Unqualified bile liquids that leaked from slumbering flesh was slashed and painted against the halls and floors that described a recent slaughter. The tissue of such disastrous lives met their indefensible fates through his hands. The laboratory hated these worthless beings, but also wanted to help them succeed in the greater image. With these hands that was bestowed upon them, he would grant them inner peace from the distinct lives they hoped and dreamed for. The copious corpses littered with tears were flowered through the cold halls that once promised to keep them safe. Young ones dressed for the night in their cutely designed pajamas now toppled with the common smell of slashed blood that lingered through the orphanage. At successful work the doctor painted with their blood trails and made a maze across the warm carpet floor. Dragged one by one by the slouching doctor into bags of containment. Little plastic garbage bags that would coffin their freshly harvested limbs and organs would be tightly closed and thrown through windows into an awaiting garbage truck.
Aggressively ripped walls would release the moonlight into the exteriors of the orphanage. Giving white light to the faces of the crimson covers of butchered children. Their executioner smiling upon such rickety faces.Their skulls and jaws that he just recently bashed his fist into made them unrecognizable from the brutality of his art. "Such potential my darlings, I will take care of you..." He said as he raised one of the decapitated heads and met its lips with his. Rejoicing at such love the children gave him back. He wanted more of their warmth. Still in the hunt for a few more prey that still await his arrival in their sleep. Such love and appreciation that they showed him with kisses and hugs made the doctor happy. Defiling many of their carcasses did not quench his hunger yet so he sought for more of his sleeping darlings. Like sleeping beauties awaiting their prince.
Moving quietly through the manor of horror, Ghoul did his best not to feel queasy at the sight of it all. The hot smell of fresh gore slapped him in the face, making him groan. Being undead, he had no stomach with which to produce the fluids necessary for retching. But he still had his senses about him, and they all burned on the red side of disturbed. He followed the trail, making note of how bad it became the more likely he was to run into whoever did this in the first place.
It was almost like the children were painted on the wall, every last speck an immature rendition of what was possible going on inside the madman's head at the time. Once, earlier in the halls, it looked like he was playing with them - at least, the psychopath probably thought he was playing a game. Now, it was just scribblings in lukewarm red. Ghoul shook his head.
"I was better off in Hell, I think," he remarked pseudo-sarcastically, meaning wholeheartedly that he despised how depraved human beings - or whatever this thing was - could be. These were just kids looking for a home, for crying out loud. They weren't waiting to be butchered like cattle.
Ghoul finally happened upon the epicenter of the carnage, and the source of most of the bodies. They were piled up in organized mounds, perhaps a list or a grotesque assembly line for whatever this...thing...was doing to them. Melting into the shadows before he could be seen or heard, Ghoul chose to attack the man with his hooks at first. His lessons in his previous battles with King Aventus and the Brahma Brotherhood taught him to be more tactical with what he was given. Dying repeatedly and hoping for second chances wouldn't fly forever.
The butchery of the corpse he held in his hands was like a long overdue marshmallow falling off a stick in the agony of a flame. The childs worn out organs began to detach from the bodies elastic bonds and began to slip and slide down the child's indistinguishable body. Torn inside out from the plundering hands that was slowly and gently peeling its precious meat. His fingers would twist and pull the snow white skin and and pick the loose bones. Plopping down inside bags that would bounce back up and flop like eager fish that escaped its aquarium. He was organizing every banana that he peeled around him like a kindergartner at play time. Siting down in the hallways flickering lights with his legs crossed on the warm carpet floor like a man child playing with dolls.
But he was interrupted by an enigmatic feeling. A prolonged force shifted his sides. A slight barrage of tickles that went deeper and deeper in a quick event. Was it a police man to the rescue that the doctor could bring home? Maybe a child has woken up and was brave enough to stab him with a kitchen knife. A Gothic hero that came to meet their one and only savior? Such delectation was brought to him at that very moment that someone actually hated these children enough to stop the doctor from adopting them from this cruel world. How dare someone try to take away his darlings from him again. Madden to a point where he would capitulate his efforts to help these children find a new home at his laboratory and gave the attacker the attention they needed.
These hooks and chains that dragged along his body like a chisel against clay. It was of major annoyance that flourished his torso in crafted tunnels of running blood. Swarming his flesh from the shadows behind him. He felt no presence near him, no smell, no heart to be heard. Yet a onslaught of bladed attacks came to him from a hidden distance the doctor could not openly reach. Peevish attempts to end the doctors life from an unknown assailant would prove of no use as the doctors flesh promoted to heal in a flash. Behind me? How could it be?
The doctors head instantaneously snapped ond eighty degrees to ascertain the menace that opposed him face to face. "How dare you try to severe the bonds I have with these children! Can't you see i'm trying to help them!?!" He roared with viciousness that bawled out an absurd amount of saliva at the direction the attack came from. Droplets of acidic spit would shoot at the walls behind him in a counter attack like a spread of ballistics rapidly barraging with every word he spoke. The walls came to bombilation when droplets warred with the its structure and dripped to the floor as the spumes of creased liquids river down and continue to expel the buildings waste. Surely this would mortar any opponent the doctor was in contact and would show them the blight that the he has held within.
@thisisgonnahurt: oops sorry lol, I didn't really make it clear enough. Wheatley basically attacked in the direction he was attacked from. Hold on let me edit lol.
"And like Putin I started on the bottom of a very competitive, very secretive and dangerous field. And I defeated everyone and rose to the top."
White teeth gleamed like a wolves fangs when she grinned.
"Somewhere out there-" A wave of a gauntlet. "-in another universe I joined Maverick instead of the Strigidae. And in that universe I am sitting in your chair right now. You are dead."
Bold listened to her every word, a steady stream of smoke leaving his lips upon her final words. As the cloud in front of his face dispersed, he smirked back at her. It was a genuine smirk, much like most of the things he did. His heart was beating steadily as it was when he began the conversation, his own amused expression showing forth.
"That's true. Another universe. Different circumstances. Laws. Upbringing, and maybe you'd kill me. But" He says, finished with his cigar at the moment, he flicks it across the room. The used cigar then lands squarely in a small ashtray behind him, with him not having taken his off Ivana for one moment.
"Let's deconstruct these analogies, I'll start with you. You worked your way up, proved yourself. And you did what you did best. You killed. You succeeded in a place where your skills were ideal, a place where might makes right, and a place where the mightiest is fit to lead. Where as Putin was strong, yes. But he was elected. Not just mighty, not just in knowing his trade. He could indeed convince people to vote for him. Where as, you just murdered the biggest figurehead and nobody opposed you because of culture and customs, correct me if I'm wrong."
He paused for a moment, and indeed gave her time to correct him.
"If we are going to try to be completely accurate, I would say I am like Bill Gates in some ways, but not overall. I do what I do, and I did it well. I grew up in less than optimal conditions. Nobody handed anything to me, and I had to work for everything I had. And eventually, I grew up to be a very significant figure in the world. However, there is one distinct difference between me and Mr. Gates." He says reclining back into his seat.
"My business is war, Ms. Strigidae."
What Bold wished to say is something he already knew.
"I know my trade, and I know what they go through. I also know what it takes and where others fall short. My technology may be considered advanced, but so is Stark's. I didn't have much hand in it, when it comes down to it. And even then, a lot of my weapons are still inferior to what the enemy has. Indestructible materials. demonstrating superior materials science. Post-Scarcity capable nanotechnology. Anti-Gravity technology. Teleportation and space-time warping. Faster-Than-Light travel. Infinite energy. I could go on forever about the technology people have that as far as conventional physics are concerned, may as well be magic and care little for the laws of thermodynamics." His hands making an on and on motion. Swirving more and more.
"And then, well, actual magic. Most of the things I have are inferior to what a lot of my opposition has, who may as well be centuries ahead. So how do I keep winning? Well. It comes down to men and tactics. I started with six, including myself and worked my way up from there. But that was a long, long time ago."
There was a brief moment of silence, him taking the moment to tilt his head slightly over to it's side. Contemplating what to say next, not really afraid to stop and think about what he had to say, as there was no shame in it. So far, he has not told Ivana anything that he did not want to know. Bold truthfully, wished for what was what he saw as a d*** measuring contest to not devolve into something of physical violence. It would accomplish little and indeed, it would only serve to reveal more of himself that he did not wish for her or most anyone, to see. Particularly after Nebraska.
His guards retained their distance as instructed as Bold adjusts himself into a comfortable position.
"In my world, I did have to kill, but the competition. I didn't need to directly go after them and it would be more detrimental to go for that type of thing, more often then not. Though you can and in some situations, it may be worth it, you can't rule a corporation like mine with might makes right. Not when you've bred men to rise up against what is percieved as the mightiest. You have to claw your way up to the top, while becoming the mightiest." He says, clenching his fist for a brief moment. A vein running along his wrists prominent for a brief moment.
"For instance, you make move after move that more endangers your country. I don't have anything at all against mutants, purely for the fact of them being mutants. I even hire them, as you might know.As far as you are concerned, you may as well be Osama Bin Laden if he won. When you get to this level, course you gotta have balls. But attacking someone just because you see that they might be a Philosophical Zombie? That's more, needlessly senseless. Reckless. If anything is going to be end of you, or your country, it's probably gonna be your ego. If you keep biting the wrong tail, Ms. Strigidae, eventually, someone's gonna bite back."
His eyes look straight into hers, his expression stoic.
"And I'll be damned before I allow my own arrogance to be the death of me or my company."
She was glad she agreed to the meeting. Bold was an interesting man. And he was a man almost no one knew anything about. This was her purpose.
He is willing to accept my precepts and willing to engage on my ground. That told her much. But he is not Maverick's center of gravity. And to Ivana that meant just as much, perhaps more. It was her instinct to seek the center of gravity. If Bold wasn't it then it must be somewhere else. Someone else. Elan doesn't come from nowhere.
To Ivana he was a part of Maverick. A cog in its machine. An important cog. But he was not Maverick itself in the way that she was the Shogunate and Xenon before her had been the Republic. Brahma Bull was the identity of his organization the way Quintus and Andres were the Knightfalls. Maverick was different. The heart and the head are different things. Bold is the head. But without him the heart will keep beating. Maverick cannot be defeated by decapitation.
Interesting. She tilted her head to the side, watching Bold.
Within her there was a sense there was a vast gulf between them. A gulf she would need to bridge to really understand him. For he came from a place alien to her. He came from boardrooms and offices. From corporate culture. These were things as distant from Ivana's life as the surface of Mars. She could feel the distance.
Bold looked intently towards Ivana, holding a gaze as she did grin at him. His expression stoic and seemingly humorless as he held the silence for an extended period of time.
Before he burst out laughing, unable to contain it any longer. He'd said what he'd wanted to say and gotten across what he had wished to get across, all for her to say one sentence. "Well played." He said after around 6 seconds. "However, Ms. Strigidae, last time I checked, this wasn't an interrogation. This is a discussion."
As she seemingly read him, he was doing the same. He knew she wasn't stupid and that she had great attention to detail, but so did he. A lack of attention to detail meant that he would never have been able to get as far as he did. Without it, for all his power, he would likely be dead and his corporation wouldn't be as efficient as it is now. Maverick, unlike most corporations, blended much of everything into one. Different cultures and backgrounds from all over the world. A few men from third world countries walking outside, others brought up in the U.S of A. Within this sort of entity, Bold himself had been able to learn much and experience things beyond one single world. The world of the Strigidae was not something he lived in, but it is one he has concept of. He didn't feel he knew enough of Ivana to make that much of an assessment of her. He had seen things many corporations had not.
"But I'll be honest, I've run out of things to discuss. I don't much more to say off the top of my head."
He says bluntly. Thus far, the meeting has served it's purpose to Bold, being ultimately a "friendly reminder." Ivana was difficult, to say the least. He did want to reason, and his desire to do so was out his lack of desire for another war. Although, to him, it seemed rather unnecessary. But, it would hardly take much, under these conditions. Such a thing if it were to become public, could easily lead to him just painting her country as more of a rogue nation than it actually is. An attack on United States soil could easily lead to a variety of nations pouring their own funds into Maverick and fuel the war machine. Her resolve adamant and her path seemingly set.
Savage himself, was useful to him. He had made advances, and even lead to them creating Jackal, and advancing their fields of DNA computing further. However, greater use would be as bait. She lived in a different world from him, one where she did not seek to be attacked. But anyone, who had watched Maverick from the beginning would recognize the pattern. The fact that they ultimately were feeding off violence. Generating revenue from fear. Seemingly every attack thrust them further and further in power, in what they could do. Every attacked allowed them to justify their every action, and growth. A mutant terrorist attack in New York, and they didn't have to pay an dime for any damage to public property. Only for themselves. And what they gained was much more. A reputation. A sight as heroes. And it all continued from there. They could put an orbital satellite to strike down whomever they deemed a tremendous wanted with 671,000,000 miles per hour beam of death. Something that could be turned against a city. Their justification? The extra-normal.
Envy, fed the war machine. Satar fed the war machine. The Talmut, fed the war machine. The Warsman's The Asgardians, fed the War Machine. Satar, fed the War machine. Nam Drakheart, fed the warmachine.
In his eyes, Ivana was intelligent. She had capacity to learn and to fight, but was still in the dark, limited functionally to the knowledge of Maverick available to the public, her own sources, the league of shadows and the knowledge she drew from this encounter. She was limited to her world, and Bold had no desire to build a bridge for her if he wasn't going to know her own world. As far as Venezuala was concerned, it seemed to be a time bomb. Only a matter time before it blows up in the face of the world. But there are multiple ways of dealing with a bomb. Defuse it. Allow it detonate. Potentially, it may short out or even, never be detonated in the first place. It seemed time would tell how he would go about this, but for now, if Ivana didn't have anything more for him, he didn't much point in staying.
If Ivana was going to feed the war machine, he'd allow her to and let her do what she does best.
"Anything else you would like to say, or are we quite done here?" He asks casually and straightly, raising a brow towards her. Expecting her to just end the meeting then and there, if she so wanted. It wasn't that Ivana had nothing to say that would keep him there, more so that he did not believe she was going to say anything that would keep him there.
He wasn't exactly eager to leave. But, would not needlessly stay, either.
Ivana set the games aside. She knew what she needed to know and now her tone turned serious.
"The three most powerful people in the world right now are you, me and Percival. And look at our conversation. This is dangerous. If one of us miscalculates it could be world war three. You could unleash the strongest army in history. I could unleash mutants with powers unthinkable. Percival could unleash science gone mad. One of us might win in the end, but win what? A world so savaged even mutantkind would struggle to etch out a meager existence in the last years before the earth slips into eternal darkness? I do not wish this."
"No. Once the weapons of the world were not dangerous unto the world. Sword and spear and bow can kill only men and beasts. Today we can kill the biosphere. Nanotech grey goo. Rods from god. Reality warpers. This is a game so dangerous that if we play we will not play for long."
"And I have watched you. You intervene to preserve stability. To protect the world from maddened supervillains with dreams of empire. Your work benefits the mutant, who only suffers more under the rule of the madman. You have your reasons. I have mine. But our macro objectives are the same; geopolitical stability."
"The heroes have failed us. Only a few are left and the greatest of them is a girl with a bow. She cannot stop the next alien armada alone."
"We have to do this ourselves, and we must do it without turning on each other and unleashing the forces we each must control."
"The adversarial nature of our conversation aside, I think our aims are much the same. At least, close enough that we can work together on large scale problems."
"Obviously it would be disastrous for your image to enter into an alliance with me, or with Percival. The same may be true of Percival and myself. I don't know. So I propose a secret alliance. A hidden world order, an Illuminati, if you will, of us. You and me at first and Percival if he is willing."
"Together we can do what the heroes have failed to do. Protect the world."
Her head isn't as far up her own ass as I thought.
Bold looked towards Ivana, as he held a pensive expression, one that almost hid his subtle smirk as he listened to Ivana. He did not speak to her as she spoke or attempt to respond to all of her points. He just sat there and listened, his hulking framed actually leaned forward as he began to rapidly process this. Allying with the very rogue nations whom he opposed?
Ivana finished, Bold idly twirling his glasses as he replied to her, waiting until she finished before he would finally reply and give his answer to her straightly.
"Like you said, anything official with you or Iceland would run my PR into the ground. I can say, I can accept to a degree. I can align with you, you aren't as bad. Pteh. Him on the other hand? He is one of the things that are going to threaten Geopolitical stability. I don't like letting things like that run around, and there is as much internally wrong with the world as there is externally. Under the right conditions, he can kill someone by willing it, if he gets his way. Wouldn't put it past him to just make some virus and force some country to it's knees by taking it hostage or just mind controlling the populace."
His seeming hatred for Percival was apparent. An entire nation won over by a man who would mercilessly slaughter most of them to accomplish his own means, in Bold's eyes.
"Conniving bastard."
His Apathy apparent however, he continues.
"But I'll play ball. You're smart. I'm sure you can guess why. Everything I do is to protect the world. Everything. That's all I want to do Ms. Strigidae. And if you want to help preserve that order, I'll welcome it for as long as you do.
And I'll seek to destroy anything that threats that."
"SO you're just gonna hand out powers and hope everything gets better? Izzat it?"
"No I'm not gonna..! Ugh, geeze, have you even heard a single thing I've said?"
"Yeah, I heard you say you're giving out powers like it's a goddamn Konite Christmas!"
"That's not what I... Look, I just want everyone to get along. Senator Keates here, for example." The hooded youth said, tapping the a link to the New York Time's Political News Section. "Three months ago he filed a proposal for self sufficient, separated, walled in living environments, basically internment camps, for all 'significantly threatening' mutants. That was three months ago. Today not only has he dropped all o'that, he's asking the State Department to cut all 'wasteful spending' on this new doohickey they're workin' on that'd be able to scan and detect mutants as they passed through what looks like a giant friggin' metal detector." He scoffed, popping few beer nuts into his mouth and quickly continuing mid chew.
"Now you're probably asking yourself, "Why the sudden change of heart? Did he have a stroke? Was he blackmailed? Did he find God? Nah, none o' that malarkey. I'll tell you what happened. His son just found out he has mutant powers, and not that "rough hand ya got there" blue fur shedding all over the couch stuff neither. The kind that ya can hide, the kind ya'd hafta hide if you want to get into a decent college, find a good job, the kind that get you discriminated against if people find out you got 'em. You see the reason people don't like other people is cuz they don't know the other side o' that big ol' coin, but if you take all the big boys runnin' this show from behind the curtain and show 'em what it's like, make 'em live it, well things might just get better fer everybody. And ya know what? I'm thinkin' I'm just the guy to do it."
"Yeah, I'm not buying it."
"Not buyin' it? Not buyin' what?"
"That you can do any of the crap you say you can."
"Oh no? Keep watchin' the news buddy. Changes are-a-comin'."
Always, humankind must scorn the weak, the different, and the unclean.
Those who cannot supply for the greater purpose cannot be allowed to exist. Such is the world of humanity, of mutantkind. It is a Cold War of biological engineering and advancements in trivial sciences, in useless words that have no purpose once all translation is lost. Doctor Wheatley is one of those masterminds of mad genius, and such is his own personal civilization a blight on Earth. But it is a blight to the new-age Attila the Hun for an entirely different reason.
While humanity hates the doctor for his fetish of violence and dismemberment, it is Baalgorath who despises him because he is building a society around his dark arts. Necromancy, corpse-pillaging, and the more evil cultures of the underworld are all known and well-practiced by the Lord of the Blood Furnace, and so he understands how dangerous Wheatley is. He comprehends how the deranged man's mind operates, how each gear clinks into the next. Malicious actions are not bound by malicious intent. He wants to create a family, and to build a world worth living in according to his insane dreams and nightmares-made-reality.
Such is the rule of civilizations, as they begin in the wolf's heart as a cub before he becomes master of his own den.
And so, another army marches into the wastes of the Earth, going against all manner of flesh-beast. The laboratories of the psychotically tender doctor would come under siege from the forces of the Dark Ones, a legion of Chaos.
The new-age Attila the Hun brought with him the End of Days. His coattails, drenched in blood, dragged along the ground hooked into an array of trophy skulls and looted banners from various worlds. His incandescent hatred poured from the helmet he wore, each breath he took a new shock of thunder rolling across the land. His steed under him was no less angry, his thousand-fanged maw dripping with a fresh scarlet coat - still steaming. Each hoofbeat of the monstrous creature cracked the ground, paving the way for the million warriors of his Armageddon to follow in his footsteps.
The Scourge of the World had returned from a long crusade. This was his home, here in the midst of battle, an Eternal War waged for no purpose other than to appease himself, smash civilization where he saw it, and bathe in the adoration of malevolent and ancient powers. His latest target, selected on a mere whim, held little promise for an admirable fight. Few soldiers, mostly civilians, and yet the Enemy of God marched onward, entirely merciless in his motives. The hallmark of his advance came when the sky opened into a fiery chasm of foreign energies, each blast smashing the metropolis apart for all to see its innards. People screamed. They ran.
@thisisgonnahurt: As if a hand of a benevolent god appeared, the innocents were swept away in a bright light to a safe area far from the hostile vicinity. A energetic dome of magic consisting of various shades of blue surrounded the city that became devoid of all non combatants in a mere instant.
A single figure stood before him or it, it was the Queen of Mewni who stood tall in her battle armor as she raised the sword of Solus. Solus was erecting this barrier which was not just magical in nature but an entire dimension warped into the shape of a dome for its purpose was to contain the collateral damage as well as incidents from expanding any further then it already had.
She knew this type of opponent, the only way to communicate with this type of foe was to clash and so she waited silently as she pulled her sword forward with both hands.
The Queen did not state anything and simply waited in a challenging stance for her foe to strike first.
Girl squeals he would imagine. My Fans! They shout for an encore! They riot! I can feel them coming to embrace me!
The cavity in the ground that occupied Laboratory (K) would fit the entire upcoming battlefield of the two armies at the throat at each other. Such power that the arriving army would bring. Their march would shake the entire cavern raining down pebbles upon the laboratory's surface. The tremors that the chaos would brew in their entrance would unsettle the planted gardens around the caves. Gardens of infamous fungus that was produced by the laboratory. It was a forest of no other. They would soon walk into the traps of gas, mushrooms, spores and throbbing eggs that were agitated by the pulses the chaos would create. Please do explore and scout, for the cave itself will feast upon your prime efforts to conquer. Press onward to the harvesters of fungus for you will smell the stink of what they can produce. A stench that will be such a burden towards the mind as the silent spores that roamed and filled the air will feast on your delighted welcome. Quickly swarming the air hoping to plant their passionate creations into the ever so close army. These fungus were not of plant origins, these were crushed obsequious motivations and dreams, turned twisted by the laboratory. The Victims flesh rebounded into something particularly more vast in their once pathetic origins.
He painted their augmented flesh onto the cave walls many years ago and wished them the best for all of them in their escape.
Their produced methane gas ready to explode into the surface, they just needed a little hasty motivation! And its steadily coming! Oh so ready! They can finally be free! Release Us!
The eggs and fungus walls began to slowly release and give birth to acidic brawns that dwelled in the fungus's flesh. Reproducing their once original bodies but perfected by the laboratory.
Tearing out of their egg sacks, they began to climb out. Scurrying through the cave floors, the hordes of them running through was like the birth of a
Voices. Without bodies, without lungs. They simply passed through, spectres of people captured in the audial range. Mere glitches in a film. Spots on a camera. Screaming.
"Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost."
From where, none could say. The legion encircling the queen spoke nothing, had nothing to say or to derive explicit happiness or anger from. As soon as the words hovered in the bleak atmosphere, choked with ash and the memories of a civilization long-dead, they disappeared. Forever. An entire generation lost to the fires of chaos. To the fires of death, and war, and madness. Yet the marshal of the armored warriors held within his cold heart no adoration for these slaughters. He did not weep for the fallen, or find pleasure in their passing. He simply executed the task, and moved on. A robotic, featureless, void of emotion. Perhaps he knew that it had to be this way.
That it had to end like this.
He leveled his blade with the queen, and the armored abominations began to move forward, wielding all manner of weapon. Some of them even lacked helmets, exposing their screaming fleshless faces, skulls with the expressions of those long gone. Not a test, not an exhibition of what this woman could do, but an extermination of an obstacle. They undead ranks would never stop pouring in. The insanity would never stop.
Dreams, love, all the reverberations of a soul. It is the simplest, and most complex, human thing. It is what they are, who they were, and where the road ahead leads them. It is the fuel of gods and necromancers alike, dark magics twisting these possibilities into life energy for sustain their own needs. It is the ultimate act of greed. It is the supreme debauchery, to take what is most precious to humanity, to not even realize the extent of one's misdeeds.
Yet, perhaps, the good doctor intended it this way.
Souls are not only a gate to emotion, but a pathway to pain. Life is a double-edged sword. It is just as likely to wound the one experiencing it, than it is to cut into the perceptions of another. Love begets hatred. Hatred of other things, hatred of things that would see that love destroyed, or at least imagined hatred. Jealousy is a root, animosity its seeds, and they take the heart without contest. It is a loathsome thing, for it leads to loathsome happenings.
Too often do mortal beings claim to be beyond such emotions, only to fall prey to them all the same, and fall harder than anyone around them.
It is perceived that the doctor understood this. In that, it is a kindness to have done these creatures such improvements to their wellbeing and lifespan, to have twisted their souls and nurtured emotions other than anger and joy. To simply program them with hunger, and the need to survive, to preserve their lives, and to reproduce mindlessly. That is the purpose of humanity, to be slaves, to serve, and to die in the service of malevolent beings greater than they.
That is where the doctor failed.
He wanted to save these people from themselves, and in doing so, made them ripe for the taking. The Dark Ones watched him, long ago, even before his conception was to be inscribed in the stars, before the stars hanging over his oldest ancestors were even in existence, and before the cold emptiness of this reality was even conceived. They watched him, and understood, that he could never comprehend why or how the End of Days would consume everything around him. His works, his dreams...
In eradicating humanity, he became the most human of all his creations.
The new-age Attila the Hun strode through the moss-forest of human decomposition, his massive demon-beast stomping out or outright consuming anything in its path. The undead scourge surrounding him provided an ample source of bodies to shield himself with, their decayed forms obliterated by the sizzling thunder of suicide melters before they simply disappeared, only to be summoned later. Yet the conflict of necrotic creatures did not go entirely one-sided. Those of the End of Days slashed and hacked with a renewed fury with each wave of attackers, turning the road to the laboratory into a butcher's shop.
Voices. Without bodies, without lungs. They simply passed through, spectres of people captured in the audial range. Mere glitches in a film. Spots on a camera. Screaming.
"Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost." "Innocence is lost."
From where, none could say. The legion encircling the queen spoke nothing, had nothing to say or to derive explicit happiness or anger from. As soon as the words hovered in the bleak atmosphere, choked with ash and the memories of a civilization long-dead, they disappeared. Forever. An entire generation lost to the fires of chaos. To the fires of death, and war, and madness. Yet the marshal of the armored warriors held within his cold heart no adoration for these slaughters. He did not weep for the fallen, or find pleasure in their passing. He simply executed the task, and moved on. A robotic, featureless, void of emotion. Perhaps he knew that it had to be this way.
That it had to end like this.
He leveled his blade with the queen, and the armored abominations began to move forward, wielding all manner of weapon. Some of them even lacked helmets, exposing their screaming fleshless faces, skulls with the expressions of those long gone. Not a test, not an exhibition of what this woman could do, but an extermination of an obstacle. They undead ranks would never stop pouring in. The insanity would never stop.
The End of Days had come.
It would not be the first time the Queen had faced such a threat, the nigh infinite army served as no deterrent as she continued to stand her ground in a unwavering manner of courage and determination, Today is going to be a very,very,very loooong day she mused to herself as Solus began to emit a golden aura.
This was a command for the dome consisting of various shades of blue to begin sprouting tentacle like constructs which would then swipe masses of enemies into its dimensional body where the armored abominations will be fractured as well as have their individual atoms separated across multiple different realities, isolated from any living things.
The Queen of Mewni now having her flanks guarded by the constructs Solus manifested, moved in to clash swords with what seemed to be the strongest of all foes in the current battlefield,
Where the living saw death, there indeed existed a power beyond imagining. The phantoms outlived their bodies, continuing to fight, ignoring their nonexistence. Their bodies were long gone. Their flesh, reduced to dust aeons ago. The dome extended inwards, trapping entire swaths of them, engorging nothing without substance. The armies of the End of Days needed nothing, they were nothing, and became nothing. Mere ghosts, outlines of beings, tracing their steps through and upon the footfalls of time and space. Space, endless, opened up before them, and they screamed into the growing night.
For some reason, the golden orb encasing the battlefield did not shine as if it were a sun captured in the glades of a summer pool. Instead, locked outside looking in, it would only become aware of a presence in the darkness as it came upon it in the nightmares of the summoner. The woman, ensnared in this living terror, had done well to destroy the undead, but to wrestle with their summoned poltergeists would be another task altogether. And all the while, the day grew uncharacteristically dark, dragged on into moonlight snared in a column of deep, black water with no conceivable bottom.
And so it is, that Yzaorrith rose from the endless depths, the Living Nothing, his tendrils vast and his mouths many. The rolling shapes of his dreamlike body, a cloud of void, stretching from horizon to horizon, keeping all under his sway blind save for the one precious light in the center of his shadow.
The comparatively microscopic orb of light, trapped, under his beyond-godlike power, as he stared into the depths of the woman's being. And watched.
@thisisgonnahurt: Star sidestepped the foe she was engaging and immediately placed focus on Yzaorrith, He is the one that needs to be defeated she contemplated as she dashed towards her massive opponent.
Star theorized that she could eventually defeat the minions through trial and error but viewed the Living Nothing as the short cut to victory. Many minions attempted to stall or stop the Queen but she was simply too quick and evaded their motions as if she was a leaf and they were wind as she slipped passed the tiny gaps in their formations and advanced to Yzaorrith in record time.
Once Star was close enough to be in range of Yzaorrith's mouth the Queen would attempt to launch herself inside it like a speeding arrow flies to its bulls eye.
And yet, as she would emerge from her dome of light, she had been caught in Yzaorrith's trap. Even if she would reach the Living Nothing, all she would come into contact with would be the smokey vestige of a bizarre and nonexistent shell of matter. Yzaorrith existed neither here nor there, nor in-between, nor far away. He simply was, is, and will be. But that was for an alternate interaction. She would never come close to Yzaorrith.
Instead, her approach to the Living Nothing was likened to continuously flying upward and never reaching the sky. She became infinitely further away from where she began, and yet always did Yzaorrith tower over her, the million mouths gnashing and grinding, smiling and frowning all in a disturbing orchestra of sensation. Never did she reach Yzaorrith, for the Living Nothing merely watched. He did not decide to take part in this, and yet she decided to try and usurp him from his observationary throne.
He found some entertainment in this, but desired to see her mind as she fought more. The precious resource of mortal thoughts stretched out before him. Yet, he controlled himself, and would not try to indulge her in madness. He simply watched. In the fathomless black of his ever-growing shape, he did just that.
@thisisgonnahurt: Star fell into the empty abyss, one would think this was a foolish mistake but this was in fact a part of her plan "In order to get rid of nothing, you have to have something" she whispered after what seemed to be seconds or years in this pit of isolation, the Queen let out a single whisper "Solus" and used the power of Mewni's Sword to bring forth a new universe into this empty realm
An infinite amount of starts,galaxies and planetoids manifested to compete with the nothingness, however the Queen of Mewni did not stop there as the manifested celestial objects Solus created began to each individually grow brighter and brighter as it filled the void with something.
the power of rainbows leaked out from stars as well as planets almost as if the rainbows were the equivalent of yolk from eggs.
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