of cursed metal clanged against his shield, veering off into every vector though Cullaica wasn't satisfied with that and he raised his left hand in a claw like gesture and invisible tendrils of magic latched onto to a few of the molten pieces before he, with a vicious snarl, jabbed his claw-like hands forward and sent them careening towards Li Lei who was conjuring a hail storm of ice around him.
The assault of the molten droplets of metal stopped and the few pieces Cullaica sent forward did nothing to stop Li Lei's next move.
The dark clouds turned abyssal black, resembling a night sky without there ever being hints of stars with only a few streaks of lightening rippling through the black clouds breaking the beautiful monotony of darkness, of nothingness, and eerie thunder boomed and clapped with deafening strength, torrential rain began to pour down in non-linear fashion as howls of winds sheared in every and any direction.
Cullaica's grin was ugly in delight.
Li Lei stood serene even as his magic was thrown into a frenzy of chaos, fist sized blocks of ice danced around his form like a swarm of fruit flies. Cullaica flashed a hungry smile as he slowly brought his wand to bear, his robes fluttering in the chaotic atmosphere and Li Lei took that as a foolish confirmation that the battle was to continue and that it did.
Cullaica's laughter was an abhorrent, wretched sound as terrifying salvos of magic were thrown around in careless and unceasing abandon. The very world shook with each spell and every free form magic that was made to flash into existence, reality itself was being torn asunder as streaks of magic lingered longer than they ought to, otherworldly streaks that opened momentary windows into the great ether of magic.
He lived for this, all the pain, the suffering he endured and enticed others endure with him, all of it was worth it for just this moment, this moment of pure magic.
The sky shimmered in agony as the world was made into an ode of their battle, of their duet, great and terrible magic that wreaked and tore with awe inspiring power and the world shook with every note of their brilliance and in his appreciation of the madness, he was caught off guard and was hit on his right side, his arm slashed off as he was cast down in a blast of ice and he fell violently, aimlessly like a vulture with a torn wing.
Cullaica summoned his wand from his torn arm and managed to catch it with his remaining hand as he tumbled downward and as the ground approached, blood spewing from the stub just under his shoulder, the pain that throbbed nothing but a dull ache that could never compare to the pain he felt daily in their old sweet home, he somersaulted moments before he crashed into the ground and met the ground with both of his feet with a heavy thud before he created a swirling golden shield that whined and whizzed with furious power.
It was a good thing too as spears made out of solid fire smacked into his shield within moments of erecting it and Cullacia grinned like a madman, his magic vibrating with an impatient thrum. Yes…there would be no mercy, no surrender, he thought with delirious joy, his face tightening as tumorous growth burbled from the stub, a blob of pale mass rippling out of the open wound before the mass slightly lengthened, undulating all the while, before a brand new arm splashed out from the blob of mass.
Cullaica didn't have a moment to enjoy the new arm when he sensed magic emanating from below him and it was moments after he dashed away that the ground where he once stood melted away like candlewax before burbling like boiling water.
Cullaica slashed his wand and a violent stream of water spewed forward towards to the massive hand made of magma that surged out from the liquid pool of molten earth.
Water and magma smashed into each other and steam smoked out and it was then that he saw Li Lei racing towards him with serpents made out of stone spiralling around his form, his hands aglow with violet orange hues and Cullaica's grin widened ever more greatly when he noted Li Lei's look of surprise at his regrown arm.
Cullaica twisted his wand with blinding speed before he jabbed his wand forward as he came to a stop, the ground terribly quaking before a mountain sized boulder ripped from the ground towards Li Lei who stopped and landed, his hands rising just as his magic rose in strength, his dark eyes aglow with power as the boulder raced towards to the Chinaman.
Li Lei raised his hands, his fingers bending before he dashed them forward and the boulder stopped and it hung in the air for a fraction of a second before it was transfigured into millions of petals of flowers yet Li Lei was not done, no, his hands moved with inhuman speed and the petals of flowers creaked as they were turned into ice that began to glow a poisonous green.
Cullaica didn't wait for the spell to finish and flew forward, his body almost hugging the ruined terrain as he closed the distance between himself and Li Lei.
With an almost lazy gesture, the shards of ice were sent flying towards Cullaica and Cullaica twisted around in mid air, his wand moving quickly in tight circles and strips of earth ripped out from the ground and began to twist around Cullaica.
With another set of incredibly fast wand movements, the strips of earth formed into a crystal clear dome with impenetrable strength against anything but fire. His physical shield was bombarded with the shards of ice yet as he approached Li Lei, the shards of ice, instead of bombarding his dome began to envelop it.
Cullaica's eyes widened at the sound of his shield beginning to creak under the weight of the ice shards that now formed a blanket over his shield before he felt his momentum stop, as if something had gripped the dome with immense strength, and now he was a prisoner encased in poisonously green ice.
Cullaica gritted his teeth as he twirled his wand around him, strengthening the dome with more magic yet he could feel the outside layer of his dome cracking and breaking, the poisonous ice seeping into his dome more and more, and he was forced to shrink the walls of his dome to a smaller size to conserve the strength of the dome.
He knew was in trouble, deep trouble, and the thought of dying at the hands of his trophy enraged him and he raged out, his voice turning demonic as his cyan hued magic turned darker, more corrosive before he exploded with unrestrained fury, the well of magic that was within him shattering his dome and the prison made of ice with blind, breathless power.
The very world around him was corroded with his power and as Li Lei rushed forward towards with disgust and contempt etched on his face, Cullaica's mad unravelling shattered even further, the trill of his corrosive magic a song of lunacy.
Lances ripped out from the ground around him yet as soon as they entered the sphere of corrosive magic, they shattered into specks of dust and Cullaica, as he began to walk slowly, deliberately, towards the incoming Li Lei, flashed his wand with blurring speed as a torrent of spells crackled from the tip of his wand, each spell cast with such power that created an aftershock as it ripped out from his wand.
Li Lei was a blur in motion, skirting and dashing out of the way all while elemental magic of unforeseen power was strewn around, defensive and offensive, and he matched Cullaica with stride with stride, with spell with element, each of them hurling village destroying levels of magic at each other until Li Lei managed to find a moment, the very eye of the needle.
Cullaica had to spin around, his body moving without thought as he danced his way out of the slashes made of out impossibly dense air that could cut through any known materials.
The slashes gouged through the earth behind him for an untold distance and Cullaica brought his wand to bear, the world dulled into nothingness as deafening crackling spun out of the tip of his wand, Mortalitia Caliga, a spell that shot out a mist of acid with no counter curse, which caught Li Lei in surprise as he hadn't expected Cullaica to evade his spell nor the fraction of a second later spell that was racing towards him.
Cullaica didn't stop there, his wand moving from once more, the tip of his wand jerking upward as vines grew out of the area surrounding Li Lei though he left them buried. Li Lei clapped and generated a shield made out of euphorically blue water which sizzled as it shielded him from the acid before twisted his hands around and the shield that protected him formed into a hail storm, the uniform shield breaking into rain drops that glowed an ethereal below before Li Lei jabbed his hands forward and the drops raced forward like bullets that seemed to burn the air.
Cullaica drew back his wand and with a roar swept his wand diagonally, webs of otherworldly glowing lines streamed forward from his wand before linking up to form into a solid cage and with a flourishing twist of the wrist, he cast it forward.
The bullet fast drops of ethereal water hit the cage yet it could do nothing as it splashed harmlessly against the cage and it continued onto its path towards Li Lei whose face was etched in surprise before he got into another stance and kicked forward, the ground rumbling before a column of black stone shot towards the cage.
And as the black column met the cage, it broke apart in a gruelling explosion, the cage continuing onto its path towards Li Lei.
Li Lei darted to the left with blinding speed, his elemental powers helping him to move past human speeds, yet the cage followed him everywhere he went and Cullaica turned the palm of his left hand upward, his mauve eyes hard in concentration as a javelin was wandlessly conjured above his head.
Li Lei's expression twisted into a snarl as he released he would need to stop and act and that's what he did before he contorted his body and jumped into the air, his left hand clenching at his right wrist and a beam of magic exploded from the centre of his palm, a violet orange lancing beam that shook the very ground they stood on.
It smashed into the cage and its movement was stopped as it struggled against the pure violent stream of magic and it wasn't long before cracks began to appear on the surface of the cage. Cullaica scowled before he jerked his left hand and sent the javelin flying. The spell for that cage, Cavea, was meant to be immune to nearly all forms of magic excepting magic-eating spells like Fiendfyre yet he watched on as that beam of magic finally tore through the cage.
Li Lei moved his head to the left and the javelin moved past his head and the magic around Li Lei grew thicker, denser, more violent, winds of crackling magic danced around him as Li Lei seem to distorted before he moved.
Cullaica's eyes widened dramatically as Li Lei closed the distance between in the space of a second and Cullaica was forced to churn out spell after spell to stop Li Lei from closing the distance yet it was proving to be more difficult than he anticipated as Li Lei continued to approach him.
Li Lei was spinning, twisting, jumping, his body seemed to move free from the ground at will, as if gravity could hold no command over him, his dexterity and nimbleness made him akin to an eel, slippery, far too slippery and it was when Li Lei was less than ten paces away that Li Lei's eyes flashed with a blinding glow, the world shifting as ropes made of iridescent violet magic was thrown towards Cullaica and he just about managed to fire away a whip of cursed fire that smacked into the violet ropes.
An explosion rippled through the distance between them and Cullaica was thrown off of his feet though he spun himself upright and just in time too as the same beam of violet orange light raced towards him.
Cullaica snarled and whipped around him a golden shield, Fortis Aegis, and his shield clang as the whizzing beam smacked into his shield.
His eyes widened when cracks formed in his shield and he dropped it and twisted around all while side stepping the beam before he snapped of his wand and a sickly brown spell fizzed out of his wand, Exosso, a bone eating curse, that Li Lei evaded with ease before the Chinaman once more closed the gap.
Cullaica's mauve eyes glowed murderously as he snarled, his arms raising upward, and hundreds of stone arms rose from the ground to seize Li Lei.
Li Lei darted around, evading the grasping stone hands before he swept his arm across and a blade of super-condensed air cut the stone arms to pieces.
Cullaica hadn't stopped when he raised the stone arms, his magic rising as cyan tendrils began to turmoil around him and he snarled viciously as thousands of points of lights began to surround both of them in a dome like encirclement and with a jab, the points of lights shot down towards Li Lei with a maddening wiring sound.
Li Lei knew he couldn't evade this time and instead, once more smacked his hands together to create a massive pressure differential that warped even light, the knives made of out light bending around the font of air that Li Lei made and a gap formed that Li Lei sprinted out from towards Cullaica.
Spell after spell was fired at the zig-zagging form of Li Lei, spells that gouged and burnt and melted the ground from where Li Lei had stood moments before and Cullaica felt a trickle of uncertainty as Li Lei began to blur around Cullaica with a speed that he could only faintly see.
Cullaica barely managed to evade the lance made out of solidified fire yet Lei's follow up strike as he jabbed his wand into Cullaica's mid rift was unavoidable.
Cullaica was shot across the battlefield and he crashed into the ground with a massive thud yet as he got back to his feet, he found Li Lei less than three metres away from him with his hand outstretched, his thumb and middle finger pressed against each other.
Li Lei's expression was cold, and he snapped his fingers and a deadly shockwave rippled from his snap. Cullaica couldn't evade the ripple or throw up a shield, he was too close.
He burst out into a haunting scream as deafening sound invaded his ears and his magic grew uncontrollable, cyan tendrils of magic burst out of him like a geyser that tore the immediate area around him asunder and Li Lei was almost caught into before he jumped away in safety. The area around Cullaica distorted, reality to seem to bend around his form as his corrosive magic bled through the seams of reality.
Cullaica's strange bark made Li Lei, who was about to cast once more, pause, a bark that turned into a depraved, unhinged laugher, a laughter bereft of joy and warmth and had to shield himself as lances of pure magic began to spew from Cullaica.
CRAACKKKKK
Cullaica's finger broke under his thumb.
"That…hurt." Cullaica's muttered as he looked at Li Lei with drooping eyes. Nothing had hurt him like that in many, many years, he thought darkly before his hands rose like a conductor about to move into the next piece and his wand moved like a conductor's wand as he wrought horrifying music onto the world.
Li Lei moving as he had always moved yet Cullaica could see that he was having trouble dealing with the volume, speed and the wideness of the spells that Cullaica was casting and it was at that moment that Cullaica jerked his wand upward, vines that lay buried just below the surface sprang forward and grabbed Li Lei's ankles a moment faster than he realised and pulled him off balance.
It was at that moment that Cullaica whirled his wand faster than he'd ever done before and twisted his wand around in an arc with blinding speed, blobs of flesh pulling from his skin like spores from the hearts of flowers under the gust of a strong wind, before he sent those spores, those blobs forward in a maddening frenzy.
Cullaica's eyes gleamed as Li Lei freed himself from the vines, his once untouched garments no longer blemish free, yet it was too late for him now as his flesh blobs sunk into Li Lei's clothing and flesh, his desperation tangible as he conjured blue flames to burn it off of him yet it wouldn't work, not while Cullaica was feeding the blobs of flesh with magic and conviction.
Li Lei finally made a sound and it was music to Cullaica's eyes, the sounds of the pained gasp that rose into a desperate shriek as his flesh dug into the Chinaman's flesh like moles dug into wet and soft earth.
Li Lei clawed at his body, his dress was torn off as his fingers desperately tried to pull away his parasitic flesh but it was to no avail, his shrieks a beautiful hook that he painstakingly fought hard to win.
Cullaica glanced around and realised that they were far from where they started, and saw a farmhouse in the distance that very clearly had people looking through their blinds. Cullaica sighed before he shook his head and made his way towards Li Lei who was on his knees scratching at his bare chest that was bleeding from the scratch marks that his fingers had dug in.
He'd give the muggles a visit once he was done here. He'd need a bit of time to unwind once he was done with his trophy. He hummed a jolly song as he approached the archmage that admittedly gave him a better fight than he thought he'd get.
Had the Chinaman been a bit smarter, Cullaica didn't think he'd win, not with how fast Li Lei was. "Ah, Li-Li-Lay, you look a little ill, are you a-o-kay?" he sing-songed in English as he crouched down to Li Lei's breaking form.
Li Lei didn't respond, his entire being occupied by the pain that his flesh was wreaking onto Li Lei's body. Cullaica stared at Li Lei, his mauve eyes gleaming with contempt. When he designed and created that spell, it had been meant to emulate the treatment they put him under. A treatment he had to suffer every morning from six till eight. Not only did it turn one's body against itself, it also turned very magic against you.
"Pitiful." Cullaica spat out as he stared hatefully at Li Lei who was breaking right before his eyes and it hadn't even been five minutes since he was put under the spell.
With a lazy slash, his spell decapitated Li Lei and blood spewed from Chinaman's neck. He raised his hand and the head with a face fixed in agony fell into his hand and Cullaica turned his gaze towards the body and watched until the blood petered out into nothing when Li Lei's heart stopped pumping.
With a bored jab a stream of dragon-fire spewed from his wand until it burnt the body into ash. He turned his attentions towards Li Lei's head and angled the head towards him. "Did you have fun?" he asked Li Lei and he made the head bob.
"Good, good" Cullaica cooed before he brought the head to his face and pressed a warm kiss on Li Lei's forehead. A grin plastered itself onto his face.
"Thank you for the fight. You've shown me that I have much to do."
He'd thought that lasting as long as he did against his friend was impressive enough but he realised now that he'd have to improve a hell of a lot more if he wished to be able to make more trophies. "Anywho…" Cullaica stretched out as he cast his gaze towards the muggle house, a grin returning on his face. "Let's go visit our muggle voyeurs, shall we?" he asked his trophy with excitement tinging his voice.
The disciples could spare him for an hour or two, he'd decided. He began to whistle a jaunty tune as he threw Li Lei's head up and down as he made his way towards the muggles.
-Break-
Slipspace
He was adrift, lost to the turbulent eddies of his surroundings, his being akin to stardust amidst clouds of gasses on the precipice of igniting into new born stars.
A kaleidoscope of magic tumbled and wreaked and sheared around him in this gestalt of magic, currents of magic that bore infinite depth and infinite range roared past him, through him, with him, slivers of its touch influencing entire star clusters as easily as the warmth of the sun influenced the weather system of planets.
He was insignificant, a fraction of a fraction of a millionth yet he was as important as the whole infinite gestalt of magic that swam throughout the cosmos with infinite scope and infinite speed. The whole was never a whole without its infinite pieces of stardust, its seedlings that carried its fire and its starlight to distant and dark corners.
His magic, unfurled and unbound in totality, flickered and shimmered like the strung string of a tightly spin instrument as he rode through the dense nebulae cluster of magic, his magic remaining diffused and connected with the rivers of magic despite the jarring harmony that was enshrined into existence.
It was different, this chaotic harmony that he had grown accustomed to in these months of travel. Where before, on Earth, it felt as if there was peace pouring into porous bones when he connected to the magic of the universe, to the currents of neurophysical energy that permeated the universe, here, in this in-between-space, this thin dimensional film of physical reality, it was akin to be being a seedling, a spore unfortunate enough to be caught in the fury of a Cat 5 hurricane that could shear skin and flesh from bone.
The first time had been a shock, as if he had been doused in gasoline and set on fire.
In slipspace, magic, neurophysical energy, felt more potent, more wild, as if there were layers to magic itself that were undefined and unseen in conventional space.
He'd pondered on it for the past few months, meditating sometimes days on end, and he thought he was arriving to a solid conclusion.
Slipspace was a bundle of non-dimensions above the plane of conventional space, a thin film of reality much like Natal Void and Shun-space were, but it was still part of the physical reality only physics behaved differently.
Neurophysical energy, magic, was constant in the physical reality but there were pockets of regions where it was stronger.
Like intersections of universal leylines or planets, where life was abundant causing a feedback loop of strengthening both life and magic, and Atticus was beginning to believe that there was a tangible link between slipspace and universal leylines.
Why did multiple universal leylines intersect at the Celestis system and in other places in the galaxy? Why was there such disparity in universal leylines in the first place? There were some universal leylines that were significantly stronger than others whilst there were others that were practically non-existent with how weak they were – they'd found that out when they had been trying, years ago, to find a way to send messages to and fro Earth.
They had many such questions because they knew that leylines could move.
At least on planetary scale.
On Earth, the first wizarding communities post-Atlantis found themselves capable of altering the path of leylines, an ability that was more or less lost over time, often because of hubris but nonetheless, they had been capable of it. The Celtic tribes, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the proto-Chinese and a host of other ancient magical tribes all dabbled in the kinds of magicks that could affect leylines.
The end of the Ice Age through an obscenely powerful ritual, the destruction of the leylines of Thebes and the realigned leylines of the ruins of Old Babylon were all such proof that leylines, in the right circumstances, could be altered…or destroyed.
…why wouldn't that be possible for universal leylines?
His current thinking was that slipspace topographical features had an influence on the potency of magic and universal leylines. Distance between point A to point B could not be measured by distance when traveling through slipspace, no, it was far more complicated than that.
The dimensional plane of slipspace was uneven, with peaks and valleys that resembled the surface of metals under microscope, and that was why travel between point A to point C could be quicker than A to B despite the distance being greater in conventional space.
Topographical features may well explain the path of leylines through a link in this phenomenon but he doubted he'd figure out the full answer any time soon.
For now
His mind went back into inaction as he let himself sail across the potent streams of magic that traversed this region of slipspace, his body only moving in line with his slow but rhythmic breathing as he sat in a lotus potion.
As chaotic as it was, he could never tire from being part of the whole.
His magic, unfurled and unbound as it was, swirled around him in volumes that defied belief, ebbing and flowing like tides on coasts that stretched for thousands miles, even as he was connected to the magic of the universe.
At the back of his mind, at the edges of his consciousness, at the edges of his field of perception, the immediate futures of countless timelines scratched at him, mists, shades of people and events and places collapsed into indiscernibility yet he paid it no mind, letting it flow past him as he lost himself to the flowing tides of magic.
He wasn't sure how long it had been but he felt something stirring from below him and something lick at his face. He dialled his mind back into focus.
`Master, there is someone coming. Your youngling` Seraya's soft sibilant hiss remarked and Atticus realised that it was likely hours, perhaps days since he last left Seraya's den. He drew back from his connection to the magic that permeated all throughout slipspace and began to draw back more of his unbound magic into himself, an act that caused Seraya to hiss out in a displeased and petulant tone.
Atticus reopened his two white glowing orbs that accompanied the swirls of profound magic that radiated out from him like a solar furnace. He could see and touch the currents of magics that were like glowing laces of silks, silk laces that licked and sewn and penetrated every inch of existence.
It took a little while longer for him to pull back all of his magic, back into his cage of control and when he did, the strands and wisps of magic were reduced back into a faint ethereal state in his field of perception, a state that let him perceive but unable to directly affect it all.
`Are you sure I cannot harm him with my gaze` Seraya asked irritated.
Atticus smiled, his hands that were sat on his knees moving to either side of him and he caressed the smooth but hard scales of Seraya, an act that seemed to reduce the swelling irritation she'd felt. `I am sure. Please keep your eyes closed, Seraya. I am quite fond of my protégé`
Seraya's hiss sounded agitated `This one interrupts too often. Your mate should give you better younglings. At least their rudeness I could tolerate`
Atticus' eyebrows rose `You'd tolerate my younglings interrupting us?` he asked sceptically. Seraya's noncommittal hiss was all the answer he needed.
Atticus flicked his hand and the stopwatch that he'd made flew towards him. His eyes widened slightly…ah, of course Gaius would come. He'd been away for the last two days. Longer than usual, he mused to himself before he shook his head clear.
Whenever he was in a meditative state, his lack of need to sleep for weeks at a time made him far more susceptible to simple drift off days at a time. Without Emily or any of his typical responsibilities on Illos needing him, he was quite content to let it happen too. The journey to Celestis was long and there was little to do after all.
Gaius arrived wearing black sun glasses, refractory glasses that shielded people from the direct gaze of basilisks. Atticus smiled a little amused at Gaius. He looked ridiculous but to be fair, it was probably for the best. Seraya wouldn't disobey him but he also knew she was far from a tame being. She had apex instincts after all.
"Gaius" Atticus greeted curiously as he leapt off of Seraya's back with effortless smoothness and made his way towards his protégé. Gaius had largely stayed on his ship after the last break in their journey, the longest they'd been around each other since before he'd left for the Celestis system. In truth, Atticus was quite glad for it.
Gaius was as close to a son he'd had.
Seraya's head rose and she hissed slightly which caused Gaius step back a little.
"Are you sure she isn't your familiar?" Gaius asked sceptically as he opened up his body slightly, an act that made it clear that he was readying himself to defend himself if he had to.
"Quite." Atticus said with a faint smile. "She's just a little possessive of me."
And he didn't mind it all that much. It was true that Fila wasn't that possessive in comparison to Seraya but then he attributed that mostly to Seraya's need for human companionship after centuries of loneliness. And of course Fila showing any kind of possessiveness was beneath her, Atticus thought with deep sense of amusement.
"Sure…a little." Gaius muttered and Atticus laughed before he gestured Gaius to follow him. Seraya's habitat was more or less bare excepting for a rocky hill with small flat outcrop of plains that she could use to stretch herself out. The weather was about thirty-five degrees Celsius and rarely hovered below it.
Atticus, with almost no effort, thought strands of leather into existence around his feet and wrapped themselves around his feet before melding into boots.
His loose fitting Losi was transfigured into the formal navy attire for the burgeoning Illosian navy, a black outfit with lines of purple and dark green on his sides.
After they made it out of the huge doors of Seraya's habitat, they made it to the cavernous bay, a bay that stretched for miles and was at least a mile in height.
Habitats, equipment and disassembled machinery, vehicles and facilities were all located in this spatially expanded cargo bay.
The Hecate was only two kilometres in length but they certainly made plenty of use of spatial charms and runes to make full use of the ship.
"Everything running smoothly?" Atticus asked as they walked towards one of the Hub-Ports that would allow them to travel to different decks or areas of the ship.
"Yes." Gaius commented "Everything is the same as it was two days ago, sir." Gaius glanced at Atticus "I just thought you might have been..."
"'Lost to whimsy of magic?'" Atticus quoted with the corners of his mouth curling upward. Gaius winced, a look of regret but also abashment splashed across his face.
Gaius had uttered those words during an argument they had a number of weeks ago. It had mortified Gaius. Teasing the young man, who rarely allowed much opportunity for teasing, with those words was quite fun…and there was also a point to it. Gaius' reverence for him was, in Atticus' opinion, far too strong.
He wanted the young man to know and see his flaws, that he wasn't perfect nor incapable of mistakes. Even the supposedly greatest of men and women were flawed beings. He was most certainly no exception.
"Well" Atticus continued, deciding to move past Gaius' unfiltered words that he'd thrown back to his protégé. "It's been a while since we reviewed the schematics for the star-base." Atticus paused for a moment, his mind whirling towards the star-base that would start construction.
"I have some ideas of improvements." Atticus eyed his protégé as they neared the Hub-Port. Gaius' eyes lit up in excitement and Atticus resisted the urge to smile.
"Great" Gaius enthused before he spoke again quickly "I have a few ideas myself…"
For the next hours both he and Gaius reviewed the schematics of the star-base and spent a chunk of that time discussing Atticus' idea of Energetic Amplification, a methodology that would take energy and run it through a matrix field that would amplify the subatomic resonance of energy that reactors would generate which would cause a chain reaction multiplying energy output exponentially if they were able to prove his theory out.
The idea seemed to excite Gaius who began to think of controlled experiment setups and from there, their conversation turned to ideas and they simply bounced off of each other, two eager minds that were very much alike.
Time on the ship flew by as days became weeks, time marched on in its ceaseless march and yet, before long, it was time as they finally neared Celestis and Atticus sat in the captain's of the Hecate, the command ship of the small fleet of four, with an almost child-like anticipation. They were less than an hour away from Celestis.
Outwardly, of course, his expression was calm and authoritative but inwardly?
He'd see the very world, worlds, with his own two eyes, he'd feel and taste and smell the air of the worlds that were being crafted into perfection, worlds that he'd only seen and felt in all too real dreams and in visions that made him experiences those moments as if he was there. But they were no substitute for physically being there.
To experience it with his body instead of just with his mind and his magic.
For over thirty years, he dreamed of a spacefaring magical civilisation and now that he was almost here, at their new home where his people would leave a legacy that would span millions if not billions of years if he could help it, it felt somehow somewhat surreal. It sounded odd, even to himself, but it was what it felt like to him.
When they were minutes away from dropping out of slipspace Atticus turned his gaze to the men and women operating their stations.
"Mr Caudex, open up the coms to the rest of the fleet." Atticus instructed.
"Aye, aye, your Grace." Caudex, the pilot of the Hecate when Atticus wasn't taking control of the ship's movement, said. Gaius looked to him with an understanding expression on his face.
Soon enough, they dropped out of slipspace in an area between Gribridis and the Celestis version of the Kuiper Belt. The corners of his lips curled upwards as he stared at the distant image of Gribidis, the blue-yellow gas giant that looked like a marble ball.
A holo popped up that showed his connection to the rest of the fleet. Atticus tapped on the holo and opened up the connection to the fleet so that his announcement could be heard from every deck, quarter and rooms.
"Ladies, gentlemen and magical beings" Atticus began as his words permeated every deck and room of every ship within the fleet. His gaze remained affixed on Gribidis, the largest gas giant of the two that resided within Celestis.
"We have arrived at our final destination." Excited murmurs and muted cheers rang around on the bridge and he knew that similar cheers were being had.
"Our journey has not been easy." Atticus continued, the murmurs and cheers dying away as people listened to him. The journey towards Celestis had been fairly easy and generally speaking it had been more or less problem free except for a few incidents like the Gallimimus dropping out of slipspace suddenly a third way into their journey.
It was a little embarrassing that he never paid any attention to the journey itself, only the outcome of it so they had to investigate the cause of it all.
Granted, it was quickly resolved within a few days after he'd cycled through time and timelines ending up finding the cause of the intermittent power failure that tripped up the hard fail-safe protocols but it was an error on his part that reminded him that he was not infallible.
A reminder he needed in the wake of his excitement over his lifelong dream.
It took over two weeks to make sure that power system gap was fixed and closed in all of the ships though it was clear that only the Phorcys, the second Gradus class ship, was affected with the same issue as that of the the Gallimimus.
But of course, he had to play up the difficulty and struggles they faced. "Our ships broke down when we least expected them too and our journey lengthened by a fifth as we reduced our speed for safety's sake." Atticus turned his gaze towards the crew who were watching him and he offered them a small smile.
"And despite all of the difficulties we have faced. Despite having to see the same faces months on end" Atticus said with a light chuckle, a chuckle that prompted others on the Bridge to join in "We have arrived safely and whole! Congratulations!" Atticus said before he started off the clapping and that sent the crew in loud cheers.
After his brief speech, Atticus instructed his crew to send communication to their people still in the system. He had to smile at the eagerness of the messages that they received back from their people.
Without the Gradus, travel between the worlds was lengthy, even for fighter ships or the four man ships that they left behind.
Thankfully, most of their people were situated in the inner core of Celestis, on the planets Yethea, Sentanis, Dagolia and of course Celestis, where the worlds were either already comfortable for human habitation or close to it.
The fleet cruised along the solar plane taking a scenic approach as they vectored towards Gribidis and the two moons, Thinavis and Ibronides, whose topographies were being altered through Emily's Terra-Alchemic stones.
Atticus was silent as they flew by the gas giant and by Thinavis, Ibronides and Drelater, another moon that would soon begin the Terra-Alchemy process.
Gaius must have noticed his solemnity as he began to speak up amidst the quietness atop the Bridge. "On Thinavis, the moon the size of Mars, we found out some curious geological formations." Atticus turned his gaze towards Gaius.
Gaius continued "Formations that were eerily similar to the Giant's Causeway in Ireland." Atticus hummed for a moment. He'd read every single report when the Gradus had returned, including the geological reports on all of the prospective moons which added to the data he already had from Moira.
Though he had to admit, he'd not paid too much attention to this geological formation. It seemed unimportant, in the grand scheme of things. He was more interested in the alteration of Sentanis, the rocky savannah world with a natural gravity of twice that of Earth than he was about geological formations of cold moons.
Still, it did peak his interest. The Giant's Causeway was an interesting occurrence and a testament to nature's tendency towards stable geometries despite violent origins. After all, the Causeway's formation happened as a result of volcanic fissure eruptions and its lava rapidly cooling resulting in contraction of the cooling basalt.
The horizontal contraction fractured and the cracks propagated downward as the mass continued to cool and it left pillar like structures behind that fascinated ancient and modern peoples alike.
"The size of the columns?" Atticus questioned intrigued.
Gaius smiled knowingly and waved his hand towards the space in front of the captain's chair. A holo formed and Atticus leaned forward. He whistled before he spoke "That is fascinating" he admitted.
The Giant's Causeway, as interesting as it was, was relatively small. Only forty thousand interlocked basalt columns were all that remained.
The Causeway of Thinavis however…
Well for one thing it stretched for over three hundred miles and models showed that it would remain above sea level by over two hundred metres once the area was flooded due to warming.
"Will they be preserved through the alteration?" Atticus questioned as he returned his gaze towards the moon that they were flying past.
"Yes." Gaius said with a smile before he shrugged "Some of the researchers thought it would be wasteful to get rid of such unique geological history and I agreed."
"Good." Atticus said before he leaned back and glanced at the basalt columns. "I think it will be prudent to make it a doctrine…a doctrine of preservation of as many unique features of our new worlds."
"Yes sir." Gaius said with a nod, a soft smile on his face as he also turned towards the basalt columns "I quite agree with that. It is a fine honour to give our new homes"
It was not long after that they made it past Gribidis and its many moon though the Phorcys stayed behind whilst the rest of the ships moved towards the inner planets.
Most of the people that were on the Phorcys were those specifically assigned to making the moons of Gribidis – and later the moons of the gas giant Eos – habitable.
The Phorcys would remain around Gibridis for most of the duration of the trip and function as a mobile command post until the Starbase is built and travel between the worlds was reduced to fractions of what it was now.
It was only a few hours later that they arrived at Celestis and the world did not disappoint. A beautiful, startling green world with mountainous peaks that seemed to reach out from the atmosphere greeted him.
Thick blue river streams observable from orbit snaked through the valleys of the mountains all the way down to seas of tall grass plains and forests that stretched for thousands of miles out until the coastlines.
Atticus stood up from his chair and walked towards the bridge view screen. He didn't need to stand up, he didn't need to move closer. Yet he was still moved to do so.
In his past life, he'd seen a picture of Earth when he'd been about seven years old. He'd seen a globe in class before but he hadn't seen a proper picture of Earth until he'd seen it on the desk of the old lady that had lived six doors down.
That picture, that high resolution picture of Earth, had been what sparked his fascination with space. When he'd been reborn into this world and all its wonder, what he had thought impossible became nothing more than an obstacle to conquer.
He had the tools, the desire and the dreams to see it through and he had achieved reaching space with only his mind, his magic and knowledge in hand. He was the first modern human, muggle or magical, to reach space at only age fifteen.
He remembered that feeling of awe, pride and reverence as if it happened yesterday and as he gazed down at Celestis, those same feelings surged within him with a tenfold strength.
"Your Grace?" Gaius' voice broke him out of his reverie. Atticus glanced over his shoulder and saw the Bridge crew staring at him whilst Gaius wore a concerned look on his face. Atticus let a genuine warm smile form on his face.
Yet this instance was different. His achievement was not his own achievement. This journey, all of this work, was not done solely with his own hands.
No…he mused, as he stared at the faces of the committed and loyal crew, his people, this was their achievement and that, Atticus thought, was what made the feeling of awe, pride and reverence all that much stronger than had been when he'd achieved spaceflight all on his own.
Days Later…
Atticus climbed up the last few hundred of metres of the mountain, his hands gripping the ice cold jagged rocks, his feet pushing him forward. He glanced upward and saw the pass that would lead him to the very top of the mountain and he preserved as he pushed himself onward.
He could fly, of course but he had no desire to do so. As he aged, he realised that there was a value in taking your time, to enjoy the journey as much as reaching the destination itself would be enjoyable.
Finally, after about half an hour later, he reached the very peak of one of the greatest mountain of Celestis, a mountain that stood even higher than Mount Olympus of Mars at 26 kilometres high. There were a few other mountains with peaks nearby that also were higher than the largest mountain on Mars, including the one he was standing upon yet this one was special.
He looked around, the ice touched peaks of the mountains gleamed under the light of Celestis' sun and the curvature of Celestis was clear to see just as the startling blue rivers that ran in the green valleys far below. And he stared out into the distance, he could see far and wide that the greenery of Celestis was unending from this spot, from this sight.
A lush, fertile world that was untouched and unbroken throughout the ages.
This world was truly beautiful and it sang with magic, it truly did, and it almost felt like home, as if there was a critical piece missing and the feeling he got from Celestis itself was that the planet knew something was missing. Celestis was alive, more so than Earth was, yet it was also less alive than Earth for it was in a kind of sleep that it needed to wake from.
A sleep that it would soon be made to awaken from.
Atticus breathed in the frigid thin air, an act that was ornamental in truth given that he was not breathing in the true air around this mountain as it was too thin to breathe without assistance.
He dreamt of this place, of this spot.
He stared at the specific spot. It drew him in like a sailor to a Siren's call. It was subtle, barely noticeable – in fact he'd only noticed as time neared closer to his departure – a feeling that seemed heavily entwined with his magic. He didn't understand it, in truth, and that was something that shocked him more than anything else. More than the surprising discovery he made about slipspace and magic.
Not even his visions could explain why this was so important. He knew that he'd be here for the next few days locked in meditation but afterwards? It was as if something changed, as if his entire perspective changed. His future-self's actions remained as he'd always seen yet there was something about him that fundamentally changed.
The feelings his future-self felt were strong, stronger than anything he'd ever felt before. A determination that would put anything he ever strove to fight for to shame.
Atticus grimaced as he turned his gaze away, the pull of the call growing stronger as the time approached.
He had no idea what his future-Self had Seen to warrant such a change, such fundamental change. Whilst he could see and feel what his future-self would see and feel, he couldn't actually know what his future-self saw in his visions.
And his future-self never spoke to anyone about it, not even Emily and it made him wary about what he would See if he decided to go through with what seemed to be a critical point in time.
Atticus sighed before smiling wryly and looked upward towards Dexirus. There was no chance that he wouldn't traverse through Living Time as his future-self had done.
He'd always wonder what if, he'd always think that he had missed something far too important and he was certain that he would come to regret it immediately if he did not do what he was almost meant to do. It had the touch of a self-fulfilling prophecy and he allowed his wry smile to twist in an ironic one before he shook his head and made his way towards the spot.
For a moment, he simply stood before he crouched down and sat in a lotus position.
Atticus closed his eyes and reality around him began to fade away like paint washing away from a canvas as the portrait fell deeper into the abyss of the deep blue sea.
Mists that bore a kaleidoscope of colour formed around his perception, mists that hummed in sync with him as time dissociated itself from him. Slowly, thousands of threads of Time began to take form within his perception.
His conscious was unbound, free from Time itself as he stood as an Observer amongst streams of timelines that he See and Experience.
He latched onto Celestis' frame of reference, his Sight and magic fixing him onto the planet instead of experiencing his personal forays through Living Time through his perspective or that of future-selves or those near to him or his future-selves.
Streams of immediate futures flew past him, simultaneously, and his consciousness began to explore and read and experience these threads of timelines with eagerness.
The timelines were all the same for years to come, a few timelines veering away from the most likely timeline as ships and vessels streamed Celestis' sky in ever so slightly different paths or timeframes and he watched as he felt the burgeoning nature magic of Celestis grow over time, its sleepiness haze falling away as it rose awake with utter and total magnificence.
He could feel the planet grow a kind of sentience over the years, the few people that remained on Celestis never looked happier when they stepped foot on the planet after being in space. Years passed as nothing substantial changed for Celestis, save for its deepening of its nature magic.
And he continued to watch the peaceful Celestis remain unchanged until decades past and a great silver-great egg shaped ship descended down from the heavens before settling down near the base of this very mountain.
Atticus was riveted as he watched Illos bury itself into the very earth of Celestis, the great shells that protected it from everything slid away into slumber and as years passed, he watched with complete engrossment as towns, as villages began to sprout around Illos. Massive structures of blue-silver materials also seemed to sprout from the very ground, structures that stretched high up beyond the atmosphere and Atticus knew that it was his Mithril that he was seeing.
A sense of deep pride welled up within him. A pride that was quickly gone.
He realised that what he was seeing was too much, too far, and he finally felt something wrong, something he hadn't been feeling before. His pull along the axis of Time seemed to speed up, as if he was being pulled along the axis of Time instead of pulling it himself. Atticus' alarm deepened even further when he realised he couldn't pull away, as if his feet and hands were bound, chained, to something he didn't, couldn't understand and his magic offered no solution, no way out.
Fear began to condense within the pit of his stomach as thoughts of the Shapeless Ones began to darken his mind and yet he held out hope that it wasn't the case as his future-selfs had still been him even if something had elicited a change.
Time marched on even quicker, quicker than it has ever moved before and he watched those same towns and villages combine into cities with towering buildings.
Decades turned into centuries and he watched as industry grew beyond he could have ever imagined. Celestis bore the look of a grandiose capital world, towering buildings and ships that swam in its skies, magic seemed to lace everything and anything yet as Time continued to pull along its axis, he could sense a shift, a change, within the very bones of Celestis, a grim darkening, as if a huge shadow was cast over it.
It was only then that Atticus noticed that there were no stars in Celestis' night sky even though he could see Dexirus and another moon in Celestis' sky.
The other planets were still there – he'd familiarise himself enough with Celestis' night sky to know where they were in this hemisphere – but there were no stars, no nebulae and he felt fear travel through his spine. 'What was happening, what could happen?'
It was only then that Time seemed to come to a crawl, no longer was he seeing blurs and snippets of the future and he was back to the spot that beckoned him in his dreams, the same spot that his physical body was and Time…it was…static, as if he reached a dead end.
No longer did the timelines invert or expand or shrink, the threads of time, the streams of timelines simply came to an end, a possibility he never thought possible.
The endless tesseract was no more.
His mind was hard at work, every theory he thought he knew was fitted and soon after discarded as his mind worked overtime trying to come up with a reason for all of this. He didn't understand how this was possible, let alone what this actually was.
Was this an attack? Unlikely. He was vulnerable as he was and if what he knew about them, they could have attacked him already and there would be little he could do. He was able to defend himself from the creature that dwelled within the Domain but that was all he could do and he was certain that the creature was merely their creation.
Atticus' consciousness, which took his form, rose from the lotus position and he stopped staring at the starless sky and instead turned his gaze towards Illos and the cities that were beyond it far into the horizon an-…
Atticus stilled as he caught something from the corner of his gaze and he turned his head towards that direction and his eyes widened. There was a man standing, his back to Atticus, adorned in a silver gold armour with his arms behind his back.
The man was standing at the other edge of the mountain peak, the peak that overlooked the other mountains that neighboured the tallest mountain of all of Celestis. Atticus recognised the posture, the way he stood, his height and he swallowed thickly before he slowly made his way towards the man.
He noticed that the man was rigid, as if he was just as static as the rest of this…what this was…situation and it was a kind of assurance as he circled around to the man's front.
Atticus' breath hitched when he saw who he thought it was only…the man's face, his face, was older, much older, somewhere in his forties in muggle terms, with scars that ran from the edge of his right bro down to his right cheek. There was a sense of regal-ness about him that was beyond anything Atticus had felt before.
Atticus glanced at the hair. His hair bore strands of whites, just as his beard did, with vibrant violet eyes with startling emerald flecks staring out towards the mountains.
Atticus stared long and hard, an expression of contemplation etched onto his face.
What could have led him to age like this? Was it truly two thousand years into the future already? As far as he knew, nothing save for the term of the ritual he put himself through ending could make him age.
Co-
Atticus once more was caught by surprised and he stepped back several steps as the same eyes he bore directly latched onto him. The man – himself – turned towards Atticus with smooth motion and it was only then that Atticus could feel the depthless magic that exuded from within the man, a depthless magic that uncomfortably resonated with his own magic, magic that was pitiful in comparison to the man before him.
Atticus wanted to think that this wasn't possible yet he knew better than anyone else that anything truly was possible. Atticus swallowed as he instead began to think on why this ma – why he would do this. Why he would reach out through space and time to speak to his younger version and Atticus did not like any of the conclusions that he reached, conclusions that he unfortunately began to realise was almost certain.
It was horrifying to think that even their Sight, and that of his Far-Seers, was not enough to prevent the necessity of his Older-Self to reach out to him.
From the look of his Older-Self, it was apparent that he knew exactly what Atticus was thinking and Atticus swallowed. Was this a closed loop? Was a critical point that had to happen? Didn't that also mean that his Older-Self was actually his future-self?
Older-Self's face turned warm, yet tired, and a faint smile crept on his worn regal face. "Welcome, Atticus." His familiar voice crept out of Older-Him yet it was also different, older and more commanding, centuries perhaps millennia of time adding that great amount of authority that seemed to leak out of his Older-Self.
Atticus met the gaze of his Older-Self whose expression turned grim.
"We have much to discuss."
