Legacy of Kain: Equinox

by Kojiokida2

The fate of Nosgoth hangs in the balance. The Divus, furious over the destruction of their city, are sweeping Nosgoth clean of all life which could oppose them and the launching of the Ark into the ether of the universe. Kain must bring the races of Nosgoth together under one banner, restore the Pillars and finally achieve his true destiny.

26. Relativity

Chapter 25 - Relativity

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Kain did not waste a single moment. The grip of his hand on the Reaver's hilt tightened and in that same instant he shot forward, lunging with the blade thrusting out before him. He moved so fast that his very motion seemed to create a wave of force that recoiled out behind him, sending dust flying. His attack aiming him directly for Mikail's chest he put all the force he could muster into that one opening gambit, hoping to catch the Divus in a lethal moment of hesitation.

Mikail stood there before him, his eyes locked on Kain's as that moment before impact seemed to somehow stretch out and slow down. Mikail's expression was unmoved, unsurprised and even perhaps a trifle bored. Then his eyes flicked to the side and instantly one of his flanking legionnaires reacted, leaping into Kain's path and thrusting out a shield to meet the attack.

The blade of the Reaver connected with the shield with a loud crash. A shockwave ran down Kain's entire arm as the sword was deflected sharply to the right. The Legionnaire followed up instantly, his sword coming up and parrying the Reaver away, striking it down. Kain backed off a step, but then lunged again aiming to take the soldiers head off with a single swipe of Reaver.

Mikail's eyes flicked to another of his entourage and that Legionnaire instantly responded, moving to stand beside its fellow. Their movements were in perfect synchronisation as their shields joined together and met the Reaver in mid air with another responding blade once more was deflected away, leaving both them and their master unscathed.

"You did not imagine that, because I am not rippling with muscles, that I would be defenceless did you?" Mikail asked with some scorn, one hand on his hip while the other pushed the thick spectacles up the bridge of his nose.

Kain glanced around at the six legionnaires flanking Mikail. They were all armed with the same sword and shield combination and did not look any different from any of the others he had already killed.

"One had hoped for an opening." The vampire admitted whimsically.

"I have no openings." Mikail said this not as if it were boast, more like stating an obvious fact like the colour of the sky. He raised one hand and gestured around. His tone and expression were admiring, like a child looking over a prized collection of toys. "These legionnaires are mindless soldiers, capable of being mass produced in an endless supply but most of my fellow Divas simply use them as cannon fodder. They miss the true potential of such puppets."

Mikail raised an arm and wiggled the talons on one hand about. Instantly and in perfect synchronisation all six of his flanking minions copied the motion, their shield arm raising and fingers flexing, the rest of them remaining completely immobile.

"My will is their will. I see through their eyes. I experience this battle from all of their perspectives at once. My mind is spread across my entire army." The Divus flared his wings open for emphasis. "In a very real sense I AM my army!"

Instantly, from several gaps in the walls of the ruins of the cathedral and a few open doorways poured more Legionaries. Kain counted at least another thirty of them with a quick turn of his head, catching sight of swords, spears, axes and a contingent of them wielding crossbows. They quickly moved to encircle him, melee weapons at the front and crossbows behind. Their barricade was all but flawless, providing no gaps or openings to exploit to breach their line.

"Impressive." The Vampire remarked, eyes darting this way and that, trying to keep his gaze on as many of them as possible. "It must take an enormous amount of concentration to direct so many of them at once." Exactly how much of Mikail's attention he could divert here was questionable but if it gave the Humans outside more of a chance of holding off the Legions until they could escape, then he would have to make himself as distracting as possible

"Like any skill, one gets better with practice." Mikail replied and then his expression darkened and Kain knew that was the only warning signal he was going to get. The Vampire started moving almost reflexively and that instantaneous movement is what saved him. Diving forward and tucking into a roll, Kain narrowly avoided the barrage of crossbow bolts that came flying at him from almost all directions. The storm missed him by mere inches and followed his movements as he rolled, uncurled and then sprung forward.

With sword in hand he dove at the legionaries in front of him, a thrust intended to pierce their defences and leave Mikail open to a quick follow up attack. But once more the soldiers moved in tandem, a pair of swords mirroring each other's motions coming forward to parry the attack while a third swung his shield forward with enough force that the impact knocked Kain backwards several steps. Before he could recover for another attempt, Kain was forced to sidestep a large halberd that stabbed at him from the right, then another from the left.

Leaping over the swing of a battle axe, the Vampire flexed his free arm and gathered the force of his mind. As another set of legionnaires made their coordinated attack at him, he thrust his hand forward and took hold of them with his telekinetic abilities, hoisting them up into the air. One of them he used to shield himself from the second barrage of telekinetic bolts being fired at him now the crossbowmen had reloaded. The second he flung like a projectile toward Mikail.

The Divus watched his soldier coming with a calm expression before, as one, the soldiers before him all leapt up and grabbed the incoming legionnaire and dropped him back to the as they did Kain used the cover of the legionnaires body to rush in, vaulting over the top of them in an acrobatic somersault. As soon as he was clear of them, the Vampire gestured back and sent the soldiers behind him flying with another intense black of telekinetic force.

Mikail was before him, open to attack. Kain lunged at once, the Reaver swinging around sharply in a strike that if it connected would have cleaved the Divus in two. The swing came dangerously close to striking him but Mikail watched it coming without reaction, before taking a single step backwards and at the same time two legionnaires stabbed with halberds in and around the blade. The axe-like spear tips pinned the Reaver between them, trapped unable to go forward or pull back.

Before Kain could react, Mikail gestured with one hand negligently in front of him. From his palm emerged an orb of magical combustion that exploded almost right in the Vampire's face. The shockwave sent Kain tumbling backward, head over heels until he landed with a heavy thud up against the cathedral's altar. The impact knocked the wind out of his lungs and his vision blurred.

"Is this all you can do?" Mikail asked, with profound scorn and disappointment as he adjusted his glasses again. "Kain the shepherd. Kain the undertaker. I am left sourly unimpressed and wondering why my fellow Divus have had such a hard time dealing with you? Perhaps all it needed was the right intellectual mind to deal with the problem of your defiance." All the legionnaires advanced at once, moving in toward Kain in a sudden lunge, weapons drawn in a perfectly synchronous united movement.

Vaulting backwards onto the altar, Kain avoided the tips of at least five spears as they made to impale his body. As he leapt up high into the air, spinning high over the heads of the soldiers in a graceful arc, sword in hand. Still spinning he swung the Reaver around and decapitated three of the legionaries in one swipe, sending their heads flying off in several different directions. One of them landed with a wet thud at Mikail's feet and although he did not turn to look down at it, his expression soured dramatically

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"The coordination of Mikail's soldiers was nothing short of impeccable. I was not going to surprise an enemy who could see me coming through so many sets of eyes. But just how far could that impressive concentration be pushed before it snapped, I wondered."

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Kain decided then that he needed to do something unconventional to throw Mikail's expectations and as the crossbowmen raised their weapons to fire, he let his body lose its physical cohesion and burst into a cloud of vaporous mist. The bolts loosed into the air passed through harmlessly, many of them striking legionaries and sending them tumbling to the ground.

As soon as the deadly hail passed, Kain regathered his form but not back into his usual shape. This time he erupted a form of fur, muscle and claw which came crashing down on top of a legionnaire armed with a sword and tore it to pieces before it could so much as bring its shield up in defence. The Lupine form was unleashed and its savage furry could match any of the actual lycanthropes in sheer strength and fierceness.

Mikail started at the sight of it, taking a step back in surprise. That momentary reflexive hesitation was the opening Kain had been looking for. Letting out a bellowing roar from the throat of the bestial form, Kain tore through the pausing legionnaires one after the other sending limbs, fragments of armor and scattered weapons flying and tumbling in a frantic melee of destruction.

Mikail had to duck to avoid a flying leg and before he could recover, Kain's feral form was racing toward him, shoving staggering legionnaires out of his way through sheer force. For the first time a look of panic spread across the Divus's face. He staggered back, flapping his wings as if trying to raise himself off the ground. But he would never be able to fly out of danger fast enough and the horrified look on his face showed that he clearly knew it.

"Azazel! To me, you dirty little mongrel!" He cried out.

There was a blur of movement, a swift passing of shadow. Kain's Lupine form was inches away from sinking its extended claws into Mikail's chest before a blow smashed into him from above and he was sent plummeting down back to the stone floor of the cathedral. He hit the ground with a harsh crash, his form shimmering as he reflexively changed back to his regular shape.

Another Divus was there before him, an Ancient winged Vampire like Mikail. Unlike his fellow, this one was smaller. His body was horribly emaciated, even gaunt. His wings had a sickly quality to them, with the feathers looking greasy, dirty and worn as if with age. The clothes he wore were little better then threadbare patchy rags and he was covered in dirt, soot and grime. The smell of him, even at a distance, was appalling.

"I am here…" This newcomer said, the one named Azazel Kain guessed. He had heard about him from Janos. This Divus had been there to assist Uriel-Divus during their first attempt at Human extinction. Azazel's voice sounded tired, in both body and spirit and he had a look in his eyes that seemed to radiate a sense of weariness.

"Defend me from this monster!" Mikail declared, clearly now shaken, pointing a talon in Kain's direction as the Emperor of Nosgoth got back to his feet and raised the Reaver before him once more. Azazel turned to look at Kain and his weary expression flickered, albeit briefly, to something different. It seemed almost as if when he looked at Kain there was a desperate type of longing to his gaze. As if he were gazing at something which might grant him the one thing he truly wanted more than anything else in the world. But the moment left as swiftly as it came.

"As you wish, Mikail." He said simply, then flew at Kain. He moved far swifter than Kain would have thought his gaunt body would have permitted him to move, landing a surprisingly powerful punch directly into Kain's face. The impact of it sent the Vampire spinning and left open as the emaciated Divus followed up by a second punch to the abdomen, a kick across the side before finishing up by grasping Kain's arm and hauling him off his feet and swinging him through the air and into a wall

Slamming into the old stones, the Emperor of Nosgoth impacted so hard he left a small crater, dust flying out all around him. Clearly, he thought to himself, Azazel's appearance was as deceptive as Mikail's. Both of them were dangerous, even lethal combatants. With an annoyed grunt, he pulled himself out of the hole in the wall as Azazel approached. Mikail's Legionnaires formed into a line behind the stick thing Divus, weapons at the ready.

"I never thought that I would get the chance to fight you." Azazel said, still in that same tired tone of voice. "I expected that you would be brought down by someone else. Perhaps the Dragon. But now I face Kain, the Scion of Balance. This is the end."

With a snap of his greasy wings, Azazel shot forward with his fist drawn back. But this time Kain was ready for him and swung wide to his left, avoiding the punch as it slammed into the wall where he had been a mere instant before. Spinning around, Kain aimed an elbow into Azazel's side and landed a strike that caused the Divus to let out a muffled grunt and move away.

Two legionnaires immediately darted in from behind the Vampire, halberds held out before them in perfect unison. Kain backflipped over them, swinging the Reaver wide as he did so. One of the soldiers his strike carved sideways across the middle, while the other took the blow in an arc that sliced him from waist to shoulder, so the entire right side of his torso toppled free and clattered to the floor.

Mikail flapped his wings and took to the air, his hands held out either side and with a flash magical energy began to burn bright purple between his talons. Once the arcane force was gathered he hurled the projectiles forward toward Kain, even as more of his coordinated soldiers came charging in to press attack from the ground.

With a gesture of one hand, Kain snapped the forwardmost legionnaire from his feet using telekinesis and held him out like a shield before him. The two crackling balls of purple energy slammed into the soldier and the legionnaire abruptly evaporated into a cloud of spreading dust with a loud popping sound.

Azazel made a lunge at Kain from behind, a skillfully executed flying kick which would have connected had Kain not ducked at the last second. The two of them traded blows, parrying each other's strikes with their arms and legs in a flurry of motion. Kain's attempts to bring the Reaver up to strike at the Divus directly were hampered by Azazel's surprising speed and strength, slapping ever swing away with the slap of his hand.

Mikail came flying in from above as Kain was preoccupied, his hands once more crackling with magical energy. His calm demeanour had been entirely broken and an expression of frustrated anger on his face.

"You're wasting your time here, Kain!" He spat, hurling the projectiles toward him like a pair of discus. In response, Kain faded into his insubstantial mist form, allowing them to pass right through him. A startled Azazel, not prepared for that tactic, had to duck and weave out of the way to prevent being hit by Mikail's attack.

"Humanity is doomed. Their usefulness to the Master long since outlived." Mikail declared, landing on the ground behind his legionnaires. "I will exterminate their species down to the last child, and good riddance! Your mongrel breed of Vampire will all die of starvation and only the Hylden will be left to challenge our exodus. And you will be able to do nothing to prevent it!"

There was the sound of many crossbows collectively being unleashed at once and Kain tensed, preparing to spring. But even as he did so, the movement of everything around him suddenly and inexplicably seemed to freeze in place. The crossbows of the legionnaires remained held to attention, the bolts fired stopped in mid air and motionless. Legionnaires either side armed with swords which had been running toward him were just as frozen, stopped in mid stride.

Even behind him Azazel, who had his wings spread ready to take to the air, was frozen like a statue. Kain slowly began to look around in perplexity at this sudden lack of activity, his eyes wary and his expression one of intense confusion. Time, it seemed, had come to a complete standstill. No. Now that he looked closer. He could see that nothing around him was frozen at all. Rather they had slowed down and were now moving so incrementally slowly that they were all but rooted in place.

"Moebius…what is this?" He demanded into the sudden impeccable silence, the sound of his own voice strangely muffled as if spoken from under a pile of thick cloth. That silence endured for another moment before finally his companion spoke.

"Kain, I have come to a decision. Not one I make lightly." Moebius' spectral form flickered into existence beside him and as Kain watched, he saw that the head made of flames which had been following him was slowly filling out and becoming a full body. Moebius stood there holding the lantern which had been his burden, fully returning to his human shape. He was as Kain had first seen him in the ruins of the Dragons. The old Time streamer's expression was one of resolute fury and indignant outrage; his gaze locked firmly on Mikail-Divus, hiding behind his legionnaires.

"Though I have passed on, I was the Time Guardian and my magical control of the chronosphere remains." Moebius declared. "As long as I am bound to you, I will allow you to access it." He seemed not to have noticed the return of his body again and Kain decided that now was not the time to point it out.

"I thought you said that you could offer me no assistance beyond simply being present." He asked, remembering what Moebius had told him back in the depths of the Silenced cathedral while being hunted by the assassin Baphomet.

"At the time, I felt nothing indeed." Moebius conceded and his voice reflected a sense of anger directed inward, at himself. "Perhaps some time needed to pass, or perhaps I simply needed more resolve." He trailed off for a moment, before adding: "Even in death, Guardians maintain some degree of their power. But I can no longer escape the logical conclusion that while serving my Master, trapped in the endless labyrinth, my powers were being repressed. Nor can I conclude that it was anything other than deliberate."

Kain supposed Moebius had to be right in his conclusion. The reward the False God had given him, to be custodian over the remains of what remained of the city of Dragons, had been intended as little more than a joke for one who had been used as much as he had used others. What greater cruel jest would there be then to suppress whatever power the Time Streamer might have had left in his voice?

"Are you so moved that you would actually do this?" The Vampire asked, incredulous despite this. In response Moebius turned to face him entirely and in his face was some of the old Moebius Kain knew all too well, a burning outrage and hatred clear in those eyes.

"My species will be all but wiped out if I do not help you! After everything I've done for my race, I will NOT allow Mankind to go extinct!" He snapped with savage finality. Before Kain could react to that, the spectre of the Time Guardian reached forth and placed his free hand on his shoulder. In that instant there was a powerful sensation of giving way, like a door in his mind opening and in through that door poured a flood of knowledge. It was so intense that it made Kain reel in confused disorientation as he struggled to absorb it.

"The flow of time can not be reversed but it can be adjusted." The voice of Moebius stated within his mind as that knowledge struggled to find its proper place. "With my power you can accelerate or decelerate time to suit your needs." Then, as finally true understanding of this gift came to Kain's conscious mind, he added. "Do not make me regret this decision!"

To grasp the feeling of control over time, even tenuously, was awe inspiring. He barely even seemed to hear Mikail in front of him

"I can finish the Humans at my leisure. You are the true hazard to the Divus! If I must bring every last Legionnaire at my command here to destroy you, then so be it!" The bolts were flying through the air, coming toward him at a rapid pace, but as Kain reached out with his mind he could feel the very flow of time itself bending as if his telekinesis itself could manipulate it. Flexing his talons and focusing his mind, Kain reached forth and bent time to his will.

In response the flight of the bolts slowed to a crawl once more, moving as slow as trickling melted tar from the timbers of an overheated ship. Kain did not waste this opportunity and was moving fast, racing around the sludge like movement of the bolts and racing toward the legionnaires with the Reaver in hand.

He raced at them and with time firmly in his grasp, they could not react to his approach. He would be nothing but a monetary blur to them. Reaching Mikail's defensive line, the Vampire set to work hacking through them with his serpentine blade as if he were felling lumber in a forest. Back and forth the Reaver swung, cleaving the Legionnaires apart with swing after swing. Arms, legs, heads and more went scattering in many different directions and only when he was finished laying complete waste to all of Mikail's defences did he relinquish his grip on time.

The expression on Mikail-Divus's face as he watched his soldiers collapse into a pile of dismembered limbs before him for seemingly no reason was a mixture of terror, confusion and baffled incredulity.

"...HOW?! How did you do that?!" He demanded and as Kain came at him with the Reaver, he burst into the air with speed born of panic. "AZAZEL! PROTECT ME!"

Azazel was flying in, coming to Mikail's defence, but before he could get there he was intercepted. The dark robed form of Ophiel dropped down from the high rafters of the cathedral, landing in his path. Azazel back-winged to come to a stop before her, the sweep of his wings causing a gust of air to blow her wide brimmed hat straight off her head and across the cathedral floor.

"Azazel! Stop!" She cried out, spreading both arms to bar his way. "Please I beg of you, stop!"

"Ophiel?" Azazel seemed genuinely startled to see her. Ophiel remained there standing resolutely in his way.

"You don't have to follow them." She implored him. "I know you never truly believed. You're only with them because they never gave you a choice. Even your 'Divus' rank was intended as a joke!" She offered one hand out to him. "You're the one they can blame when things go wrong. You're the bottom wrung, intended for nothing but abuse. Come with me. Be free of them and their system."

Azazel's gaze wandered down to her hand, then back up to her. His eyes were full of emotion, a mix of longing, despair and pain.

"It's all I've ever known." He whispered then in a hoarse voice, as if he were a man speaking from the inside of a cell from which there was no escape. "Why Ophiel? Why did you leave me alone? I could bear it so long as I wasn't alone!" The filthy Divus let forth an agonised scream of pure agonised loneliness before lunging forward with talons outstretched.

Kain had little time or opportunity to pay much attention to their confrontation as his attention was focused firmly on Mikail. Deprived of his immediate protection of legionnaire bodyguards, the Divus had taken to the air and was flying through the towering rafters of the cathedral. His body spun around and around, corkscrewing through the air, as from his hands he launched volley after volley of sparking purple arcane orbs down toward Kain.

The Emperor of Nosgoth ran after him and with each stride he tested the limits of the control over time that Moebius had granted to him. It indeed felt very much like grasping something with his telekinesis, compressing or stretching it to either speed up or slow down. And what was more, he could localise the effect either around himself or something else. He put this to great use by speeding up the flow of time around himself to allow him to put on a burst of speed so rapid he was easily able to dodge each projectile thrown his way.

"This is not possible!" Mikail declared, frantically hurling attacks so fast that his arms were blurring. "How are you doing this?!"

"Can not the 'right intellectual mind' deduce it on their own?" Kain asked in cocky retort, his grasp on the flow of time constricting it to give him a burst of speed compared to everything else around him.

In addition, it seemed that while accelerating his own personal timeflow, the power of the gravity of the slower world around him was significantly reduced. His leaps could go far higher and further and when the idea struck him to try it, he found that running sideways across a vertical wall was not only possible but easy. The look of shock and terror spreading across Mikail's once cocky face like oozing treacle when he saw, from his perspective, Kain racing up the walls of the cathedral toward him was nothing short of delightful.

With sword in hand Kain raced toward Mikail, drawing back his sword ready to slam the Reaver hilt deep into his chest. But something happened then that made Kain lose the concentration necessary to maintain his grip on the flow of time. A barrage of crossbow bolts came flying up from the floor of the cathedral toward him. It was a veritable barrage, the air filling up with them in a seamless wall between him and Mikail. Forced to drop back, Kain slid down the side of the wall back to the ground.

Pouring in from every entrance in the ruins of the Cathedral came uncounted numbers of Legionnaires, dozens to hundreds within moments until the space was crowded to overflowing with them and every single one of them was armed with a crossbow. Threatened and left with the real possibility of death, Mikail apparently had summoned every marksman in his army. They were coming in so rapidly that too many were trying to fit through doorways at the same time and getting stuck.

"Kill him!" Mikail yelled from far above and Kain dove for the concealing protection of a brick pillar as a cloud of bolts was showered in his direction. Several legionnaires ran to try to catch him but as soon as they cleared the pillar he sliced one down the middle with the Reaver before unleashing a blast of telekinetic force into others following from behind sending them tumbling across the floor.

"You lost your concentration." Moebius's voice said, reprimanding him in his ear. "Time will not bend to your will unless you can focus!"

Kain resisted the angry impulse to reply that being lectured made it harder to focus, not less. Instead he burst forth into his lupine form once more and galloped through the horde of crossbowmen, ploughing through them with sheer force. He sent them flying, several of them crashing through the stained glass windows with a loud clatter and filling the air with fragments of glittering light.

The sheer number of soldiers, crammed into such a small space, made it hard for any of them to manoeuvre and clearly Mikail was panicking, unable to concentrate to properly coordinate his legions. Kain knew that if he were going to bring him down there would never be a better opportunity than this very moment. and as he recalled the barrage of bolts which had brought him back down to the ground, it gave him an idea.

Quickly, galloping on all fours in Lupine form he moved like lightning with the hail of bolts following after him. WIth one enormous leap he soared over the heads of the legionnaires and off the side of a broken brick pillar. As he leapt higher from that vantage point he reverted back to his normal shape and with every once of will he had he reached out with his mind to take firm grasp on that time flow once more

Everything around him began to slow down until it came to an almost utter standstill and as it did, Kain dragged a talon across his arm to free some of his blood from the confines of his veins - calling it forth again to harden into a solid mass. He didn't know whether Raziel's theory about this being his true Vampiric gifts blossoming forth had any validity or not but whatever the reason he was prepared to use to its fullest.

Methodically he forced his blood to take the form of a jagged spear, its tip aimed not toward Mikail but to the spot where he could see Mikail's flying trajectory would take him. But Kain was not done there. With the spear in hand he began to call forth as much arcane energy of his own as possible, forcing it through his arm and down into the forming spear. Elemental lightning, one of the earliest spells he ever learned and by far the most potent.

The spear as it took its final form crackled and sparked with power, a powerful deadly missile for anything that would get in its way. As Kain tossed it, hurling it forward toward its intended target, he performed one final trick. With the power granted to him by Moebius he compressed the local time of the spear, speeding up its relative time compared to the universe around it.

So when Kain finally released his grip and allowed time around him to speed back up, the in-flight spear shot forward like a discharged arrow. It flew so fast that it produced a loud echoing boom. A simple blur of motion, the spear shot across the width of the entire cathedral and before Mikail even knew it was coming, it slammed so hard into his chest that the spear hurled him backward and sent him bursting out through the round glass window at the front of the ancient building.

Even as he flew, Mikail let out a horrified and agonised scream with the electrical power Kain had poured into the spear tore him apart from the inside out. The Divus became a shooting stair in the dark sky over Meridian, arching over it in a blazing of elemental glory. The effect was almost beautiful, were it not spoiled by the screams; screams that ended abruptly as Mikail's body slammed into the roof of a building and fell into the dark remains of the attic beneath.

"Oh…" Moebius's voice seemed to say in delight to Kain. "Very well done."