After much thinking I moved this story to M because this chapter got a bit dark.
As her lord disappeared into the light it was time to act. Already members of shadow garden were swinging in to take out the guards, and as she watched on from her own vantage point Alpha gave the motion to move in.
They swarmed in capturing the main dais in moments even as the members of the public looked on in confusion. "Remove the civilians." They had little time to act, and if someone as powerful as Lord Shadow arrived then anyone left behind would be a liability.
"You are the ones who have been interfering with our work." The acting Archbishop shrugged from his seat not even bothering to rise and instead relaxing in place. "Well, I suppose you should at least get it over with."
Too calm by far. She narrowed her eyes around the rest of the dais even as everything was going according to plan and yet he remained as though it were a normal day. "We require information, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"Can you get information from me? I am uncooperative and you are uninspired so lets not waste either of our time and go ahead and stab me, it will at least be an interesting death." He lunged clumsily with a concealed knife as Delta twisted around it like it was in slow motion.
Her response shattered his skull and she sighed at the problem. "Delta, we needed him alive."
With a glance back Delta nodded to the corpse. "Fake." Even as the acting Archbishop splintered in place without blood or gore, motes of light returning to the gate just like the hero or Diabolos when Shadow had killed it. She considered it for a moment and understood her Lord's intention that the real member of the Cult had already stepped up into the Sanctum and he was going to fight them there.
The dais itself had a hidden control panel covered in ancient runes, and not the standard commonly used ones used in her own codes. But Shadow had brought them an expert in the subject matter as she turned to Sherry. "Try and see what you can take control of here, Nu will watch over you while you work."
A second motion called for Delta and Epsilon to follow her in, leading a full team of some of the strongest swordswomen that Shadow Garden had to offer. Launching herself free of the dais to the sands below where the gate waited.
A boy a few years younger than her stood in front of the gate smiling up at it. Long white hair cascading down his back and a sword resting firmly over his shoulder. She moved to send him away because this was soon to be a battlefield and no place for a child. The first steps coming into place as.
She was going to die.
The sword coming down with the weight of a mountain as the child smiled back at her, even as she poured everything to move just that inch further out of its reach, slime hardening into a blade in its path as she spun the blow into only a glancing hit.
The kid smiled even wider at her. "You have good instincts."
She breathed in and centred herself, measuring the distance between the two of them and willing herself not to give him a clue. One step forward as she killed her doubt, one step to close the gap as she pulled it closer to lock his blade.
The boy gave ground twisting his blade up instead as he parried Delta's massive blade letting it part the space between them. His voice echoing past the blade with a hint of whimsy. "The guts to advance as one even against a superior opponent. You are a credit to your teacher."
It rippled the work of slime shattering as it exploded outwards and she spun in place deflecting the fusillade of magically infused slime away even as he grabbed the end of the length of blade and dragged Delta down.
Delta spun to bring her claws to meet him, so she pushed on as well. One step forward to close the gap and throw off his blade if he attacked her. To kill him before he struck if he went for Delta.
He met her gaze with a grin as an overwhelming stench of rot and death flowed outwards, his advance stepping round out of Delta's reach even as he met her sword and circled her.
Force erupted from his flesh, an overwhelming surge of power tossing her back even as she crashed back into Delta the two of them spinning in place before her own armour surged down and touched the ground. Dragging her out of her spin even as she braced for the charge that would surely follow.
The boy stopped in place even as two trenches were carved in front of him, the space he would have been torn asunder. "An invisible blade as well how quaint to have three." He paused and cocked his head. "Ten swordsmen at this level in the same faction I'm truly impressed with your dedication, I Fenrir the Ravenous acknowledge you."
"We are those who lurk in the shadows to hunt the shadows, Shadow Garden." One voice echoing across the arena. "We are your executioners."
The kid shrugged, "You're welcome to try but I was sort of looking for names. I mean you have a Herzog over there and a Victoria but otherwise there is a certain something to remembering the names of those about to die. That way when your boss comes back out, I can at least help him identify your corpses."
"Delta." And after that Epsilon followed suit so she stepped up as well. "Alpha." With three executives having taken the lead the other named numbers present gave their names too.
From the gate itself a second voice came through. "It is a reference to the ancient Atlantean language, a product long before your time. I would say you have reports on the matter, but it would take at least a millennia to teach you to read them. Although they seem to be missing Beta and Gamma."
Fenrir nodded at the words. "So, they're another one of our splinter groups trying to hunt their way up into getting their boss a seat at the table. Or maybe their Peyton's, if he'd trained up a group like this maybe I'd begin to respect him a little bit."
She bristled at the insult. "Our lord has no interest in the workings of your cult except for the purpose of tearing it down and destroying it. Perhaps you'll understand better after we've taken your head."
The portal flickered with Nelson's voice. "Would he notice the difference? Alas no matter how many times people try and kill him it hasn't managed to stick."
"Trying to kill me is one of the ways you get into the rounds." The kid shrugged as he started stretching. "We have a full house right now so how else would you get promoted? Killing your superiors is just part of the game." He turned back to her cocking his head. "Hey if I killed Nelson would you be interested in being the new eleventh seat of the Rounds? Or do you think the brat will want it more?"
"Fenrir I think I have a different proposition." Nelson's voice rang out from the portal once more even as a band of light expanded swallowing the arena, then growing further until the stands as well were caught within. "How would you all like to join my Einherjar." Dozens of portals opened across the centre of the arena as an army marched forth. The ghosts of heroes past stepping forth into the present.
She circled back towards the dais forming up with the rest of her soldiers. "Can you disable them?"
Shadow Gardens newest recruit was looking over the symbols that flickered over Nelson's old control panel. Twiddling her thumbs as she gazed at the screens. "The console says yes but I don't know how long it'll take to work it out."
She nodded in understanding turning to the forming horde of soldiers against them. But every one of them that had to manifest here meant it could not be used inside the Sanctum where her lord fought. She steeled herself and took her place at the front, at least to hold the line until he returned.
On the far end of the arena Fenrir was facing off against another batch. "See Nelson also wants to kill me and he's been a member for eons."
A room of pristine white greeted him on the other side, and for a moment it tugged on his mantle as well draining the magic around him and devouring it in moments. In the next he bound himself even tighter wrapping it all deep within his body for the moment he needed it again.
And while he waited for that he might as well look into the only thing in the room that wasn't bleached white. A young woman only slighter older than himself sitting in the centre of the room. Arms and legs bound by the straitjacket holding her in place even as her eyes were fixed on him. "What are you in for?"
"I don't really remember, but upon seeing such a beautiful girl locked up shouldn't a knight choose to free her before asking questions."
He thought about it for a moment and named her Violet. "You'd think it would be the knight doing the locking people up most of the time wouldn't you? There role is to uphold order so really you should be hoping I don't feel like a knight at all. Right now, isn't it more likely that you're some kind of demon that I'm about to unseal?"
She stared deeper. "I don't remember doing anything that would make me a demon at least. And as you've said you're not really a knight so can you help me anyway?"
That was easy enough because he was already here. If she was a monster trying to trick him to get out wouldn't that be pretty interesting? Even if she wasn't secretly evil the fact that she was locked up meant she was plot important to somebody and he could get a lot of mileage out of playing with them.
"Do you know why she tied herself up." He stood by the door; an overweight and balding man clad in a researchers coat just like a scientist from his past life. Respectable and authoritative as he leaned against the wall. "She did it to herself you see just as she erased her own memories."
That was some pretty hardcore roleplay in his opinion. If he had the chance, would he forget all the unnecessary parts such as making the cult of Diablos up and go all in on roleplaying with his Shadow Garden? How long would it take for the Seven Shadows to realise he no longer knew it was a game and try and drag him out of it? "So, I guess she's pretty dedicated to her craft then?"
The man chuckled even as Violet looked awkwardly away. "I don't remember doing such a thing."
That was easy enough, the thread just waiting to be pulled. "Of course, you don't isn't that why your memory is broken and incomplete?" Well not like it mattered because she was lying about not remembering, they both were, but that made it even more important to play along with the scene.
"We stood on the edge of progress; humanity had grasped power beyond all imagination as even death seemed to be about to give way before our hands." The man extolled its virtues at length, and it was clear he believed it. "But at the end she cast down any hope we had and tore the world asunder, until only this facility remains amidst the dreams of the past, a last bastion of what humanity could have become."
With a swing his sword tore through carving away the restraints and the straitjacket binding her in place. "Hello there, demon queen it seems you'll be able to have a serious rampage right now then won't you?" Because turning up at a disaster unleashed by an invincible demon to stand down at the final moment fit into his aesthetic.
And an era of progress where humanity progressed openly in the light was just a world he'd already left behind once before without looking back. There had been no place for his theatrics so even if the scientist was right, he'd made his choice long ago.
"I am as always surrounded by idiots." The old man pushed off from the wall and walked towards the door. "Fools who only know how to wallow in their own filth so its not like I expected anything better from you. Child I am Nelson the Avaricious who stole the secret of immortality from the Gods themselves. You stand in the palm of my hand and yet dare to think you might defy me? There are weapons here that have not seen the light of day for eons, come and I will show them to you in full that you might learn your folly for daring to stand in my divine realm."
He grinned even as the man disappeared beyond the door in a flash of light. He'd set up a whole gauntlet for him. One final set of trials that would seem impossible to all who attempted it, yet for an eminence in shadow he would step over them and prove his dominance over the world.
Violet pushed forward, a dress flowing over her body to replace the straitjacket as it melted away. "Well then, my not quite a knight, would you mind going further and helping me escape the rest of the way. Even if it means opposing Nelson."
"You say it like that's a downside Violet, but I'm itching for an excuse to fight him." He was having fun and that was always the most important thing.
"Violet?"
He blinked back at her. "You're faking amnesia so I can't really call you by your real name? From now on you're Violet, don't worry I'm much better at remembering the names I give people rather than they're real ones anyway."
Violet paused mouth agape at his wisdom for a moment. "I'm just going to move on from that I think, do you have a plan to get out of here."
He eyed the door with anticipation. "I'm all for Nelson the Avaricious gauntlet, I mean if I made something like that and it just didn't get used wouldn't you feel kind of like all that effort was wasted?"
She smiled sweetly. "Yes, but he wants to kill both of us, so not giving him what he wants is the point. This whole facility is built up to eat magic so how about we try and dig our way out through the walls instead?"
"Ah I already worked out a workaround for it on my last expedition with a mana eating artifact. You just have to wrap it all around itself like this and no matter which way it gets pulled it doesn't break."
"I don't think you understand how powerful some of the weapons he possesses are. Many of them were first used against and even wounded Diabolos long ago." She spoke with conviction and energy, and she was talking his language.
Strong enough to hurt the demon Diabolos in the ancient era. He stepped forward even more eager than before. This was his day of reckoning and all that was left was to face it. Until he was almost pulled from his feet by her hand reaching out to him.
Her grip was strong beyond belief for her frame. Overwhelmingly so as she held him in place, and he had to use magic to have any chance to break free. "The first weapon he will use is likely to be the Judgement of Heaven. First the sky will sound in turmoil, and it will fall, unleashing a spark of the divine out into the world that will ravage everything around it in a moment of pure destruction. In those moments your only hope is to run, the further the better to diminish its wrath."
He nodded along easily enough. "A spark of the divine, overwhelmingly destructive I've got it." He was brimming with anticipation at the very thought of it, would it match his I am Atomic in its full power?
He stepped through onto a battlefield, the doorway vanishing behind the both of them even as the sky above raged and the rotors of a plane echoed in the sky.
It was his moment, the one point in time that he'd waited and trained for his entire life. If there had been one reason he had been born on this world then it could only be that he might meet this Judgement of Heaven. If there had been one day he had trained for it would be today.
Knowing that he had stood his ground and fought would give his life meaning. Even as he heard the footsteps as Violet ran away.
For the Judgement of Heaven was a bomb. Not just any bomb from her description this could be the last atomic bomb in the world racing down to meet him. He posed hand reaching down to his sword as he considered how to play it. He had to match its timing exactly to master the scene and get his confrontation to work just right.
First, he unsheathed his sword flickering upwards to meet and cut the bomb in midair, the backswing leaving him in the perfect position as he pulled on every last drop of power held within him, absorbing it into one perfect blast. He would meet this challenge head on even if it killed him.
The blade sliced into the bomb itself in one perfect arc. "Atomic."
Not yet.
The two halves slowly coming apart as it continued to fall, even as he pulled his magic ever tighter within himself waiting for that one perfect moment the two of them would clash.
Not yet.
As one they crashed down on either side of him, the internal components crashing out even as he stood untouched in the centre.
Where was the boom? Was the bomb defective after however many years without maintenance? Did he look like an idiot right now having hyped himself up like that all for nothing?
Nelson clapped from the other side of the crater. "To think after all these years there was someone else who could recognise an atomic bomb and understood it well enough to take such decisive action. It seems I may have underestimated you."
He would not be outdone. "Of course, I have the wisdom of the shadows themselves so how could I not know of the power gained from splitting the atom as one becomes two and then four until it becomes an overwhelming conflagration."
The man smiled wearily. "Truly another man of science it is such a shame we are on different sides. My current associates are so lacking as to not understand no matter how I try and teach them."
Well as someone who had never read through a single report his own organisation gave him. As someone who burned every attempt to bring him back to the truth of reality, he understood the mans comrades better than anyone. "It is the curse of wisdom that we cannot be understood, that we stand above humanity and can only gaze down upon their foibles. But that is even more reason for you to give everything you have in this moment. Prove that you have more than one trick up your sleeve, show me the depths of your wisdom built upon the truths of reality."
He was begging him to have at least one more Atomic Bomb sitting in storage that he could fight.
But Nelson rose to the occasion. "Do you not stand in a palace of dreams? Have you not witnessed me pull back a glimpse of the dead from beyond the veil? These are but a handful of the mysteries lost to humanity that I remember."
From the distance Violet called out to them. "Does this mean there isn't going to be another Judgement of Heaven?"
That was a dark timeline, one where he had betrayed himself and destroyed his one last hope for salvation. Although there was still a chance if he phrased it right. "Yes, well unless of course he has another nuke ready to drop on me this very instant." He could hope for it couldn't he? Now that he knew that nukes weren't like exploding barrels he could wait and let it explode on its own. If at first you don't succeed then try, try, and try again.
Nelson shrugged. "Attempting the same thing again and again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity and while I have nothing else with quite such an explosive force, do not doubt that I have other weapons made to kill her."
The air around them shimmered as the dream collapsed, the broken battlefield replaced by a lab the ghosts of scientists long dead hurrying around past him. Nelson was gone, but Violet remained the two of them the only two people capable of thinking for themselves in the world.
She shuffled in place uncomfortably away from the scientists, so he broke the ice and broke the scientists until the two of them were the only ones left in the room. "I guess you didn't like this place all that much."
She smiled awkwardly, "I didn't get along with them when I was last here."
Cid nodded back. "I can certainly understand that feeling I've sat through enough events I couldn't wait to get over and done with. But look upon your enemies and know they turn to dust for I have conquered them all much as I will conquer this entire gauntlet. For I have already seen through the ending."
She giggled, "Yes, I was giving you advice and it seems it was all bad. You already knew about the weapon I described and somehow did something even Nelson didn't expect."
He shrugged as it was a trivial thing, or at least he would say as much rather than admit he'd messed up. "Well before the atom was split, before the reaction began." She looked lost in front of him, as though his words were complete gibberish, so he changed the setting. "Inside the Judgement of Heaven, as the nascent divinity formed, I swung forth and killed it before its power could be made manifest on the mortal plane."
"I wish I had known that last time I got hit with one, regenerating from it burning away so much of my body was rather trying." But she was smiling more honestly so it was all good.
He paused at that, she had been hit by an atomic bomb and walked it off. An aspiration to all of humanity, let everyone know that it was possible and sheer force of will could carve down the apocalypse. "Damn he keeps treating it as though you grew up in the era of science, but you don't even know stuff from a basic highschool textbook. You really must have not gotten out much and failed all your classes."
She looked out over the facility itself pausing to take it in. "Well, I was one of the experiments, wasn't I? Until I broke out and tore down everything they had built up."
He nodded along because it wasn't like this was the first time he'd met one of the possessed, nor the first time he'd cured one. And given that there weren't hundreds of rotting corpses splayed across main street everyone else had to have their own way of dealing with them. It was the way of things that underneath that putrid smell of rot and decay was a normal girl. "I have plenty of experience with your kind in the modern era, were you one of the famous ones or just like a minor mook in the grand scheme of things."
Violet smiled back awkwardly. "I am Diabolos."
Oh.
That was actually pretty serious, wasn't it? After all his speeches about taking down the cult of Diabolos to stop its resurrection, after all his time spent convincingly plotting before his subordinates and telling them of how he would stop its resurrection. He was now the one, the only true member of the Cult of Diabolos who had succeeded in reviving her.
He shrugged though because it was only a role he played anyway. He hummed on the spot and thought it through. "I guess I'm going to have to swap characters for a bit then to keep things going. This isn't really a Shadow thing anymore; he's mostly meant to stop your resurrection."
"I understand that is the way of things. For demons and humanity are like night and day and it is only natural that you would side with them instead." She paused composing herself. "Still thank you for even this much assistance it has been the first time I've been able to go for a walk in a long while."
He did a double take at that. "What no I'm still helping you I already started it and backing out at the last moment isn't cool at all. It's just I normally roleplay my motivation as Shadow trying to stop Diabolos resurrection, so I really need to change my clothes before I go any further in helping you."
"Motivations aren't really something you change." Violet seemed honestly confused but that was okay in the end because it was really simple.
"That's Shadows motivation, just like Cid's motivation is being a mob." He nodded firmly at how things work. "But I can have more alter egos and I just need to make one that has a motivation more in keeping with helping you and then I'll play that role instead."
Now what was he doing right now for his new look. He was a demon as well of course, here to extinguish the last light of humanity, and he had heard the voices of a thousand crying children calling out for justice against the ones who'd murdered them.
His body unfolded as slime tentacles began to burrow their way out of his flesh. No not just tentacles, but worms for he was the worm that walked free at last now that the stars had aligned to tear down an arrogant mortal who dared claim godhood.
"The stars have aligned and the gate has opened, once more the time of my awakening has come. Let the mortals gibber and cower in fear for Nyarlathotep walks the world once more." His new voice was guttural and deep in a way that reverbed deeper than a human could hear at times so much that it could be felt as a shiver up the spine. Just the right feel to it as he nodded back down at her. "This is much better don't you think."
Violet looked on in curiosity and a bit of hesitance, so he posed letting the tendrils drill out into the world around him. "You do know this place drains your magic away once it leaves your body? You've just wasted any chance you can fight here ever again."
He looked at the sprawling mass growing out of himself. Double checking it once again as he made sure. "But none of my magic is leaving my body here though."
Zeta's knives felt dull in her hands as the magic was pulled away, the very nature of the world seeming to reject her. But her lord had known this moment would come and so in moments she bound her magic tightly like string wrapped around itself until the pull in every direction found no purchase and she was free to move again.
Free to contemplate the horror that stood before her eyes even as Olivier pulled her along through the chaos.
The village was awash with fire and screams. Three demons tore into what could only be considered prey for there are things that humans could not stand against. Only scream and cry in anguish as their doom approached them.
Some fought with steel, a sword against the darkness in their moment of need. Against a being whose scales were harder than steel and had the strength of a dozen men they may as well have been wielding toothpicks for all the good it did them.
Some ran as fast as they could. Yet their strides could not match the wolf that moved faster than the wind as it hunted and consumed them one by one.
Some sat in buildings still unbroken and prayed that the gods would save them. Their words fell on empty ears as a beast of rock and metal tore through their walls and found them within.
"Lili do you think on how the world was?"
Hidden in the wreckage of a house a tiny elven girl choked on her own sobs. Even as the monsters roamed the ruins dragging out the survivors and devouring them one by one. Olivier led her on until they looked down upon the little girl as helpless as an infant. "Back then we were too weak weren't we Lili. But more than the fear and the pain there was something that stayed with me on that day."
She understood because there was only one way this story could end. The little girl had survived and grown up despite all this and so she looked for the only possible answer and found him. A man walking amidst the chaos who even the demons would fear. "I know the feeling of being saved."
Olivier smiled back amidst the destruction. "We were saved from the jaws of the demons and given the chance to fight for what is right. When we had lost everything, it was the Cult that taught us to fight for a better world, who gave humanity their chance to fight back against the darkness that smothered the world."
Zeta turned away from the recording, clearly not fully in her own mind. "You were used, if you could see the world they would create you would turn your back on it. The words they told you… you were betrayed, and they have created a nightmare behind your back."
Olivier tilted her head thoughtfully almost like she was a real person. "Betrayed? They promised me the chance to create a safer world and power enough to fulfil it yes. But all power comes with a price, and I paid it willingly. It was never going to be a perfect world, for even a field of flowers must rest atop a mountain of corpses."
Olivier stepped forward and the village faded away for rooms of white and the bustling presence of hundreds of people milling about. The corridor they were in was glass, not merely a window but an entire wall of glass carved into hundreds of rows of cells as Olivier walked past the carnage. The screaming cries of children as their flesh rotted away and their bodies twisted under the ministrations of the men in white coats.
Olivier walked past without watching them until she reached one final cell. A girl who could only be Olivier strapped into the seat as they injected her full of drugs. "The pain was terrible when we first went through it, I remember being afraid as I watched the people around me die their last words curses."
"For the siren song of the abyss twists the minds of the weak and distorts their flesh. Each step pulling them down the path of the demon."
Olivier gazed back at her a soft smile on her face. "Without those sacrifices the world would have ended. Without the Cult who would have been able to stand up to the demons and saved the world. For a world where children can smile, and the innocent can walk free what are a few sacrifices."
Zeta paused wondering just how much the shade still understood. "The children passed down still transform, their bodies rotting away around them as the cult collects and kills them as sacrifices. Is that part of your price?"
"Lili, of course it is. We drank the blood of demons and were changed by them, countless others did so for the power we needed. But that power is theirs and not ours, and every time someone loses control it gives the demons a chance to step back down into the world. They become a gate to open the way to their own destruction. It is a kindness to kill them before they lose too much of themselves."
Zeta gripped her blades tighter, the weapons growing in her hands once more. "You felt this was all necessary and went along with it?"
The scene shattered a new glimpse bubbling up in her mind as the fields of battle stretched all around them. Even as an Olivier almost as old as the one beside her lead a tide of heroes against the demons.
Olivier smiled back. "They were my precious friends, it was their honour to die for the cause. There were an endless number of demons beyond the gates so of course we needed thousands. Where would those heroes come from if we were not prepared to sacrifice lives to make them?"
A handful of soldiers on the battlefield changed their flesh distorting for a moment. And they burned as the Olivier leading them killed them without hesitation. "It doesn't need to be this way; my lord will create a better world than your cult ever did. Even in victory you still pay the price."
Olivier nodded to herself. "And we will keep on paying it forever. For the gates exist and the worlds align, for the demons wait on the other side. Humanity needs strength for when that day comes again. That we will not perish when the outsiders come once more, we will stand vigilant."
Zeta swung her blades up, the blades plunging through Oliviers corpse and power surging in as they exploded. The frame shattering around them as the heroes corpse fell to the ground in front of her. "I will see your world torn down for my lord gives out power without such prices, we no longer need your stain upon this world."
From the dream a new Olivier stepped forward the same smile on her face. Even as a blade appeared in her hand tracing the floor as she stepped down in front of her. "Lili are you so foolish still? There is always a price to pay for our dreams you just like to avert your eyes from it. You ignore where your power comes from in the pretence that it makes you more innocent. Your master can be kind to you because you let him be, but underneath it he still pays a price and you have just let your ignorance be called virtue."
She settled down on her feet, tensing up for the next strike. "I will tear those words back out from your throat. Shadow does not torment people for fun."
Nelson remembered the entrance to the facility. A gateway to welcome all who would aspire to join their ranks of course and the first place he'd once ascended to have the chance to research the truth in the days of the war.
But it had been a war for the survival of humanity. They had been the best and the brightest unconstrained by the morals that had plagued other scientists with the courage to truly grasp the future and steal fire from the gods themselves. The entrance had always been for more than just welcoming people.
He remembered the soldiers who'd manned it bereft of the trivialities of their faces, better remembered as the mindless drones they were. The figure in black stepped forth into a hail of bullets flesh tearing and uncoiling as.
The tentacles within expanded whipping out and tearing the flesh of the guards away even as laughter spilled forth from a mouth too wide for any human to possess. A guttural thing that echoed on and on long past the point a human needed to breathe.
It mattered not for they were the distraction, and his seat was the only one that mattered. Even as the tentacles reached the room he was sitting in he only smiled for this body was a duplicate, the real him having already moved on.
Face to face it seemed both less and more. Towering over him like any of the demons of old when they'd overrun the world but also so foolish and stupid to stand before a clone in person even as he pressed the button in his hand the air filling with tiny particles. "A fuel air bomb can be quite the experience don't you think." The lightest spark and everything was consumed by the flame.
It still continued laughing.
With purpose he strode past cells filled with dying children. The failures of their experiments had been many and varied as to be expected. Some people had what it took to carve themselves a throne and ascend to immortality and others only deserved to scrabble for scraps at the table.
But it was only natural that their failures were still inhuman in their power, and it was only good practice to be prepared to cull the herd when the time came. For in unravelling the mysteries of the universe meant accepting failure as much as success.
He waited amid the sound of silence…
In the cells the children had stopped screaming. One after another they turned to look at him and spoke as one. "The gate is open the stars align, and all your works will soon be mine, so dream again of nightmares past, forever more your screams will last."
With the press of a button their cells filled with gas. A cocktail of poisons to choke the lungs for those that still breathed, to burn the eyes of those that still saw, to supress the regeneration of those who'd given up their humanity. "Can you still laugh without lungs to breathe, rather than screaming I rather see them choke on their regrets as they die."
Their small forms pressing through the fog to touch the glass as mere shadows before his eyes even as their humanity faded away. A glimpse of something sinuous winding its way free of their bodies.
The next moment the glass shattered as it unfolded the thing stretching out and scything his head from his shoulders as it pulled itself back together. The laughter spilling forth from it once more.
He was walking down corridors of white walls, a new body for his mind falling into step as he sought the next weapon. It had continued regenerating even after being doused with poison something only the strongest of the possessed filled with Diabolos cells were able to do. His next choice was easy enough as his footsteps thudded down the corridor.
And a second set followed after him, heavier a dull thud just half a step out from his own. He crushed the urge to run. This was his world just as it always had been and he paused to look back at it. Almost human in the shape of its gait even as it towered up to the ceiling. The lights flickering behind it as it stretched out to stare down at him, a glimpse of numerous faces growing from its form. "We feel your fear oh mortal one, for all will know their time has come, the restless dead they do not lie, your era ends its time to die."
Through the door and into his seat, the memory already coming into reality around him. The man across from him handed him the vial. It had begun with a simple cultivation of an old favourite, measles. The more you fight it the harder you struggle the more viciously it ravages the body. Cultivated amidst humans and then moved on, incubated in the bodies of the weakest experiments. The dosage of diabolos cells increasing step by step, time after time until they had something that attacked the monster itself.
The final sample once exposed to an experiment would ravage the body with its own defences turning their immortality against them until it became only another weapon to kill them. He turned to the monster who had handed him the vial grinning. "We've done Nuclear and Chemical, we both know what comes next."
It spread like fire through his body almost immediately, pain and fire wracking through his limbs. He abandoned the corpse switching to another him sitting and watching the screen as the plague spread.
As the demon ignored it and continued tearing apart his corpse piece by piece singing along all the while about the folly of humanity.
"He's very enthusiastic when he gets going isn't he." Diabolos herself leaned over his shoulder and smiled at him. "Boo."
He fled the body and found himself walking through the corridors once again. The next him still alive as he thought for a weapon that could kill them both. The second one had survived chemical weapons like only a monster could, had survived the plague that no monster could.
A regenerative factor not based on Diabolos cells, was it possible? It was because from the beginning they had known there were other beings standing beyond the gate waiting to come in. Then back to the first weapons, cruder weapons should be the way to go. He'd been relying too much on things iterated against Diabolos itself but in the end, everything can be sterilised under the right light.
He turned to the thing still following him his smirk returning to his face. "I have quite the surprise for you next time I think you'll enjoy it."
It stood as an overwhelming mass of writing worms gaping mouths tasting the air around them. It's very presence twisting the corridor as the light above it the lights flickered, and the walls cracked and twisted. "Human, are you afraid of me? You stand in your place of power and yet all you can do is run as your empire turns to dust."
He swallowed and moved on, the next door opening to blood on the floor and the shattered corpses of the day Diabolos broke free of his cage. The demon herself standing triumphant in front of him with a smile on her face. "Hello again."
The body crumpled as he left it, his own mind found once more walking down the corridors again. Too close, they were catching up too quickly and he needed to buy time. Even as the lights flickered around him and the walls cracked and broke. He ran. "Olivier."
Nelson entered the room, panic written across his face. "Olivier we have a code black infestation. You need to help me." She blinked mind racing away to observe the entire dream, flittering between moments as a tide of darkness swept throughout the Sanctum eating its way into everything in its path.
To the core of this world where the real Nelson sat unaware even as a dozen tendrils had burrowed into his body and were eating him alive from the inside out. Already far too late to save him and all that was left was to clean up the mess.
"Nelson, thank you for two thousand years of service." The arc of her sword tore him in half even as the tentacles spilled out and the corrupted being within began to emerge. With one step forward she unleashed her fire burning it to cinders.
The facility was lost even as she watched the remnants of Diabolos begin to coalesce throughout the ruins. Yet her work was not done for even if it had reclaimed its mind that wasn't the same as having reclaimed its body. If it reached the arm at the core it would revive and then the world would be truly doomed.
Fenrir was useless and might even help its revival in the hope of fighting it, so she moved on. "Gaunt your presence in the heart of the sanctum is required." A gate opening to her will as she stepped through herself into the heart of this world.
The gate stood wrapped in chains for it was never meant to be opened. A seal holding back the end of the world for as long as it was needed. Time bought for humanity at the cost of an endless tide of lives. At its base pinning the chains into the ground was her sword of purification, bane of all demons.
She pulled the sword free even as the chains binding the gate came loose. The door opening into the swirling miasma beyond as the miasma spilled out. A suffocating cloying feeling that crawled over her skin and whispered in her mind as her own blood burned in response. The power stolen from the demons rising up within her memory once again.
She pushed it down sheer will made manifest suppressing the siren song of the abyss. "Gaunt your job is simple enough, that artifact allows you to absorb and supress magic so all you need to do is supress this arm and remove it from the premises. Anywhere you like as long as it's not here."
Even if his mask was in place the body told more. Hesitation even at this crucial moment but then not everyone could do what needed to be done. Still, she humoured him even as he found the words because she needed his help. "Something as large as this is beyond what I've ever tested it on before, I cannot promise you it's even possible so I'd rather we wait and try other options first."
She considered the gravity of the situation. "Diabolos itself has broken free, its mind etching itself into this world and corrupting it. It will arrive here in minutes at best and when it does mind and body will recombine. If you feel yourself better suited to fighting Diabolos at full power, you are welcome to wait."
"Desperation is quite the drug isn't it? I don't suppose you can inform Nelson for his next experiment that I prefer a bit more time to plot myself."
She tilted her head. "If you fail, you can tell him yourself."
He stepped forward even as he spoke, power coursing down into the artifact at his heart. "Then you are free at last to plot your own course. Do you intend to take his seat?"
She sighed. "My body is gone consumed by the arm when I sealed it. Now this place too will die and I along with it, I will give Lili my final words and then I will do as I always have."
She passed back through the door even as the blaze around her grew, the sword turning her magic to flame even as she breathed it in wreathing her body amidst the flames. One swing carved a wall impassable behind her even as she turned her eyes back to Lili.
The door to her sanctum thumped as something crashed into the other side. "It was good to see you again even if it was the end. Fare thee well on your next journey for there is a portal to the outside here." She let it expand her final parting. "If you ever find a way to free Freya as well give her my regards. It was an honour to serve with you both."
Lili paused eyeing the portal. "What's coming, if it gets through it will cause a catastrophe, won't it?"
She nodded. "The demon comes, called by its bond wishing to unleash darkness upon the world once more."
Lili understood, looking between them. "You plan to fight still then?"
The door thudded again, cracking at the seams as a viscous liquid started to flow through, a glimpse of what seemed like faces forming on its surface to stare back at her. "I will do as I've always done, one light to lead the way, one flame to sear the darkness, one step even into the abyss to turn back the night."
Lili stood next to her a series of blades forming out into her hands. "We are still enemies even now. For the enemy of my enemy is not my friend, yet still my lord has come to stop this catastrophe so even if it means siding with you, I will fight."
Lili never changed. "Very well I have added your magical signature to the control room. You can fight as you always did without holding back once more."
The door tore free a tide of mud and muck tearing into the room even as the mouths on its surface grew. A figure made of worms and mouths stepping free of the muck as it seemed to cackle. But while the mouth moved its laugh echoed in and out of sound, the space between noise shivering up her spine until even amidst the flames she felt cold.
"Humans the gate opens and the abyss awakens, cling to your lights and hide in your shadows, know that Nyarlathotep comes. Let all of your honour rise, gather your armaments and know that in this hour your courage will have meaning.
"For it amuses me to see it falter."
Death hung over her body, the same overwhelming killing intent of an abomination that Diabolos had held so long ago. Saturating the room with the scent of death even as she took one step forward. She launched forward trailing the flames and carved a light into the darkness.
Another tentacle of slime swung forward and burned away, three more tried to swing round only to get caught by Zeta's blades.
"There are some real limitations on this, controlling them all at once is way too much effort and now they're just dying like insects." Even by that standard it was charitable as ghost Alpha tore into his minions once again.
Violet looked on from her seat beside him at the torrent of slime flowing out of his body and connecting to the battlefield on the other side of the dream. "She is Olivier so expecting her to go down in one or two moves is asking too much. Most people are going to run away or die a lot faster than she does." She paused to hesitate at the next words. "Because you look terrifying while carrying it out."
He shrugged. "The body theft looks pretty cool and it has its own vibe going on but at that point I could have just killed them. Against a serious opponent there's just only so much you can do while working with finger puppets I guess."
Violet glanced between his hands and the screen where a tide of screaming monsters burned away before the might of a holy sword. "This place was made to bind me and eat away my mana so the fact that you can even fight like this in it is already more than enough. Humanity is thankful you don't play like this when confronting them. Anywhere else and it might just be unstoppable."
He shrugged. "It might be effective yes but spamming the same move until you win doesn't look cool, I'm the type of guy that has to keep trying new things or I just get bored and quit. Well Zeta is down there too, and I promised to hunt bandits with her later, so I guess it's time for Nyarlathotep's final stand."
His cloak reformed because he was going to rescue Zeta. At the climatic moment where the demons looked unstoppable who else could appear just in time to save them from the monster but Shadow himself.
"It was fun while it lasted." Violet looked a bit forlorn as he changed.
He blinked. Ah right Shadow was meant to fight her at some point but he didn't really feel like it and so he'd just choose not to do it.
So instead there was some kind of cool and important reason why she needed to be freed right now, the kind of moment that could only embellish the climax now that it had come to pass. Something like… "In the brightest day there is a shadow, in the darkest night a light exists. You are the part of Diabolos that rejected its destruction soon to be set free. Hereby I name you Violet an ally of Shadow since the beginning."
It even fit with her uncanny nervousness as he'd worked his way through the fake children that had existed within this place. Asking such questions as 'doesn't it unnerve you killing so many of them when they look like humans.'
Bandits also looked like humans and it wasn't like he cared about their lives either.
"Just keep the finger puppets moving for a bit until I'm ready for my grand entrance." He paused thinking about things. "Ah and don't stand behind the horde, make sure to stay a bit off to the side so I don't hit you by accident." With a motion the slime tentacles slipped out of his hands, and she reached out and took them from him.
He pushed off into his next goal. The one thing more important than saving the day. A door of flame leading to the deepest part of the facility, a fabled treasure vault filled with whatever wonders a god would choose to keep for himself. Treasures like gold, jewels, an incredibly diverse set of regal looking costumes he could use to roleplay with.
A giant black arm that exuded the smell of rotting flesh and towered over him dominating the entire room. Disappointment echoed in his heart but he was stronger than it, for they couldn't really keep only the one arm in here could they?
They could the room was absolutely barren. It was a travesty a crime against humanity that no one could forgive. Even worse he couldn't exact retribution for it because he'd already killed Nelson earlier and so there was only the truth as it stood in front of him as he remained penniless.
Stepping free of the shadows he confronted the only other person in here, his foe, his archnemesis, his friend Sir Gaunt. "You think you can swallow this much darkness and still retain your sanity?" He hoped so it would make their inevitable battle all the more rewarding.
Sir Gaunt slowly turned to him, even as power continued to surge into the artifact empowering him. "It seems my time is in short supply, so when in doubt you either go all in or lose everything. I didn't take you as the type to back down from a challenge."
He nodded but then was it even a challenge? It was all mana deviation in the end, and he was something of a specialist in the matter as he stepped forward and put his own hand against the arm. For a moment the mass of rotten flesh twisted under his touch, flesh rippling as it shrank and was swallowed up into the form of a young lady. This is where Ghost Alphas body was all along. "It is not the first time I have worked with such things, so just this once I have lent you my aid."
"Olivier." Gaunt stared down at the girl before grimly nodding his head. "I guess that explains why Lili managed to come back as well then. Do you intend to drag her back with you as well now?"
Two people who looked almost identical in his organisation. It would be terrible he'd get the two of them mixed up all the time, and how bad it would be if he called her Alpha by mistake. "I have one already and this one, it seems she is better suited to your organisation than mine. I have more important things to deal with right now. Even if the gate is closed someone needs to banish Nyarlathotep back from whence he came."
Gaunt looked down at the girl in his arms, covering her with his cloak. "Then I still have some control in this place." A portal appeared before him leading outside the dreamworld. "Do you intend to come through as well?"
"Leave?" He grinned knowingly as he turned back towards the exit. "This is not the first time he has tried to walk amongst humans for I have known his name before. I will break his avatar here once again."
It was time, the artifact absorbing mana had shutdown with Ghost Alphas revival and all he had to do was take action. In front of him a wall of flames rose at the doorway.
He marched through a simple surge of magic splitting the fire even as he let it cling to the edges of his suit. The flames licking at the edge of his stride serving only to highlight his figure. The next step carried him through into the room even as Zeta stood against a mass of slime tentacles he'd left behind.
He drank in the scene, a hopeless battle against an enemy from beyond the stars. A single soldier swinging an endless array of swords as she danced around the carnage, cutting them down endlessly even as it seemed all would be lost.
Until the moment of his arrival when everything changed. For an instant his own magic rippled out against the mass and it wavered trembling at his passing. The very air infused with a surge of power so overwhelming that it could only come from him.
Despair turned to hope as Zeta turned to face him, his own stride taking him past her in an instant as everything fell into place as he stood as an invincible bulwark against the outsider that had dared enter this world. Shadow standing in his element as he faced down Nyarlathotep at the height of his power.
"I am Atomic."
His magic condensed to a single point of otherworldly strength, a single pinprick of absolute power held on the tip of his finger as the mass swarmed towards him. The next it released a wave of power surging through and tearing the world asunder in front of his might.
The resentment of a thousand dying children, the otherworldly mass of tentacles and the destructive power of an existence that transcended humanity gone in an instant. Banished to the back of his mind until the next time he decided to wear the outfit.
Black blood poured free of the portal even as the soldiers that had been fighting on the grounds around them stopped. The light holding them together pulling itself away into motes of gold that hung in the air.
Sherry worked with more confidence now, before the runes had instructions but had flashed green or red without rhyme or reason as she clicked her way through. At best she guessed that there was someone else with another platform contesting her.
Now they all flashed green, this one seemed to control the shield, the one next to it was something to do with the portal. The one that made the soldiers manifest was unnecessary as they were already disappearing.
The portal glowed purple, the glimpse of an overwhelming amount of magic about to pour out and destroy everything. Her hands flickered over the screen and the shield pulled back in, golden light wrapping around the exit as the force radiated out and reflecting it back up into the sky.
Stepping back from his playground, the fun little world of adventure into reality was a daunting thing. He had to be bold, overwhelming and awe inspiring no matter what, if the audience was still there he would look his best.
No, he had to believe that even if everyone else might have left, his friends would stick to the roleplay no matter what and thus what words would they want to hear.
The shimmering light gave way, and he stepped out onto solid ground slick with black ooze pouring out around him and he had just the thought of what to say. "The Cult of Diabolos thought that summoning a demon into this world would be enough to stop me. Yet I return triumphant to you all."
His own followers cloaked in black slime rejoicing at his return. He bathed in their adoration even as it seemed most of the rest of the stands had cleared out, the entire event seeming to have been called off. Which was a good thing, because it meant that no one would have noticed that Cid wasn't present.
The whole arena seemed a bit broken but what was a national treasure, or a holy site compared to his dignity as an eminence in shadow anyway.
"I'm going to kill you one day." A boy even younger than him stood in front of Gaunt, his gaze looking up and down at his form as he licked his lips.
Well even if he was tired, what was one more fight as he pulled his sword up and took a stance. "Do you think you can?"
"Even after that you still cling to your sword, taking your head will be fun indeed." The kid grinned the weight of a mountain crashing down as his killing intent flowed outwards.
Shadow was as deep as the ocean and stood his ground as it flowed over him the ghostly image of death nothing more than an old friend. Did it matter that he was tired? No, a true eminence in shadow had a plan for it all the same and would emerge triumphant. "You think you have me caught off guard and yet instead know that you stand on the palm of my hand, come let me show you how dark the shadows can be."
A laugh spilled out as the kid sheathed his sword. "Do you think I will settle for someone else's table scraps? Our battle should be the stuff of legends as the world itself is torn asunder. When we both stand at our best I will come again when our audience isn't a half dead rabble barely able to hold on."
He glanced back over the stadium as Alpha's extras… bled out rather awkwardly far too many of them injured. A makeshift first aid tent treating the worst of the wounded in the far corner of the arena. They weren't his friends, but they were the friends of friends so maybe getting all his own help killed right now wasn't the best move. "Know that one day I will make you regret that mistake."
The kid disappeared alongside Gaunt off into the city. Even as he sheathed his own sword and let himself breathe out again. Truly he hoped the two of them would be able to back up those words when the time came, a climatic duel with a worthy opponent was just the sort of thing to look forward to.
He breathed in and dredged up more magic even as it flowed slower than before. It filtered out through the slime, a material as versatile as it was useful, a perfect conductor for his magic and free of the interference of the foibles of human flesh. Like Type O blood it could be given to anyone. "Recovery Atomic."
It poured out knitting wounds together and replenishing blood of his side characters as he made them whole once more.
His helpers were fixed, and everything was going to plan. He looked cool and had secretly been in control of both sides like a true eminence in shadow should be and only one thing stopped it from being absolutely perfect.
That dawning horror of an explanation that one day he would have to tell them the truth.
Not right now for it would be too embarrassing for them to handle. Not when they were putting so much effort in to follow his orders, not when they were being so earnest in their hard work and carrying on with such gusto as Delta tore up the ground in front of him. As Epsilon extended her own slime blade deep into the ground to cut out the foundations.
As Alpha watched over it all with a calm sense of satisfaction at a job well done.
Just this once he would allow it, because speaking out and revealing their ignorance was too embarrassing for them right now. That stealing the stage was a metaphor and not an instruction.
He ambled along through the woods contemplating the silence as even his own footsteps were bereft of sound. Gaunt followed along behind him like the ghost he was and hadn't that been a surprise. "Do you intend to try and retake the fifth seat from me, it's been a while since we last fought."
The silence drew out, but then both of them had all the time in the world. "I'd rather we work together again like old times, with Nelson dead I can tell you're just itching to punch Loki next."
Gaunt knew him well so there was only one true question left. "Olivier, do you think we can work with her, or should I just finish the job before she wakes up."
"She's ruthless and violent and gives out threats as easily as she breathes. You'll like her more than you did Nelson at least."
He grinned. "A breath of fresh air amongst our normal associates then. And speaking of associates I met your adopted daughter today, it's unlike you to leave loose ends lying around I thought you preferred to avoid personal attachments."
"Sometimes life does not give us the opportunities we wish for, and Shadow intervened before I killed her."
"Here I was hoping that it would turn out the little knight following her around was worth fighting. A Cid Kagenou she seemed attached to, at least had the guts to laugh about things with me so if he was any good, I was going to turn up one more time and murder him."
Gaunt hummed to himself a brief thing. "Cid is Shadow the leader of the organisation tearing your forces down, so it seems you should at least try and remember him going forward."
He paused halting mid stride. "Really?" No Gaunt deceived and plotted but at times like this he was deceptively straightforward more than anything else. "He sat down right next to me like it was nothing and I thought little of it. Truly I'm going to enjoy him as an opponent."
Gaunt carried on walking without a care. "That rotten personality of yours never changes. One day you'll get a surprise strong enough to teach even you why its best to cut down your opponents when they're weak rather than making such a spectacle of things."
"Well unlike you I like to make things personal, when they reach the brink of despair and keep pushing on to become a true hero worthy of the name. Such fights can get even my old blood to boil once more."
Even if he couldn't see his face. Gaunt would be smiling the rotten condescending smirk of his. "Such astute personal skills you have, truly there is no one else in this world who knows how to be hated better than the hero killer himself. I hope you at least know where you're going."
He grinned wider, teeth showing as he looked back at Gaunt. "I figured it out, the location of his headquarters. That's why I'm off to wipe it out and walk off with my own living weapon. Nothing makes things more personal than killing off peoples subordinates and showing off their corpses."
"Have fun on your hunt."
Well that's where this chapter ends, I enjoyed it. Next chapter someone will die… by Fenrir's hand I will even confirm. It is possible to know who of course, naturally everyone can guess for there is only one option.
On one hand I feel that's a bit cruel to say so I thought I might just post that bit of the next chapter in about three days. If people want that short bit posted earlier than the next chapter its mostly written. Just the other parts of next chapter that I still need to work on.
Like more planned interaction for the seven shadows, Cid hanging out with the lower named numbers on the way back, and ominous foreshadowing for the next arc.
This chapter was very long. I have no idea how I wrote so much of it so fast but I didn't find a good place to stop so have it all. I am happy with the vast majority of the chapter but if anything fell flat I will survive. Also yay stats are back truly year is off to a great start.
Anisomeone: Positive reviews make me feel all the better about writing it. Thank you for them.
Well one person has looked at the end of this chapter and assumed I massacred Shadow Garden. When my intention in saying they had a lot of wounded was that they had a lot of wounded. Who then got healed by Atomic recovery. I'll probably look at a few bits in the first and last part to make it more clear that wounded is high, but fatalities is in fact low.
Like if I'd killed half of shadow garden there would be no mistaking it. Because Alpha would be a crying wreck when Cid walked out of the portal over getting all of her family killed and Cid would not be conversing with Fenrir after that.
InstructionsBear: If it disappeared on chapter 3, that's probably because I switched the rating from T to M, and the standard filters only shows K to T with M excluded from them. But I realised I was writing Nelson with a concentration camp filled with children with actual gas chambers, and Cid was gaslighting him to intentionally induce a mental breakdown. Nelson would have fit in unit 731 and treating him as a serious villain requires a certain gravitas.
As I was touching pretty hefty subjects that are dark enough I thought I might need trigger warnings for them, I then decided that the increased rating was the appropriate format for that even if it made my work harder to find. I didn't have an excuse that I would believe to keep it at T, nevermind one I thought would convince people if I got reported for having a rating too low so it had to go up.
If it wasn't at chapter 3 I have no idea.