Re: Epic Clash Round 4 - The Unholy Fortress
11-23-2010, 12:55 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Pinary.
With a wave of his hand, 'Thomas' sent the explosive whistling by him and into one of the tunnels behind him, the explosion caving in the tunnel beyond it. "Dynamite, really? You're slipping, my friend. Whatever happened to the mad-as-a-bowler Glere this one remembers?"
A stick of dynamite wedged inside a rubber chicken went sailing by on the other side, collapsing another tunnel.
"Come now, a rubber chicken? That's not mad, that's just cliché! If you're going to keep up an act like that, you could at least put in some effort!"
Glere's response came in the form of two grenades and a pineapple, all redirected.
"Better! Still, I'm afraid that's too little, too late." The four smaller stone hands that had been forming behind the supposed madman each grabbed a limb, raising him to hang in midair and just holding him there.
"You certainly put up a fight, I'll give you that much, but you need to get it through your transparent, water-filled head- you can't win. No matter how hard you try, you're simply not going to be able to stop me." He raised his voice louder, booming tones shaking a few loose rocks down from the ceiling. "I am Khar'yion," he bellowed, "and once I am free, you will wish that you had joined the ranks of my followers when you had the chance!"
"Some of us will not make the same mistake, my lord!"
'Thomas' jerked his head in surprise. Evidently his trusted followers hadn't been as capable as he'd hoped, as Spender had apparently managed to knock out or kill the all the rest. Unfortunately for him, though, the newcomer had apparently been considerably more skilled- Spender was completely immobilized by the interloper's grip.
It took only the slightest moment for 'Thomas' to realize what had happened. "Ah, Asteira. So nice of you to join us. I'm glad you, unlike these fools, recognize your true position."
"Of course, my lord." He didn't quite catch the sarcasm underlying the words.
'Thomas' grinned. "The time has come," he shouted. "The final phase shall commence, and soon, I shall be free!" Raising his arms, he brought four rough stone pedestals into being, all spaced equally around the room.
"You are all privileged," he said, moving to stand next to the device atop the altar, "to be here, now..." Twisting a valve, dark gases began gushing out, swirling in a not-entirely-natural way. "You, the witnesses... of the dawn of Khar'yion!"
The gases flowed upwards, and, waving his arms, the nightmare directed the flow towards the four pedestals. The clouds gathered around them, ever denser, until the pedestals were obscured entirely. Black chains around each one shuddered and rose into the air, wrapping themselves around invisible forms. The gases swirled faster, tightening down from a formless cloud into something more recognizable. Khar'yion began to laugh, the sound echoing unnaturally around the cavern, deep and unsettling. "This form shall be mine!", he shouted, and as he did, a shockwave shook the chamber, shattering the device on the altar and bringing a scattering of stones and pebbles down from the ceiling.
The clouds of gas atop each of the four pedestals rippled once as the wave went by, then suddenly changed, convalescing into familiar forms.
On one altar knelt a man in a shirt and tie, several minor injuries obvious on his face and arms. On another knelt an identical man, this one wearing a basketball jersey and baggy shorts, sported significantly more injuries than the first. The third twin was dressed in monk-style robes, and he'd apparently only suffered a series of small stabs along his arms and torso where thorned chains had wrapped themselves around him. The fourth had on a signed tweed jacket, and he was gasping for breath and nearly fell clean off the platform.
Khar'yion let out a slow, rattling breath, the sound one that Thomas' body shouldn't have been able to make. "This form is mine," he hissed, turning to face the suspended Glere, "and there is just one more order of business- a sacrifice. As much as a genuine madman would be preferable, I suppose you'll just have to do."
Glere stared back at him, not moving or reacting, a mad grin plastered across his face.
"Come now, nothing to say? No last words?"
Still no reaction- just that same mad, staring grin.
The Nightmare lashed out, sending a wave of force towards him. "This is your end!", Khar'yion screamed, "accept your fate!"
This time, Glere did react, tipping his head back to sweep his gaze up, past the demon, to the ceiling. He kept raising it, looking up and up and up- then his head rolled back, falling off of his shoulders and shattering to the floor.
By then, the cape was long gone, having slipped off and dropped to the ground almost immediately upon being captured. At his first opportunity, he'd pulled out another body, this one thin, wiry, and quick, and snuck around behind one of the altars.
The clang of bolt-cutters echoed through the chamber, and Khar'yion spun around to find Walt standing, thorned, black chains clutched in his hands. "This is the end for you," he said, his voice quiet and level. "You know that as well as I do."
"No!" The Nightmare threw a wave of force at Walt, which the monk-robed man deflected with a flick of the chains. "You are nothing, [b]nothing!"[/b]
"That's where you're wrong." Another clang rang out as Glere unchained Bern, who stood as well, wielding chains of his own. "You forced your way in, made us fight each other, then stole our bodies. You had to make one of us open the door for you instead of just coming in. You, not us, are nothing, not if that's the way you have to do things."
Khar'yion screamed incoherently, his rage bubbling over and escaping him as a column of flame aimed straight at his adversary.
Bern just stood, letting the fire curve around him and splash against the stone wall, then he fired back, lobbing a trio of fireballs straight at the Nightmare, who knocked them away with a hand. He was adjusting, now, and he was ready to fight back.
In Spender's mind, his options presented themselves. First, he could just help in the brute-force attack on Khar'yion's body. The trouble there would be that Thomas' minds were still probably linked, so killing the body would probably end up killing them as well. His second option was to reason with the beast, and the odds of that working were astronomical. He'd tried before, but the only kinds to even sit down at the negotiating table were the clever ones, and Khar'yion, while powerful, clearly wasn't an intellectual.
Unfortunately, this left exactly one option. No ATM, a handful of coins, and an adversary to be defeated. Sighing, he straightened his shoulders, shrugging off Asteira's supposedly-restraining arm and making a coin slide out of his sleeve and into his hand. "I may need some help," he said, building up his will.
"Whatever you say," Asteira replied. She wasn't sure if she was actually planning to help him- she was just improvising at this point, and it seemed like she could do more inside there than out.
"Right, then." Spender hesitated just a moment longer, then, steeling his resolve, he activated the coin.
Thomas' mind hadn't been so much redecorated as desecrated. A black, tar-like ooze lay coated on most of the surfaces, and spikes of that black stone stabbed up out from the floor in places. Khar'yion himself stood in the middle of the room, his focus entirely on the window. He was an imposing figure, seeming to be better than eight feet tall and composed of the same black stone as everything else. He moved fluidly, his movements inside Thomas' mind reflecting his actions outside.
Spender slammed the door shut behind him, drawing the Nightmare's attention.
"Being known as Khar'yion," the Agent began, "you have-"
He had apparently underestimated his opponent's power, as a sudden wave of force that he'd thought would push him back a bit actually sent him slamming into the wall behind him.
"I have won," the demon growled, voice seething with rage. "Those four spirits are going to tire eventually, and when they do, I will destroy them utterly. From there, I shall kill each of you, securing my escape and moving out into the cosmos. I shall-"
Asteira was hardly a small girl, but she looked positively tiny when clinging to Khar'yion's back. Both arms were wrapped around his neck, holding on tight as he swung around, trying to fling him off.
"Quit with the speeching and just get rid of him already!", she yelled.
"Go," Spender replied, "just get out while you have the chance!"
"That's not happening!"
"You'll die!"
"I died already!" It was hard to tell, but her yells seemed... sad, almost. "I died once, and I'm still around! With any luck, I'll be able to pull off an escape again!"
"Just do it, man, and get it over with!"
"What do you hope to accomplish?! You can do nothing now, nothing! Just who do you think you are to stand up to me?!"
Slowly, Spender stood to face the struggling pair. Reaching into a hidden pocket, he pulled out his last coin- it was the same last coin all Agents of the EDF carried, and its face bore a single, simple symbol.
"I am a soldier," he said, raising the coin before him, "and soldiers die."
Suddenly, the four Thomas lookalikes vanished, simply evaporating into nothing, and for a moment, all was still. Glere, from his location behind one of the pedestals, heard nothing.
Then, several seconds later, he heard the sound of a body collapsing to the ground in fits of coughing.
As Eric forced breath back into their lungs, Walt, Greg, and Bern surveyed their mind. The apartment was demolished, to put it lightly. The couch and carpet were simply gone, leaving a bare stone floor. What remained of Greg's books were scattered around, pages charred and unrecognizable. Bern's hardwood floor was mostly gone, leaving an ashen mess in its place, and Eric's podium had been blasted to cinders.
Their home had been damaged, but they were alive. Somehow, through some miracle, they'd survived.
With a wave of his hand, 'Thomas' sent the explosive whistling by him and into one of the tunnels behind him, the explosion caving in the tunnel beyond it. "Dynamite, really? You're slipping, my friend. Whatever happened to the mad-as-a-bowler Glere this one remembers?"
A stick of dynamite wedged inside a rubber chicken went sailing by on the other side, collapsing another tunnel.
"Come now, a rubber chicken? That's not mad, that's just cliché! If you're going to keep up an act like that, you could at least put in some effort!"
Glere's response came in the form of two grenades and a pineapple, all redirected.
"Better! Still, I'm afraid that's too little, too late." The four smaller stone hands that had been forming behind the supposed madman each grabbed a limb, raising him to hang in midair and just holding him there.
"You certainly put up a fight, I'll give you that much, but you need to get it through your transparent, water-filled head- you can't win. No matter how hard you try, you're simply not going to be able to stop me." He raised his voice louder, booming tones shaking a few loose rocks down from the ceiling. "I am Khar'yion," he bellowed, "and once I am free, you will wish that you had joined the ranks of my followers when you had the chance!"
"Some of us will not make the same mistake, my lord!"
'Thomas' jerked his head in surprise. Evidently his trusted followers hadn't been as capable as he'd hoped, as Spender had apparently managed to knock out or kill the all the rest. Unfortunately for him, though, the newcomer had apparently been considerably more skilled- Spender was completely immobilized by the interloper's grip.
It took only the slightest moment for 'Thomas' to realize what had happened. "Ah, Asteira. So nice of you to join us. I'm glad you, unlike these fools, recognize your true position."
"Of course, my lord." He didn't quite catch the sarcasm underlying the words.
'Thomas' grinned. "The time has come," he shouted. "The final phase shall commence, and soon, I shall be free!" Raising his arms, he brought four rough stone pedestals into being, all spaced equally around the room.
"You are all privileged," he said, moving to stand next to the device atop the altar, "to be here, now..." Twisting a valve, dark gases began gushing out, swirling in a not-entirely-natural way. "You, the witnesses... of the dawn of Khar'yion!"
The gases flowed upwards, and, waving his arms, the nightmare directed the flow towards the four pedestals. The clouds gathered around them, ever denser, until the pedestals were obscured entirely. Black chains around each one shuddered and rose into the air, wrapping themselves around invisible forms. The gases swirled faster, tightening down from a formless cloud into something more recognizable. Khar'yion began to laugh, the sound echoing unnaturally around the cavern, deep and unsettling. "This form shall be mine!", he shouted, and as he did, a shockwave shook the chamber, shattering the device on the altar and bringing a scattering of stones and pebbles down from the ceiling.
The clouds of gas atop each of the four pedestals rippled once as the wave went by, then suddenly changed, convalescing into familiar forms.
On one altar knelt a man in a shirt and tie, several minor injuries obvious on his face and arms. On another knelt an identical man, this one wearing a basketball jersey and baggy shorts, sported significantly more injuries than the first. The third twin was dressed in monk-style robes, and he'd apparently only suffered a series of small stabs along his arms and torso where thorned chains had wrapped themselves around him. The fourth had on a signed tweed jacket, and he was gasping for breath and nearly fell clean off the platform.
Khar'yion let out a slow, rattling breath, the sound one that Thomas' body shouldn't have been able to make. "This form is mine," he hissed, turning to face the suspended Glere, "and there is just one more order of business- a sacrifice. As much as a genuine madman would be preferable, I suppose you'll just have to do."
Glere stared back at him, not moving or reacting, a mad grin plastered across his face.
"Come now, nothing to say? No last words?"
Still no reaction- just that same mad, staring grin.
The Nightmare lashed out, sending a wave of force towards him. "This is your end!", Khar'yion screamed, "accept your fate!"
This time, Glere did react, tipping his head back to sweep his gaze up, past the demon, to the ceiling. He kept raising it, looking up and up and up- then his head rolled back, falling off of his shoulders and shattering to the floor.
By then, the cape was long gone, having slipped off and dropped to the ground almost immediately upon being captured. At his first opportunity, he'd pulled out another body, this one thin, wiry, and quick, and snuck around behind one of the altars.
The clang of bolt-cutters echoed through the chamber, and Khar'yion spun around to find Walt standing, thorned, black chains clutched in his hands. "This is the end for you," he said, his voice quiet and level. "You know that as well as I do."
"No!" The Nightmare threw a wave of force at Walt, which the monk-robed man deflected with a flick of the chains. "You are nothing, [b]nothing!"[/b]
"That's where you're wrong." Another clang rang out as Glere unchained Bern, who stood as well, wielding chains of his own. "You forced your way in, made us fight each other, then stole our bodies. You had to make one of us open the door for you instead of just coming in. You, not us, are nothing, not if that's the way you have to do things."
Khar'yion screamed incoherently, his rage bubbling over and escaping him as a column of flame aimed straight at his adversary.
Bern just stood, letting the fire curve around him and splash against the stone wall, then he fired back, lobbing a trio of fireballs straight at the Nightmare, who knocked them away with a hand. He was adjusting, now, and he was ready to fight back.
In Spender's mind, his options presented themselves. First, he could just help in the brute-force attack on Khar'yion's body. The trouble there would be that Thomas' minds were still probably linked, so killing the body would probably end up killing them as well. His second option was to reason with the beast, and the odds of that working were astronomical. He'd tried before, but the only kinds to even sit down at the negotiating table were the clever ones, and Khar'yion, while powerful, clearly wasn't an intellectual.
Unfortunately, this left exactly one option. No ATM, a handful of coins, and an adversary to be defeated. Sighing, he straightened his shoulders, shrugging off Asteira's supposedly-restraining arm and making a coin slide out of his sleeve and into his hand. "I may need some help," he said, building up his will.
"Whatever you say," Asteira replied. She wasn't sure if she was actually planning to help him- she was just improvising at this point, and it seemed like she could do more inside there than out.
"Right, then." Spender hesitated just a moment longer, then, steeling his resolve, he activated the coin.
Thomas' mind hadn't been so much redecorated as desecrated. A black, tar-like ooze lay coated on most of the surfaces, and spikes of that black stone stabbed up out from the floor in places. Khar'yion himself stood in the middle of the room, his focus entirely on the window. He was an imposing figure, seeming to be better than eight feet tall and composed of the same black stone as everything else. He moved fluidly, his movements inside Thomas' mind reflecting his actions outside.
Spender slammed the door shut behind him, drawing the Nightmare's attention.
"Being known as Khar'yion," the Agent began, "you have-"
He had apparently underestimated his opponent's power, as a sudden wave of force that he'd thought would push him back a bit actually sent him slamming into the wall behind him.
"I have won," the demon growled, voice seething with rage. "Those four spirits are going to tire eventually, and when they do, I will destroy them utterly. From there, I shall kill each of you, securing my escape and moving out into the cosmos. I shall-"
Asteira was hardly a small girl, but she looked positively tiny when clinging to Khar'yion's back. Both arms were wrapped around his neck, holding on tight as he swung around, trying to fling him off.
"Quit with the speeching and just get rid of him already!", she yelled.
"Go," Spender replied, "just get out while you have the chance!"
"That's not happening!"
"You'll die!"
"I died already!" It was hard to tell, but her yells seemed... sad, almost. "I died once, and I'm still around! With any luck, I'll be able to pull off an escape again!"
"Just do it, man, and get it over with!"
"What do you hope to accomplish?! You can do nothing now, nothing! Just who do you think you are to stand up to me?!"
Slowly, Spender stood to face the struggling pair. Reaching into a hidden pocket, he pulled out his last coin- it was the same last coin all Agents of the EDF carried, and its face bore a single, simple symbol.
"I am a soldier," he said, raising the coin before him, "and soldiers die."
Suddenly, the four Thomas lookalikes vanished, simply evaporating into nothing, and for a moment, all was still. Glere, from his location behind one of the pedestals, heard nothing.
Then, several seconds later, he heard the sound of a body collapsing to the ground in fits of coughing.
As Eric forced breath back into their lungs, Walt, Greg, and Bern surveyed their mind. The apartment was demolished, to put it lightly. The couch and carpet were simply gone, leaving a bare stone floor. What remained of Greg's books were scattered around, pages charred and unrecognizable. Bern's hardwood floor was mostly gone, leaving an ashen mess in its place, and Eric's podium had been blasted to cinders.
Their home had been damaged, but they were alive. Somehow, through some miracle, they'd survived.