Re: The Battle Majestic (Round 4 - Magpie Skies)
03-31-2012, 09:28 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by SleepingOrange.
The seemingly endless expanse of black, pierced only by the needle of a catwalk attached to nothing, reverberated with the rhythmic clack of a pair of feet stalking unhurriedly towards the catwalk's end; a certain kind of shoe can be made specifically for the impressive sound they make while walking, and these feet had seen fit to outfit themselves with such a pair: they weren't particularly flashy or eye-catching, but spoke quietly of their quality in the hushed voice of wealth beyond the need for extravagance. The legs above – and the rest of the body attached to them – were similarly clad: a pantsuit rose from the darkness, a deep charcoal grey with near-invisible pinstripes; the whole thing accentuated its wearer's femininity without being form-fitting, setting an image of confidence and power and influence. The woman inside certainly lived up to that image, her hard features framed with a still-youthful bob cut but etched with the hints of a glower lurking behind her impassivity; every touch of her minimal makeup was applied flawlessly, and her unadorned hands were folded pensively behind her back. Her eyes never moved from the small platform at the far end of the spaceless room, her step never faltering and the ring of her shoes on metal omnipresent.
She was a woman of obvious bearing, in short, and accentuated it at every turn by playing it down.
By the time she'd reached her goal, the man holed up there had clearly been driven near-frantic by the sound of her approach and whatever business he'd been occupied with at the bank of monitors and levers that had been erected where once a chaise lounge had stood. The woman stopped just short of the platform, hands still folded behind her and no word passing her lips; for just over a minute, the man made as though to ignore her, waiting for her to make the first move. Eventually, though, his impatience got the best of him and he turned around to snap.
"What do you wa– oh, it's you."
Having recognized her, he sighed with a measure of barely-concealed relief and turned back to his work.
"Look, tell your boss I don't have time for any of his pointless collusion or scheming or whatever he's calling it these days. The Executive has me up to my wrists in work for this battle, and I can't get away to go play at conspiracies over a tea set that doesn't work."
"We both know that's not true."
Talis turned around again, opening his mouth to speak, but was quickly headed off.
"And in any case, you misunderstand the reason for my visit. The Organizer has no desire to 'collude' with you – in fact, I speculate that he sees no reason to associate with you at all."
Talis snorted. "Well, isn't that charming. The old snob's finally too good for me?"
"There is no reason for him to interfere with those not involved with the execution of the Grand Battles, Talis."
There was silence for a few beats, silence as there can only be in a place that was either nonexistent or doing its best to seem so.
"So, that's how it's going to be then?"
---
"I expected the pair of you to have taken care of this some time ago."
The Organizer shrugged. "You know I had too much of a stake in this little kerfluffle to go and tidy up the Executive's mess."
"And this was worth delaying for? The Observer completely unharmed, your favorite – the one you actually stepped into the battle for – dead, and the idiot now unequivocally aware of your clumsy attempts on him?"
Smiling with the Composer's own mouth, the Organizer stepped uncomfortably close to her. "Gosh, I never expected you to take that sort of a tone with me! I hope you can see once you calm down a little everything that I accomplished here was worth it. The Observer chained in place by a zombie and some crates, his whole realm reduced to a little pocket that a human wizard would be ashamed of? I think–" here, the Composer's nose was nearly being smashed back against her face by its double as Ms. Dorcy discretely stepped backwards– "that perhaps you should take some time to calm down and look again at where you are and just what happened here."
With a nearly audible snap, the tension in the air suddenly disappeared and the lilac-themed Composer stepped away from the bluer one, grinning unthreateningly and gesturing widely. "Besides, it was always my plan to wait until one of the contestants had died before I made a move! It's much more dramatic if it happens in a transition, don't you think?"
Unflappable and icy as ever, the Composer shrugged noncommittally. "I don't understand why you would choose to favor drama over certainty here. With Bryce d–" she glanced over at the Diarist, who was still occupied with his books. "With The Overseer missing, the Charlatan has been getting rather antsy. I doubt he'd ever make a move, of course, but he was just the first one to find out. One of those other pretenders could have done any number of things while you were out here playing with your toys. The whole reason I approached you was to forestall someone less competent or worthy trying something foolish with an unattended battle while I was busy with... other matters."
"Yes, of course I know that. But let's face it: what could someone like Zaire or The Controller do? I'd know if they got their fingers in our little pie, and I wouldn't bother sending my friend in that situation. I'd go have a talk with them myself!"
There was a short pause while the Composer imagined that "talk" before she spoke up again. "Why are you sending her in any case? I thought you were hoping to get your hands back into grandmastering yourself."
"It just seems appropriate," he shrugged. "Sruix and Talis ran the whole show from minute one anyway, I thought it would make sense to have a subordinate of mine take over for them."
From a certain perspective – one that had to be squinted at through any eyes other than the Organizer's – it made some kind of sense. It was certainly the kind of thought she'd come to expect from him, in any case. The Composer turned to Ms. Dorcy.
"You'd better get on with it, then. The old shamaness is being crushed as we waste time speaking."
Ms. Dorcy nodded and spread her hands wide; she seemed to disassemble and disappear in the space of less than a second, leaving behind a whisper that sounded a lot like "Time is immaterial" and a bit too smug for the Composer's liking.
---
"So you think you're just going to come in here and wrench the battle out of my hands, then?"
The woman shook her head, expression still blank. "No. I think I'm going to come in here and you're going to give me control of the battle. You will then allow me to strip you of most of your power and see to it that you are killed."
Talis laughed then, a manic explosion of sinister guffaws that he'd perfected over many years of careful evil. Standing up and straightening his monocle, he loomed threateningly over the woman in front of him. "You must be joking. I could destroy you, right now, right where you stand."
She shook her head, hair swishing softly across her chin. "You of all people must know I am deadly serious. Your Grandmaster is dead, and everyone who could care knows it. Even with the power you made sure to secret away for yourself, you are no Grandmaster."
He dropped any pretense of friendliness or restraint that had remained after he stood up and snarled. I don't have to be. Not yet. I have more than enough to keep this going until I've got what I need, and far more than enough to deal with you."
His hand scythed through the air in a wicked slap, but the woman had anticipated him and stepped backwards.
"It's so sad to see an incarnation like yourself adopt their role too wholeheartedly. You're not thinking ahead, Talis. Surely you don't think you could ever hold your own against the Organizer?"
"By the time he's figured out what's happened," he seethed, "and gotten around to doing anything about it, I won't have to."
"Fortunately for me, then..."
The woman finally brought her hands around in front of her; in them, there was an orb of such sublime metadarkness that the billowing blackness that surrounded the pair seemed to fade to a mangy grey.
"I won't have to wait for his intervention."
---
In another place entirely, a coruscating space filled with shapes and sound and light, the workshop of some mad god or madder mathematician, a hairy creature happily tinkered on a workbench that seemed to exist in several dimensions beyond those concerned with mere matter. With its hair tied back this way, though, it was rather obvious "creature" wasn't truly the right word; perhaps "man" was closer, but the way his hands sporadically disappeared into a reality adjacent to the one he existed in as he worked suggested that "man" was a better descriptor of his shape than his nature.
Sruix, as he liked to call himself when he wasn't being coerced into organizing barbarism, was as happy as he'd been in some time. Talis, doubtlessly for unfathomably evil reasons –although he couldn't really be blamed for that – had shouldered most of the burden for running the competition lately, and Sruix wasn't very interested in foiling any nefarious plots that let him do as he pleased and disengage from the bloody business of multidimensional arena combat. He still had some duties, of course – with the Executive off doing (or more likely, seeing that the doing was accomplished by someone) whatever he was doing, Talis couldn't handle everything himself. Most of what Sruix had to deal with was simple and automatable, though, and he liked that. Just adjusting a few universal constants occasionally didn't really seem much like administrating a battle to the death, so it was easy to ignore the implications if he wanted to.
For some time, most of Sruix's new duties had been re-relegated to a few machines and apparatuses of his own design, and the peace of mind and quiet they'd lent him was much appreciated. He thought less and less about them as time went on; by now, only hours had passed for his in-name charges, but he'd had several months to himself to pursue his eclectic interests. It'd been weeks since he'd had to do anything to do with the Battle Majestic, and in a willful act of forgetfulness, he'd managed to completely set it out of his mind.
Until a light began flashing and a siren wailing, that is; a small computer that had been gathering dust since its creation, needing no intervention and doing little itself, suddenly roared to life, screaming in a language of klaxons about something truly horrible.
Not sure what was happening, Sruix stood and approached his cursed creations. After a bit of poking around, his colorless eyes widened and bushy eyebrows shot upwards with alarm.
"Oh... bugger."
---
Talis recoiled, baring his teeth in shock and rage, nearly colliding with his station as he backed hurriedly away.
"You... You... I can't believe you'd bring that here!"
"You can now see just how serious I am, then."
"You'd destroy yourself!"
"Would I? Surely you don't assume I would come without some way to protect myself or escape."
"There's no such way."
"Just think for a moment, Talis. Who is my master?"
There was another pause.
[color=#80000]"And with you gone – not just dead, as you well know, but utterly annihilated – and this place with you, and your pathetic associate, and every echo that remained of the Executive... All it would take is the Organizer to come behind and pick up the pieces. And even if I had no way to save myself as I claim, my loss is of no consequence to me. All that matters is that his goals are accomplished, and they will be. But you, you desire nothing more than your own well-being and extension."[/color]
Silence again.
"The choice is yours, Talis. Death, or endless, undying cessation."
Talis's eyes darted back and forth, looking for an out.
"But without me, just think about what would happen to countless worlds as they stagnate without the force of evil to counter and define their goodness!"
"That's immaterial. Even if it weren't, though, you are once again proving you have lost yourself in the mask of your position: you are not irreplaceable, Talis. When you are gone, rather than merely missing, someone else will rise to fill the void. Perhaps some interested party in our social circle will see to it; perhaps not. Either way, your uniqueness falls far short of your belief in it."
"I–"
Talis was once again interrupted, but this time not by the woman menacing him. A door that did not exist banged open, and the thud of footsteps once again filled the empty hall. Rather than a confident stride, though, these were a panicked sprint, accompanied periodically by a hysterical shout of "Talis! Taaaaliiiis!"
---
A being of Chaos and words and hatred barreled through the impermeable boundaries between realities. It shouldn't have been able to, by all rights, but it had learned much since it had learned the word Mind. And it had been shown many things by a certain word that had smiled as it whispered. Behind it, if "behind" could truly be said to have any meaning in the circumstances, it left a wake of its new Chaos as realities clashed and wove themselves together. Holes in reality patched themselves up as best as they could, but with no hand to guide them in repairing damage that sought to spread further as it was fixed, the fixes were clumsy, blended affairs that left natural laws seeping between worlds. It was not Magog's Chaos, but it was the only Chaos Magog had left. The only Chaos that could exist with words. Magog tried to relish its Chaos, but Magog was not a being well-adapted for relishing anything. It ground its teeth and sped up.
The smiling words had shown it how the way it had followed the Julia word's thread could be applied to other things. How it could find the Vex word, how it could go there, how it could gain its freedom and its Chaos by destroying the Vex word. The smiling words gave Magog all the words it needed and all the power it already had, and they had pointed the way.
Magog did not have words like lie, yet. But Magog had words like destroy.
---
Sruix panted as he arrived, too preoccupied to notice the tableau in front of him for what it was.
"It's breached the universe. I think it's probably breached a whole lot of them by now. It shouldn't be able to, and certainly not that violently!" Mistaking Talis's expression for confusion, he clarified: "Magog, I mean. You remember how back on Firestar–"
"Of course I remember. I also remember you were supposed to be dealing with this. But at the moment, there are more important things–"
"No there aren't!" It was an unusual outburst for the genteel hairball. "Look, it's not just going for Vex. I wouldn't care less if it were, but this is really bad, Talis!"
The woman, still holding her orb, raised an eyebrow and looked between the two men in front of her. "What is, then?"
Sruix looked at her, unrecognizing and failing to notice the object that had so terrified Talis, and stumbled out "Well, uh, see... I plotted its trajectory – which I don't mind telling you is tricky in a multiversal context – and... It's coming here."
Neither Talis nor the woman Sruix supposed was his guest looked astonished enough at this announcement. After waiting a moment to see if anything else was forthcoming, Talis blurted out "So?"
"So?!" Sruix goggled with a combination of terror and surprise. "What do you mean, so?"
"I mean so what, you fuzzbrained waste of time! It's a stupid fragment of a stupid little god of chaos. Even you should be able to handle that once it gets here!"
"No, look, see, this is why I keep trying to talk to you about reality architecture, but you just never want to listen. It's shredding universal boundaries! This place isn't real, it's artificial. As soon as Magog penetrates the membrane, this whole place will go like a balloon that's been popped by a shotgun! We can't even leave because of the interference his approach is kicking up all around us. We have to get in contact with the Executor, and we don't have time to–"
The woman's face finally resolved itself into a genuine expression of disdainful surprise. "This is how you run a battle?"
Sruix looked like he would be more embarrassed if he had the luxury of time for it. "Well, I–"
She waved a hand. "Shut up. Both of you just... Shut up. This is absurd. I can't believe–*look, I'll deal with this. This sort of thing is practically my specialty."
Sruix rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well, see, that's great, but... I think it'll probably keep coming back. It's following the signature of–"
"Then I will deal with that too. Talis, bring your incompetent friend here up to speed while I handle things. You'd better have made a decision by the time I get back, or I will pick the hard way for you."
She was gone again, vanishing piecemeal but swiftly into the aether.
"What was that all about, then?"
---
Threads laid themselves out, a tangled and near-incomprehensible web of spacial and extraspacial information. A snarl was forming and spreading itself out, a nasty ball of frays and breaks at odds with the chaotic but pristine tapestry around it. It seemed to be moving randomly, with no real goal, but a keen eye could spot the method to its madness; a keener one would have spotted the means.
Sruix had been right: it would have kept coming back, even if diverted or halted. His tacit assumption, however – that it for whatever reason wanted to destroy the Executive's realm or those in it – seemed to be wrong. As a delicate hand reached in to touch Magog's fragmentary and inchoate mind, it became apparent the little shard of Chaos seemed to think its other half was at the end of this particular thread. The being behind that hand tried to quietly change Magog's mind, to tell it to follow another thread in pursuit of Vex, but some other force had seen to it that its mind and its Mind wouldn't not be swayed.
Seeing no other option, the hand did what it had hoped to avoid, and roughly plucked the center of the snarl out of the chaotic order of the multiverse. With no other way to ensure another snarl didn't form, it did the same to Vex even as Iris breathed her last breath.
---
In a world of greys and angles and curves, Vex opened his eyes. He was surprised for a moment, having anticipated another transition and lecture as he'd experienced before, but that surprise vanished before long. Perhaps his handlers were becoming even more fearful, he considered with a smile. They were unwilling to even directly interact with him anymore. Well, he'd show them–
An almost feminine figure stepped out from behind one of the geometric spires that were all the god could see. She was astonishingly androgynous, as though someone had taken the perfect average of every human that had ever existed and resolved them into flesh. She was dressed in a bland grey garment, and when she spoke, it was in a voice that couldn't have matched her appearance more perfectly.
"Hello, Vex."
Vex wasn't unduly surprised to be addressed by name; it wouldn't have been the first time the inhabitants of a new round had been forewarned about the combatants' appearance, after all. He reached out to her mind to find words to respond with, and was stunned to be effortlessly repelled.
"There will be no need for that. I'm merely here to tell you that you are no longer beholden to those beings that stole you from your previous life to participate in what they called the Battle Majestic. You are free."
Eyes narrowing, Vex replied in his own tongue. "Then where am I?"
"This is Urlaia, a endless plane of pure, undisturbed order. It has proven to be the most secure place to sequester Magog, and by necessity you were placed here as well."
Speaking carefully, mind racing, Vex simply said "That doesn't seem like freedom."
"Perhaps not. If you would like to pursue a truer freedom from a place where chaos does not exist, you are welcome to."
And with that, she was gone.
---
Back in the Executive's erstwhile lair, Talis was lounging angrily on his chair. He didn't bother to look up as the woman reappeared, straightening her collar and sleeves.
"Where is Sruix?"
"He's hiding. Of course he's hiding, what did you expect? He tried to run, but he couldn't. We really are stuck here."
"And you?"
Talis shrugged. "You win. I'll go quietly."
"Just like that?"
This time, his facade of calm acceptance disappeared, and he shouted, kicking angrily at a nearby console. "Of course not just like that! What the bloody fucking hells other choice do I have? You knew from the second you came here you were going to win. So fuck you and kill me quick before I lose my temper and do something I'll regret for longer than eternity."
The woman smiled a reserved little grin. "Quick isn't quite what I had in mind."
---
Microseconds after Vex had left Oxbow, Inc., Sen, Jacob, Blitz, and Steven vanished as well. They were treated to another period of blackness and immobility, as they'd become accustomed to, but this time it went on for longer and no-one appeared to say anything. After a timeless period that would have been forever or moments, clipped footsteps thundered around them and a female figure faded out of the darkness.
"Hello," she said. "Before we begin, I would like to inform you all that there have been some changes you may be interested in. This battle is now under new management. Its previous caretakers – S and Talis – as well as their employer – one being calling itself the Executive – have been ousted to make room for more efficient workers."
"Given that, this competition is now under my purview. I look forward to leveraging your unique skills in a collaborative undertaking that will doubtlessly prove in the top percent of such endeavors. Of course, only the top percent of you will be around to appreciate it, but that was already established."
"You may be wondering what happened to the petty tyrants you first met, who did their best to intimidate you into doing their bidding and ignore the opportunities in front of you. I myself wondered about that for a time, but I believe I have devised a solution to the mutual satisfaction of myself and the surviving four of you: S and Talis will accompany you for the duration of this competition, in a significantly-reduced capacity from their previous position. They will, in fact be physically present and vulnerable as long as they survive; their deaths will not end a round, of course, but do present interesting possibilities."
"Similarly interesting possibilities are much more available to you under this administration than the previous, in fact; where they fretted and bullied and tried to ensure you were at each other's throats, I am allowing much more creative freedom in your process. Seek escape if you must; form alliances, mingle with the locals, do nothing but survive. Kill, if it pleases you. But remember that if your attempts become dull or falter, I will also be taking a much more hands-on approach to management. My direct intervention should not be required, but will be actualized if need be."
"Now, I've taken enough of your time; I will introduce myself and your next round, and we can all get back to work. You may call me the Executrix, and this–"
The blackness all around faded, and the Executrix waved a hand at the light that flooded in.
"is your new office."
The contestants were suspended in midair, surrounded on all sides by sunlight and picturesque puffy clouds. What ground they could see below was largely flat and scrubby, but so little was obvious that it was hard to draw any conclusions; in any case, what truly drew the eye was the sky around them. Clouds on all sides had been sculpted into gothic castles and quaint villages; in the distance, humanoid figures could be seen moving about rolling hills and immaterial fields, apparently supported by the cloudy landscape.
"It is a world of fancy and fantasy, of queens and dragons and witches. I encourage you to explore it, if it pleases you; my biggest request is that you simply avoid the obvious anticlimax of falling from the sky and ending the round prematurely. I will disperse you, giving you all time to yourselves before getting together; some will find themselves far above the world below, while others will be planted on firm soil."
"And one last thing before I set you loose: due to some clerical oversight, it is no longer possible for Vexmagog to continue in this battle. I have replaced him with a very interesting new member for your group, and encourage you all to get to know her. This may prove challenging, but I assure you she wants nothing more than to make your acquaintance."
A woman appeared by the Executrix's side; she was clearly just as immobilized as the others, an expression of just-forming surprise frozen on her face. Aside from that, she was surprisingly forgettable; rather average, with clothes that seemed to suggest she'd dressed to deflect attention rather than attract it.
"And do recall that your company numbers seven, now."
She flicked her fingers, sending her contestants away in spiraling columns of light.
The seemingly endless expanse of black, pierced only by the needle of a catwalk attached to nothing, reverberated with the rhythmic clack of a pair of feet stalking unhurriedly towards the catwalk's end; a certain kind of shoe can be made specifically for the impressive sound they make while walking, and these feet had seen fit to outfit themselves with such a pair: they weren't particularly flashy or eye-catching, but spoke quietly of their quality in the hushed voice of wealth beyond the need for extravagance. The legs above – and the rest of the body attached to them – were similarly clad: a pantsuit rose from the darkness, a deep charcoal grey with near-invisible pinstripes; the whole thing accentuated its wearer's femininity without being form-fitting, setting an image of confidence and power and influence. The woman inside certainly lived up to that image, her hard features framed with a still-youthful bob cut but etched with the hints of a glower lurking behind her impassivity; every touch of her minimal makeup was applied flawlessly, and her unadorned hands were folded pensively behind her back. Her eyes never moved from the small platform at the far end of the spaceless room, her step never faltering and the ring of her shoes on metal omnipresent.
She was a woman of obvious bearing, in short, and accentuated it at every turn by playing it down.
By the time she'd reached her goal, the man holed up there had clearly been driven near-frantic by the sound of her approach and whatever business he'd been occupied with at the bank of monitors and levers that had been erected where once a chaise lounge had stood. The woman stopped just short of the platform, hands still folded behind her and no word passing her lips; for just over a minute, the man made as though to ignore her, waiting for her to make the first move. Eventually, though, his impatience got the best of him and he turned around to snap.
"What do you wa– oh, it's you."
Having recognized her, he sighed with a measure of barely-concealed relief and turned back to his work.
"Look, tell your boss I don't have time for any of his pointless collusion or scheming or whatever he's calling it these days. The Executive has me up to my wrists in work for this battle, and I can't get away to go play at conspiracies over a tea set that doesn't work."
"We both know that's not true."
Talis turned around again, opening his mouth to speak, but was quickly headed off.
"And in any case, you misunderstand the reason for my visit. The Organizer has no desire to 'collude' with you – in fact, I speculate that he sees no reason to associate with you at all."
Talis snorted. "Well, isn't that charming. The old snob's finally too good for me?"
"There is no reason for him to interfere with those not involved with the execution of the Grand Battles, Talis."
There was silence for a few beats, silence as there can only be in a place that was either nonexistent or doing its best to seem so.
"So, that's how it's going to be then?"
---
"I expected the pair of you to have taken care of this some time ago."
The Organizer shrugged. "You know I had too much of a stake in this little kerfluffle to go and tidy up the Executive's mess."
"And this was worth delaying for? The Observer completely unharmed, your favorite – the one you actually stepped into the battle for – dead, and the idiot now unequivocally aware of your clumsy attempts on him?"
Smiling with the Composer's own mouth, the Organizer stepped uncomfortably close to her. "Gosh, I never expected you to take that sort of a tone with me! I hope you can see once you calm down a little everything that I accomplished here was worth it. The Observer chained in place by a zombie and some crates, his whole realm reduced to a little pocket that a human wizard would be ashamed of? I think–" here, the Composer's nose was nearly being smashed back against her face by its double as Ms. Dorcy discretely stepped backwards– "that perhaps you should take some time to calm down and look again at where you are and just what happened here."
With a nearly audible snap, the tension in the air suddenly disappeared and the lilac-themed Composer stepped away from the bluer one, grinning unthreateningly and gesturing widely. "Besides, it was always my plan to wait until one of the contestants had died before I made a move! It's much more dramatic if it happens in a transition, don't you think?"
Unflappable and icy as ever, the Composer shrugged noncommittally. "I don't understand why you would choose to favor drama over certainty here. With Bryce d–" she glanced over at the Diarist, who was still occupied with his books. "With The Overseer missing, the Charlatan has been getting rather antsy. I doubt he'd ever make a move, of course, but he was just the first one to find out. One of those other pretenders could have done any number of things while you were out here playing with your toys. The whole reason I approached you was to forestall someone less competent or worthy trying something foolish with an unattended battle while I was busy with... other matters."
"Yes, of course I know that. But let's face it: what could someone like Zaire or The Controller do? I'd know if they got their fingers in our little pie, and I wouldn't bother sending my friend in that situation. I'd go have a talk with them myself!"
There was a short pause while the Composer imagined that "talk" before she spoke up again. "Why are you sending her in any case? I thought you were hoping to get your hands back into grandmastering yourself."
"It just seems appropriate," he shrugged. "Sruix and Talis ran the whole show from minute one anyway, I thought it would make sense to have a subordinate of mine take over for them."
From a certain perspective – one that had to be squinted at through any eyes other than the Organizer's – it made some kind of sense. It was certainly the kind of thought she'd come to expect from him, in any case. The Composer turned to Ms. Dorcy.
"You'd better get on with it, then. The old shamaness is being crushed as we waste time speaking."
Ms. Dorcy nodded and spread her hands wide; she seemed to disassemble and disappear in the space of less than a second, leaving behind a whisper that sounded a lot like "Time is immaterial" and a bit too smug for the Composer's liking.
---
"So you think you're just going to come in here and wrench the battle out of my hands, then?"
The woman shook her head, expression still blank. "No. I think I'm going to come in here and you're going to give me control of the battle. You will then allow me to strip you of most of your power and see to it that you are killed."
Talis laughed then, a manic explosion of sinister guffaws that he'd perfected over many years of careful evil. Standing up and straightening his monocle, he loomed threateningly over the woman in front of him. "You must be joking. I could destroy you, right now, right where you stand."
She shook her head, hair swishing softly across her chin. "You of all people must know I am deadly serious. Your Grandmaster is dead, and everyone who could care knows it. Even with the power you made sure to secret away for yourself, you are no Grandmaster."
He dropped any pretense of friendliness or restraint that had remained after he stood up and snarled. I don't have to be. Not yet. I have more than enough to keep this going until I've got what I need, and far more than enough to deal with you."
His hand scythed through the air in a wicked slap, but the woman had anticipated him and stepped backwards.
"It's so sad to see an incarnation like yourself adopt their role too wholeheartedly. You're not thinking ahead, Talis. Surely you don't think you could ever hold your own against the Organizer?"
"By the time he's figured out what's happened," he seethed, "and gotten around to doing anything about it, I won't have to."
"Fortunately for me, then..."
The woman finally brought her hands around in front of her; in them, there was an orb of such sublime metadarkness that the billowing blackness that surrounded the pair seemed to fade to a mangy grey.
"I won't have to wait for his intervention."
---
In another place entirely, a coruscating space filled with shapes and sound and light, the workshop of some mad god or madder mathematician, a hairy creature happily tinkered on a workbench that seemed to exist in several dimensions beyond those concerned with mere matter. With its hair tied back this way, though, it was rather obvious "creature" wasn't truly the right word; perhaps "man" was closer, but the way his hands sporadically disappeared into a reality adjacent to the one he existed in as he worked suggested that "man" was a better descriptor of his shape than his nature.
Sruix, as he liked to call himself when he wasn't being coerced into organizing barbarism, was as happy as he'd been in some time. Talis, doubtlessly for unfathomably evil reasons –although he couldn't really be blamed for that – had shouldered most of the burden for running the competition lately, and Sruix wasn't very interested in foiling any nefarious plots that let him do as he pleased and disengage from the bloody business of multidimensional arena combat. He still had some duties, of course – with the Executive off doing (or more likely, seeing that the doing was accomplished by someone) whatever he was doing, Talis couldn't handle everything himself. Most of what Sruix had to deal with was simple and automatable, though, and he liked that. Just adjusting a few universal constants occasionally didn't really seem much like administrating a battle to the death, so it was easy to ignore the implications if he wanted to.
For some time, most of Sruix's new duties had been re-relegated to a few machines and apparatuses of his own design, and the peace of mind and quiet they'd lent him was much appreciated. He thought less and less about them as time went on; by now, only hours had passed for his in-name charges, but he'd had several months to himself to pursue his eclectic interests. It'd been weeks since he'd had to do anything to do with the Battle Majestic, and in a willful act of forgetfulness, he'd managed to completely set it out of his mind.
Until a light began flashing and a siren wailing, that is; a small computer that had been gathering dust since its creation, needing no intervention and doing little itself, suddenly roared to life, screaming in a language of klaxons about something truly horrible.
Not sure what was happening, Sruix stood and approached his cursed creations. After a bit of poking around, his colorless eyes widened and bushy eyebrows shot upwards with alarm.
"Oh... bugger."
---
Talis recoiled, baring his teeth in shock and rage, nearly colliding with his station as he backed hurriedly away.
"You... You... I can't believe you'd bring that here!"
"You can now see just how serious I am, then."
"You'd destroy yourself!"
"Would I? Surely you don't assume I would come without some way to protect myself or escape."
"There's no such way."
"Just think for a moment, Talis. Who is my master?"
There was another pause.
[color=#80000]"And with you gone – not just dead, as you well know, but utterly annihilated – and this place with you, and your pathetic associate, and every echo that remained of the Executive... All it would take is the Organizer to come behind and pick up the pieces. And even if I had no way to save myself as I claim, my loss is of no consequence to me. All that matters is that his goals are accomplished, and they will be. But you, you desire nothing more than your own well-being and extension."[/color]
Silence again.
"The choice is yours, Talis. Death, or endless, undying cessation."
Talis's eyes darted back and forth, looking for an out.
"But without me, just think about what would happen to countless worlds as they stagnate without the force of evil to counter and define their goodness!"
"That's immaterial. Even if it weren't, though, you are once again proving you have lost yourself in the mask of your position: you are not irreplaceable, Talis. When you are gone, rather than merely missing, someone else will rise to fill the void. Perhaps some interested party in our social circle will see to it; perhaps not. Either way, your uniqueness falls far short of your belief in it."
"I–"
Talis was once again interrupted, but this time not by the woman menacing him. A door that did not exist banged open, and the thud of footsteps once again filled the empty hall. Rather than a confident stride, though, these were a panicked sprint, accompanied periodically by a hysterical shout of "Talis! Taaaaliiiis!"
---
A being of Chaos and words and hatred barreled through the impermeable boundaries between realities. It shouldn't have been able to, by all rights, but it had learned much since it had learned the word Mind. And it had been shown many things by a certain word that had smiled as it whispered. Behind it, if "behind" could truly be said to have any meaning in the circumstances, it left a wake of its new Chaos as realities clashed and wove themselves together. Holes in reality patched themselves up as best as they could, but with no hand to guide them in repairing damage that sought to spread further as it was fixed, the fixes were clumsy, blended affairs that left natural laws seeping between worlds. It was not Magog's Chaos, but it was the only Chaos Magog had left. The only Chaos that could exist with words. Magog tried to relish its Chaos, but Magog was not a being well-adapted for relishing anything. It ground its teeth and sped up.
The smiling words had shown it how the way it had followed the Julia word's thread could be applied to other things. How it could find the Vex word, how it could go there, how it could gain its freedom and its Chaos by destroying the Vex word. The smiling words gave Magog all the words it needed and all the power it already had, and they had pointed the way.
Magog did not have words like lie, yet. But Magog had words like destroy.
---
Sruix panted as he arrived, too preoccupied to notice the tableau in front of him for what it was.
"It's breached the universe. I think it's probably breached a whole lot of them by now. It shouldn't be able to, and certainly not that violently!" Mistaking Talis's expression for confusion, he clarified: "Magog, I mean. You remember how back on Firestar–"
"Of course I remember. I also remember you were supposed to be dealing with this. But at the moment, there are more important things–"
"No there aren't!" It was an unusual outburst for the genteel hairball. "Look, it's not just going for Vex. I wouldn't care less if it were, but this is really bad, Talis!"
The woman, still holding her orb, raised an eyebrow and looked between the two men in front of her. "What is, then?"
Sruix looked at her, unrecognizing and failing to notice the object that had so terrified Talis, and stumbled out "Well, uh, see... I plotted its trajectory – which I don't mind telling you is tricky in a multiversal context – and... It's coming here."
Neither Talis nor the woman Sruix supposed was his guest looked astonished enough at this announcement. After waiting a moment to see if anything else was forthcoming, Talis blurted out "So?"
"So?!" Sruix goggled with a combination of terror and surprise. "What do you mean, so?"
"I mean so what, you fuzzbrained waste of time! It's a stupid fragment of a stupid little god of chaos. Even you should be able to handle that once it gets here!"
"No, look, see, this is why I keep trying to talk to you about reality architecture, but you just never want to listen. It's shredding universal boundaries! This place isn't real, it's artificial. As soon as Magog penetrates the membrane, this whole place will go like a balloon that's been popped by a shotgun! We can't even leave because of the interference his approach is kicking up all around us. We have to get in contact with the Executor, and we don't have time to–"
The woman's face finally resolved itself into a genuine expression of disdainful surprise. "This is how you run a battle?"
Sruix looked like he would be more embarrassed if he had the luxury of time for it. "Well, I–"
She waved a hand. "Shut up. Both of you just... Shut up. This is absurd. I can't believe–*look, I'll deal with this. This sort of thing is practically my specialty."
Sruix rubbed the back of his head nervously. "Well, see, that's great, but... I think it'll probably keep coming back. It's following the signature of–"
"Then I will deal with that too. Talis, bring your incompetent friend here up to speed while I handle things. You'd better have made a decision by the time I get back, or I will pick the hard way for you."
She was gone again, vanishing piecemeal but swiftly into the aether.
"What was that all about, then?"
---
Threads laid themselves out, a tangled and near-incomprehensible web of spacial and extraspacial information. A snarl was forming and spreading itself out, a nasty ball of frays and breaks at odds with the chaotic but pristine tapestry around it. It seemed to be moving randomly, with no real goal, but a keen eye could spot the method to its madness; a keener one would have spotted the means.
Sruix had been right: it would have kept coming back, even if diverted or halted. His tacit assumption, however – that it for whatever reason wanted to destroy the Executive's realm or those in it – seemed to be wrong. As a delicate hand reached in to touch Magog's fragmentary and inchoate mind, it became apparent the little shard of Chaos seemed to think its other half was at the end of this particular thread. The being behind that hand tried to quietly change Magog's mind, to tell it to follow another thread in pursuit of Vex, but some other force had seen to it that its mind and its Mind wouldn't not be swayed.
Seeing no other option, the hand did what it had hoped to avoid, and roughly plucked the center of the snarl out of the chaotic order of the multiverse. With no other way to ensure another snarl didn't form, it did the same to Vex even as Iris breathed her last breath.
---
In a world of greys and angles and curves, Vex opened his eyes. He was surprised for a moment, having anticipated another transition and lecture as he'd experienced before, but that surprise vanished before long. Perhaps his handlers were becoming even more fearful, he considered with a smile. They were unwilling to even directly interact with him anymore. Well, he'd show them–
An almost feminine figure stepped out from behind one of the geometric spires that were all the god could see. She was astonishingly androgynous, as though someone had taken the perfect average of every human that had ever existed and resolved them into flesh. She was dressed in a bland grey garment, and when she spoke, it was in a voice that couldn't have matched her appearance more perfectly.
"Hello, Vex."
Vex wasn't unduly surprised to be addressed by name; it wouldn't have been the first time the inhabitants of a new round had been forewarned about the combatants' appearance, after all. He reached out to her mind to find words to respond with, and was stunned to be effortlessly repelled.
"There will be no need for that. I'm merely here to tell you that you are no longer beholden to those beings that stole you from your previous life to participate in what they called the Battle Majestic. You are free."
Eyes narrowing, Vex replied in his own tongue. "Then where am I?"
"This is Urlaia, a endless plane of pure, undisturbed order. It has proven to be the most secure place to sequester Magog, and by necessity you were placed here as well."
Speaking carefully, mind racing, Vex simply said "That doesn't seem like freedom."
"Perhaps not. If you would like to pursue a truer freedom from a place where chaos does not exist, you are welcome to."
And with that, she was gone.
---
Back in the Executive's erstwhile lair, Talis was lounging angrily on his chair. He didn't bother to look up as the woman reappeared, straightening her collar and sleeves.
"Where is Sruix?"
"He's hiding. Of course he's hiding, what did you expect? He tried to run, but he couldn't. We really are stuck here."
"And you?"
Talis shrugged. "You win. I'll go quietly."
"Just like that?"
This time, his facade of calm acceptance disappeared, and he shouted, kicking angrily at a nearby console. "Of course not just like that! What the bloody fucking hells other choice do I have? You knew from the second you came here you were going to win. So fuck you and kill me quick before I lose my temper and do something I'll regret for longer than eternity."
The woman smiled a reserved little grin. "Quick isn't quite what I had in mind."
---
Microseconds after Vex had left Oxbow, Inc., Sen, Jacob, Blitz, and Steven vanished as well. They were treated to another period of blackness and immobility, as they'd become accustomed to, but this time it went on for longer and no-one appeared to say anything. After a timeless period that would have been forever or moments, clipped footsteps thundered around them and a female figure faded out of the darkness.
"Hello," she said. "Before we begin, I would like to inform you all that there have been some changes you may be interested in. This battle is now under new management. Its previous caretakers – S and Talis – as well as their employer – one being calling itself the Executive – have been ousted to make room for more efficient workers."
"Given that, this competition is now under my purview. I look forward to leveraging your unique skills in a collaborative undertaking that will doubtlessly prove in the top percent of such endeavors. Of course, only the top percent of you will be around to appreciate it, but that was already established."
"You may be wondering what happened to the petty tyrants you first met, who did their best to intimidate you into doing their bidding and ignore the opportunities in front of you. I myself wondered about that for a time, but I believe I have devised a solution to the mutual satisfaction of myself and the surviving four of you: S and Talis will accompany you for the duration of this competition, in a significantly-reduced capacity from their previous position. They will, in fact be physically present and vulnerable as long as they survive; their deaths will not end a round, of course, but do present interesting possibilities."
"Similarly interesting possibilities are much more available to you under this administration than the previous, in fact; where they fretted and bullied and tried to ensure you were at each other's throats, I am allowing much more creative freedom in your process. Seek escape if you must; form alliances, mingle with the locals, do nothing but survive. Kill, if it pleases you. But remember that if your attempts become dull or falter, I will also be taking a much more hands-on approach to management. My direct intervention should not be required, but will be actualized if need be."
"Now, I've taken enough of your time; I will introduce myself and your next round, and we can all get back to work. You may call me the Executrix, and this–"
The blackness all around faded, and the Executrix waved a hand at the light that flooded in.
"is your new office."
The contestants were suspended in midair, surrounded on all sides by sunlight and picturesque puffy clouds. What ground they could see below was largely flat and scrubby, but so little was obvious that it was hard to draw any conclusions; in any case, what truly drew the eye was the sky around them. Clouds on all sides had been sculpted into gothic castles and quaint villages; in the distance, humanoid figures could be seen moving about rolling hills and immaterial fields, apparently supported by the cloudy landscape.
"It is a world of fancy and fantasy, of queens and dragons and witches. I encourage you to explore it, if it pleases you; my biggest request is that you simply avoid the obvious anticlimax of falling from the sky and ending the round prematurely. I will disperse you, giving you all time to yourselves before getting together; some will find themselves far above the world below, while others will be planted on firm soil."
"And one last thing before I set you loose: due to some clerical oversight, it is no longer possible for Vexmagog to continue in this battle. I have replaced him with a very interesting new member for your group, and encourage you all to get to know her. This may prove challenging, but I assure you she wants nothing more than to make your acquaintance."
A woman appeared by the Executrix's side; she was clearly just as immobilized as the others, an expression of just-forming surprise frozen on her face. Aside from that, she was surprisingly forgettable; rather average, with clothes that seemed to suggest she'd dressed to deflect attention rather than attract it.
"And do recall that your company numbers seven, now."
She flicked her fingers, sending her contestants away in spiraling columns of light.
Spoiler