The grand ball

[Nox]

Every muscle in his body burned.  The power raged through him still, he stood with the iron bat poised to strike Ascendancy like it was a picture taken in that moment.  It felt like it lasted forever.  Even when sparring with Aria and he had to pull his final blows he hadn't worked so hard to stop.  It was only by a miracle of his own body's will that he managed it.

Nox was barely away from the Ascendancy before someone exclaimed, "Look at his arm!"  Were these people fucking idiots? "Get back!" "Back away from him!" "Release the power!"  Nox did none of those things especially release the power, did they not just fucking see what he did.  Are they that Stupid!  Nox was about to bite back a comment before the pretty slip of a girl came up and shouted back at them.  

"He saved him! Do not touch him." She said and then rushed to the Ascendancy's side.  Nox had seen her dancing with him that only made sense.  He smirked at the men standing the other side of him now all unified in their black uniforms.  Jay looked better in them all of them put together.  Nox pushed the thought away as the man from the deep dark dungeon facility spoke in confirmation of his so-called innocence.  But that time was short spent as the room went dark.  And then without warning he felt the cool shadow slide over him and then the power pulled through his body like a torrent he'd never felt.  

There was no scream though he had voiced it, it just didn't make it from his lungs.  Hot, searing pain coursing through every vein in his body.  Nox thought the EM radiation from the Atharim was hell, this, was pure torture.  His own body felt like it was ripping itself apart.  And if he fought against it, the pain only got worse.  There was only one thing to do - surrender to the pain.  The power raged through his body, it burnt and he screamed but it was so much better than fighting.  Death would come.  There was no point in fighting it.  

A small voice in the back of his head spoke to him.  Don't you dare give up brother.  The voice of his sister echoed in his head.  "Tell them what they want to know."  She spoke.  And then the voice pulled at him, it wasn't a command.  It was a question, a feeling.  But Nox didn't know what it wanted to know.  

Aurora laughed in his head.  "Come, brother, you know who has the key."

What key he thought as the pain scared his soul.  Memories and nightmares flooded his mind.  He watched every person he'd ever failed die over and over again.  He had failed again.  This time for the final time.  "You will not give up, brother.  I will never forgive you if you fail me now.  Tell them who has the key."

Nox wept as he screamed.  His sister was disappointed in him.  He didn't know what she meant, what key?  There was writhing from the creature around him.  It was struggling.  It was cold.  Too cold.  But the pain never lessened.  The creature snarled, "Die murderer."

The word echoed in his head.  The Ijiraq had been sent to kill Ascendancy - twice... Only one name floated to his head as the Ijiraq scoured his soul with his own power.  Armande Nicodemus, Regus of the Atharim - not dead.

"Very good little brother, hold on, baby brother."

[Sören]

Sören knew even as he watched that what he saw was beyond his capacity to learn, though it fascinated him all the same. Ephraim made to follow the healed girl and her companion before Sören's hand braced his shoulder with a shake of the head. The man laughed, but relaxed his enthusiastic charge. "Just think of the scope for profit!"

Polite applause followed Ascendancy's introduction of Jacques Danjou.

And then the world fractured.

Sören shoved Ephraim back with a warning glare. He had already lost one associate, and though he liked Ephraim far less than he had Declan, he was not inclined to lose another. The man did not protest, though he could hear him murmuring intensely about pain and control and even Ascendancy.

The Dominions made a hash of it, but the creature eventually crumbled -- not by men apparently trained to the task, but by a boy. One he recognised, and remembered almost solely for the snake on his arm. He knew how to kill the creature because he'd spent his life doing it, only to find himself hunted by his own people; interesting that he now found himself in the Kremlin's very heart. Sören's attention waned beyond recognition, and he paid scant attention to the drama that followed; including the congresswoman who flung herself upon Brandon's body.

Instead he thought about the words the creature had spoken.

By the time the darkness plunged moment's later, few but the brave and stupid lingered to witness what happened next. It was clear to Sören by now that the creatures' chosen prey were filled to the brim with power, so though it warred with every instinct, he did not close his fist. His hands pressed into his pockets, muscles tense, lest he be forced to defend himself.

The woman was bloody even before her demeanour changed, her voice amplified. Sören watched, and listened. His brows furrowed low, though he had no inclination to join the base fray. As if he would give it to you, even if he had it. He turned to where his companion stared wide-eyed. "It speaks, but does it reason? Who would call such demons down on themselves? On Ascendancy, more to the point. The key isn't here. This is your last chance to flee, Ephraim. I cannot protect you."

[Marcus DuBois]

Malik raged, a tiger in a cage, roaring and beating himself against the bars, flames burning away his fur and skin and muscle and sinew. The Force roared through him, more of it than he could even begin to comprehend. He felt it scouring him from the inside out, hollowing him out, a blade scraping his skin from the inside.

It was more pain than he had ever felt. He was being wrung out as tightly as possible, every last drop of the Force ripped through him, almost as if flaying him alive.

But Malik refused to scream. His eyes filmed red with fury. I.WILL.NOT.SCREAM!!!!! Not for anyone. Never again. Never. Never. Never. It was his mantra as all the pain and agony of his childhood flooded his mind. He was almost thankful for that brutal training. He would not break. His teeth ached as his jaw clenched as tightly as he could manage, to the point that he could almost begin to feel them crack.

He felt the ijiraq inside him, mind to mind, pressuring him, demanding answers. Who has the key? Marcus smiled through clenched teeth. Another ijiraq had come straight for Ascendancy. The Regus of the Atharim had a tablet to control it, Aria had said. Ascendancy thought him dead.

Clearly he was wrong.

But Malik would die before giving any information to the ijiraq. It seemed to sense his defiance and somehow the agony increased. Red filmed eyes went blind and every nerve now seemed afire. And Darth Malik, Dark Lord of the Sith, Master of the Force opened his mouth and laughed from his very core, as if to spit in its eye.

"Do your worst!!! Kill me!! You will not break me!!!!" And he laughed again as his world became agony.

[Danika]

Danika realized her fascination was misplaced. The threat rose. Everything happened at once. She looked to Marcus like he might offer guidance, but when he ran into the battle, Danika could not abandon him to his fate. There was nothing she could do, but she stayed anyway.

Their respite from the danger was short. Ghostly white, they glided through the air like clouds. Yet there was mass in the mist. They pulsated and rolled, forming shapes and emitting light. There was no rational explanation to their existance.

But then the dived upon their prey. One swallowed up Marcus, who collapsed in pain. Danika sank alongside him, trying to get the thing off. But there was nothing to grip, nothing to push. The white just floated through her hands like fog.

"How do I help you?!" She screamed, but Marcus retreated within that ghostly white shell, unable to hear. Perhaps unable to speak.

Then she was flung from her feet. The Domininons tumbled, regrouped and flung their magics back in defense. 

She had magic as well, but the more she tried to reach for it, the more it slipped through her fingers like fog.

Marcus was in agony. She swept side to side, trying to find someone that could help. Finally, she saw a man standing alone,  "Help me!" She cried out to him, if he could even hear her.

[Sören]

"Fortunately, I don't think I fit the criteria." Ephraim's devil-may-care grin was not an endearment. It was a feckless decision, but Sören only shrugged. He was correct, but it hardly made him safe. Perhaps if he could have felt the raging maelstrom of power swelling the hall like escaped voltage he would have been more sensible. Worse than stupidity at a mindful distance, though, Ephraim proceeded to be roused by a nearby woman's cry for help. Eyes wide, he rushed to her aid, apparently ignorant to the fact that moments before everyone within that perimeter had been swept from their feet. 

Unimpressed by the complication, Sören stalked after him. 

"Fascinating. It can't just be pain. We've documented extreme reactions to stress. Anecdotally, of course. So what's stopping him?" He knelt by the Consul, eyes bright, as though the man were nothing more than an experiment splayed out on a table. Sören stared down at the woman. 

"If you are able to channel--"

"Channel what? Power is so vague a term. It needs a more marketable name." 

Ephraim's murmurings to himself buzzed like annoyance. Sören's lips twisted into a frown. "--If you are able to channel, the first creature appears to have been made vulnerable by freezing it. If not, I suggest you look for a fire extinguisher."

[Ascendancy]

That others now knew his pain was little comfort. 

There was precious time to recover before it began again. Nox crushed the creature that once snared him, the ijiraq, and its pieces splayed across the floor melting to a puddle. The moment it died, the power ripped away from Nikolai like his arm was torn the socket. The glaring absence was almost as painful as the immensity of what just flowed. What limits could the body take before extinguishing into pure light? Had the ijiraq not buffered the intensity, Nikolai would not have survived; mortal or immortal regardless. The thought was terrifying.

As the shards of the creature melted, so too did his previous terror drain away. In its place rose a wrath that Nikolai rarely felt. It pushed through the avenues of his body like poisoned blood, until his fists balled, his jaw hinged tight, and the promise for savagery pushed strength through his legs.

He rose to his feet and beheld the nightmare daring to usurp his throne.

Three ijiraq burned bright with stolen powers not their own. Another twisted a woman's from her limbs like a parasite. He knew her tormented face. The creature laughed, taunting them. Fury was too calm a word. Nikolai quivered with wrath.

Then he began to channel.
 
He held nothing back. This was the height of his power, and with it, he would utterly decimate these shades of reality with every shred of his soul. If he broke the world doing so, he didn't care. 

The greatest channeler on earth barely strained when dozens of flows of Firmament, Flame and Ether combined into grenades of weighty pressure denser than an infant star. At first the heart of a flake sprang to being, then grew to glittering crystals, finally frost formed into petrifying spheres. Light flashed like bombs, and he ducked as two of the Rods of Dominion planted human shields in front of him. 

Marcus was nearest. All of the spheres flashed streaks into the mist. The ijiraq howled as they consumed it from within. Bluish threads spidered through the creature as the frost took hold, but trapped to their reality, it was unable to phase away. The mist grew solid. Marcus disappeared within.

Nik ran to it, snarl curling the cry that gave his legs speed. Something to crush it as Nox had. Something..  Something.. came to his hands. Firmament, Flame and Essence formed a bar of darkness that he swung with as much power as divinely possible. 

The onyx-black weapon dissipated as it passed through the shattering ijiraq. Already new spheres of the coldest substance on earth, colder than liquid nitrogen, swirled and grew. They dove into the mist trapping Im Jung Seung next. The weapon came to his hands and Nik braced for the force of impact.  The shards crashed around his ankles as he stepped through, disappointed that there weren't more ijiraq to slaughter.

Behind, lights flashed like the rage of the sun split its energy through the mirrors of a prism. Colors drenched sickly, disturbing patterns. His eyes burned to behold it. She lashed out fresh offenses upon the death of two of her mates. Nikolai ignored her for now, allowing the Dominions the honor of defending him. He intended to save her for last.

The remaining Rods of Dominion formed a shield, a wall between him, Nox and Oriena. He was vaguely aware of witnesses, but they were far targets. Nik ducked behind the shield. The spheres swirled, diamonds colder than the depths of space, and shot through the final ijiraq. It writhed in pain, bluish veins streaking through its shape. But the creature fought back, and Nikolai strained finally as the ice orbs spun colder and colder. Nox was moments from death. Nikolai knew the pain. He felt it from the other man. More spheres formed. A dozen, then two dozen. The mist congealed into a white cocoon. Trapped within, Nox would not last but heartbeats. 

His heart raced, triumph at hand. The weapon formed at his call. It was only a moment, but he noticed the fangs at its end, onyx-twin prongs. No time to think on it. Arms clenched, he hefted it like a spear and stabbed the sculpture. It shattered. The pieces pooled at their feet.

Panting, Nikolai pivoted, leaving Nox to a fate he had no power to decide. 

Sweat rimmed his brow, but the weapon in his grasp was gripped tight.  A haunted smile touched his lips as he joined the line of Dominions to face their final foe. He cried out to her, daring her to face he who rules the infernal dead. "Who thinks to command my armies? Who thinks to steal the power of the gods? Reveal yourself, creature, for your soul is soon to be mine, as I shall next extinguish your very existence from the planes of this world." 

[Jaxen Marveet]

Her assault continued. The wielders of this age were nothing to the queen. She existed in an age of glory beyond their wildest dreams. She swat at the attacks. None touched her or her vessel. Powerful was the soul of this daimona, but ignorant of all her potential. They were all ignorant. Such was why the queen chose her, but the daimona resisted. The queen's grip on her vessel was crushing, silencing the risen will-power.

WHERE IS THE KEY, DAIMONA? TELL ME AND I WILL RELEASE THE MOTHER OF STRIFE.

Her questions pushed into her three ijiraq. They drank to their fill, but she forced her questions through them, into the minds of their prey. She needed this key. The need drove her here. Two of her children martyred. 

The questions probed, digging, plunging. Finally, an answer returned from the abyss.

Atharii.

The key was in the hands of the Atharim. Of one called Regus. WHERE DO I FIND REGUS? her question scoured the minds in her grasp as one was severed forever.

She screamed when her consort was severed from her.

She lashed out with the powers of her vessel, unleashing her fury upon them. Their panicked defenses unified. Something gave them courage. Something bound their efforts together. The queen grew worried.

One of them had risen up. 

She glimpsed him darting behind the shield of young ones. Discs of glacial strength peppered her second consort. His soul was torn from her's. She screamed again. She had to stop him. He could not destroy them all!  

The final death clenched at her soul. For the first time in Ages, she was utterly alone in the universe. What use was the key now that she was alone?! Alone but for this final, feeble connection. Her vessel.

The one pushed through, and the queen finally beheld he who would slaughter her hive.

The voice of the daimone vessel screamed in fury. She billowed and pulsed around the vessel, throwing beams of light like swords. Her vessel stepped closer.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU. I WILL DESTROY HE WHO HAS THE KEY. YOU WILL BOTH DIE IN AGONY. AIDONEUS AND REGUS ARE MINE."

She may not be the one to drain the life from their limbs, But she would revel in their deaths no less. 

Her vessel unleashed torrents upon them.

[Marcus DuBois]

Malik's laughter increased as the ijiraq tore at him. He could sense its desperation, a hunger that seemed to claw at it, its frenzied frustration.

The force was a massively thick torrent now. He could envision it, a single point at his center, connecting him to it, him a funnel channeling more than he thought possible.

The pain engulfed every part of him but Marcus felt that. Malik instead enjoyed the creature's anger, relished its failure, goading and taunting it, promising dire vengeance if it ever let up. It retaliated, lashing his soul and he accepted it gladly, fed it to Marcus, mocked its weakness.

And then, the flow lessened, the force flowing through him weakening until it was his alone. His heart pounded, a run at 15 miles per hour suddenly becoming 5 and he was breathing great gouts of air as he felt the thing's terror, felt relief.

And he laughed again. Fuck you!!!! he thought to it as it was spidered by a web of frozen liquid metal, bursting apart. Ascendancy stood there, ablaze with the Force and Darth Malik greeted his master.

Ascendancy, Darth Caedus to him, proceeded on to the other bound Ascendants. But Malik turned his attention on the Ijiraq speaking through the woman. He remembered the feeling of the Force being funneled through a specific point. This thing was using the woman.

She struck at him and he slashed as he had when he had practiced with Andre so many years ago. She was fast and powerful. Even as he tried, some of her blows struck.

In anger Malik struck at her with a knife of spirit, the same he was using to slash her weaves. Marcus kept intruding, trying to talk to him. It comes from the woman. It is using the woman!! Malik shoved him away, but still the words played in his mind.

The woman was the key. Malik formed a blade of spirit with every bit of the Force he could muster. He struck as hard as he could....

Fuck!!! It was as if he had hit an iron wall with a hammer. His whole body shook with the rebound. He struck again and again, the entire circumference of the connection to her core and even though he couldn't see it, it was massive, as thick as her body.

"Dominions!!! To me!!! Do this!!!" The connection was a mighty redwood, and his but a single axe.

He needed more.

[Nox]

"You better not die on me little brother. You are the last of us." Nox scowled at his sister as his power burned through him. He could feel the brink of death. His body felt like molten lava. His head was pounding. All awareness was inward, Nox had stopped fighting. What was the point?

Aurora growled at him in his head "You will not die." Nox felt like Aurora was adding to his misery making him regret every last thing he did. He was a failure. He couldn't save his mom. He was just like his father - a failure.

And then the warm embrace came, all hope lost and Aurora wrapped her arms around him like she used to like she did the day Nox had forgotten. He remembered her strength, her warmth. "You were never like him little brother. Not ever."

The Ijiraq crumbled around Nox and he gasped for breath. Nox fell to his knees and gasped for as air returned to his lungs and the power with in cut off with an abrupt force. It lingered in the distance. Nox didn't want to touch it, the mere thought of it burned. Arms were helping him up, helping him stand, but Nox fell back to the ground, hand and knees planted in the ground. The earth was so close. Nox's heart raced as he tried to find his bearings. That thing was still coming. It was facing down Ascendancy.

Cruz was next to him talking to him, but Nox wasn't hearing anything through the ringing in his ears. "Nox, you have to help. How do you kill this thing?"

Nox shook his head. "I don't know. I'd cage her in earth, and then air so she couldn't stay with Oriena. She'd have to leave her to phase."

"But then she could take over someone else."

"She needs to be caged." Nox growled at Cruz.

"How. Wait." He said. Cruz wove quickly a thread like we used to trip the yard at his home. "This we use for physical trapping." Cruz smiled. "And we use nets to catch fish in the aquarium, and a net to find the problem in a body. I watched Mr. James do it. We use spirit to break weaves." That looked like what they were doing, but none could reach it around. "Nox I'm not strong enough to make a net that big."

Nox shook his head and used Cruz to help himself stand up. They walked together towards the rest of them and stood behind them Nox was leaning too much on Cruz, it made Nox painfully aware that he was going to die in this.

"Have faith little brother."

Cruz wove a net over and around Oriena - Nox had finally remembered her name, it felt like years ago. Oriena's power ripped through the net with ease. Even with Marcus and the others trying a variation of the same thing Cruz wasn't very powerful. He was so new. Nox seized his power. It felt like it burned through his body. His grip on Cruz's arm tightened and Nox wanted to fall to his knees but he stayed his course and wove a net, not a sledgehammer. You don't catch a fish alive with a spear. And he very much wanted to save Oriena's life.

Nox didn't dare draw to the brim, he didn't dare draw anything but he must. He had to. It burned, he felt like his skin was going to blow away in the wind as he mimicked the net, his threads were closer and thicker but the power still ripped through them. He wasn't going to be able to do it, but he would keep trying.

[Ascendancy]

The brilliance in his young Consul showed itself. Marcus' attack tired the ijiraq's defenses, but the blows never landed. Then Nox joined the fray. The kid frightened on a hilltop surrounding a ruined datsan was long gone. The only reason for his presence was Ascendancy's curiosity granting his admission to the ball. This kid was warned repeatedly to stay away from him, but had the audacity to attempt to enter the ball. The Vega family that vouched for Nox's attendance played with fire in the friendship. Now, the only reason Nikolai saved the kid's life was to have the satisfaction of slaughtering the ijiraq latched onto him.  

Nox adapted Marcus' attack. The bluntness might have killed Oriena and her ijiraq should a single blow have landed. Nox, however, was doing something entirely different.  A dark smile parted the Ascendancy's lips. He drew upon the power and copied the flow, only to halt with her words.

"I WILL DESTROY YOU. I WILL DESTROY HE WHO HAS THE KEY. YOU WILL BOTH DIE IN AGONY. AIDONEUS AND REGUS ARE MINE."

The previous smile turned to a snarl. Regus lived, and dared to send assassins, again. He would not do it a third time. 

He drew upon the power to such depths another drop would kill him. The net he created was massive, the tendrils thick as arms, and the gaps cinched seamlessly together. Roaring as fiercely as the fury pumping his veins hot, the shield was thrown.