The grand ball

[Jaxen Marveet]

The ice flows weakened the creatures, but Jaxen could not sustain the momentum for long. Smug satisfaction danced his lips when Ascendancy rose and took over. The man would be all the more annoying after this, but at least the fog-demons were dead. Along with cannibals and snake people, fog-demons went added to his little list of shits he wouldn't mind killing more of someday. He had no intention of interfering with their slaughter now.

The last one reigned. Unfortunately, Oriena bore the brunt of the battle. Jaxen had little interest in becoming the fog's next meal, soul-appetizer or body-dessert, but from his vantage, there was no way to peel the specter from Oriena without killing her. 

It was with a near flickering sense of regret that he added to the assault, forming the nets that the others cast over the succubus. 

---

She would not relent! These children thought to overpower her!? They were infants! Dangerous beasts to castrate and put down. Her horde decimated! Her hive destroyed! The warning would spread through the world, casting hives into chaos. Whether by her hand or by one of her sisters, they would pay! These humans would all pay!

She lashed wildly out. Near to the brink, the vessel would split apart at the seams soon. The queen didn't care! She would ruin them all! There were too many. The mist brightened. The lights cast prisms of color around the room, searing bright. She couldn't slash them all. They pounded on her vessel's power. She couldn't-

Then one made it through. Her scream was terrible. Defeat. Grief. Loss. She howled with the torment of an age.

---

Jaxen threw his hand over his ears, kneeling like it would buffer the sound. JUST DIE ALREADY!

When the screams fell away, he tentatively looked up. Only to find Oriena rigid and glowing. The mist still possessed her, but the power was gone.  Something of Ascendancy's covered her like a blanket. Or maybe a net. Something between her and the source of the ancient power.

Jaxen happily tucked aside the knowledge of such a possibility. 

What trained his eye, on the other hand, were the dozens of red dots hovering on Oriena's body. Lasers roamed her head, her chest, her heart.

Jaxen threw his gaze around the room, unaware of when the guard dogs of the Kremlin crept into the ballroom. They would have been powerless to intervene, but Jaxen inwardly cursed their presence anyway.

Like shooting Oriena was going to kill a fog-demon. 

"Goddammit," he muttered to himself. Nimble strides carried him forward. The red dots spread like a disease onto him. His shoulder still fucking ached, now he thought about it.  

He turned, standing in front of Oriena, blocking her, staring down Ascendancy and a legitimate horde of a channeler army. Briefly, his dark gaze flickered daringly to one coward of a man standing aside, far from harm's way. He settled on the man's one good eye and snickered a laugh.

He spread his arms. "Guess this means I'm not going to let you shoot her." Jaxen shouted his explanation for all the dogs circling the perimeter like wolves snipping at their next prey. Luckily, Jaxen knew how to fight back. A wolfish grin of his own grew daring them to try.

[Oriena]

She'd never feared death. But obliteration was something different. The flame of the creature's will pulled her apart as she fought it, not just body but soul -- racing furiously down her very thread in the pattern. By now coherence was lost; she was barely aware of who she was; nor of who she had been, or might yet grow to be. 

"You were always weak, Eris." 

Blood choked her nose. It pattered on the red sand in heavy thuds before her swimming eyes. Threads of black hair swirled on a tortuous breeze, curling it against chapped lips; the tease of a relief he would not give her. Her fists clenched in the sand until her fingers burned and blistered with the heat. 

Outcast exile freak. 

Towering tall above, he suddenly leaned close. His finger lifted her chin until her gaze rose, but the sun crowned behind him, robbing her of sight. His face was shadows, infinite as the universe. Her teeth bared bloody at the cruel touch. 

"You were always weak," he repeated, standing up now he courted her attention. Lifted his foot until it pressed against her chest, a scalding brand. And pushed. "Here." 

She fell back. It burned. More than hot sand should burn, as if her very marrow was molten and her skin flaked like ash, seared away. The sun was so bright; white as the sky, like the power slipped its fleshy chains and consumed the world in her absence. She stared up until her retinas burned. 

"Am I dying?" 

"Hallucinations are rarely a good sign, Eris. Yield." 

She gurgled a laugh, the blood thick in her throat. Agony tried to leak tears from her eyes, but even that part of her was parched and broken.  The man she had loved so fiercely that the cavity in her chest was spent pressed his foot to her throat. 

This is how it ends. This is how it ALWAYS ends. 

No one ever loves you. No one ever comes to save you. 

So save yourself.  

YIELD. 

The Wheel spun, crushing her against the spine of the world, chased by a howl of mad laughter. 

To yield or to die;  Oriena chose death. 

But sudden loss punctured the pain, like something torn from the very soul; once, twice, thrice. Words disintegrated before they made sense. This feeling was a new kind of torment. Alone in the universe. Ori fell again, not crushed this time, but swept along on a bigger current. Of dark skirts brushing across stiff, cold bodies. Of swollen grey skies and an empty battlefield; empty but for her and her dark vigil. They called you the Lady of Sorrow. She clawed her way free from those drowning waters, and as she finally stopped fighting she comprehended. 

Regus? This is Atharim doing? She screamed it into the abyss, unsure if the creature could or would hear the tiny thread of her words. Fury rippled through her, flexing against the bonds of her prison; unsure now whether she meant her own, or the creature's. Memories of the Baccarat fire burned her up, like scouring a nest of vermin, and her bristling, vicious anger redirected. I will help you find the key. I will help you destroy it! But you cannot die here! 

It did not appear to listen. 

Her body screamed again, ripping apart the final seams stitching her whole. It drew deeper than Ori could sustain, suddenly desperate; willing to spend every last drop of her. Light burst bright in her head, like staring too long at the sun. Everything flashed blinding white; beautiful agony. 

Until something slammed down hard, sending them both reeling into terrible darkness. 

It finally fled. 

But not before probing into the ugliness of her soul and plucking free a truth. 

Oriena pitched forward, slamming shards of mirror deep into the palms of her hands as she landed, shuddering pain up her arms. But the wrench of the power, snuffed out like a candle, was the bigger blow. Vitality fled her limbs, faint from the blood pouring from nose and ears. Beyond Jaxen's bloody back, Ascendancy loomed. She saw him strangely dual, for the brief moment before the creature's manipulations whispered away with its departure. She had been a daughter of the night, born on the wrong side of the war. But he had never offered her succour. 

Outcast exile freak. 

Hurt flashed deep betrayal across her expression before it was lost to the bowels of the past, leaving only the familiar residue of prejudice. Every muscle screamed torn, but it paled into insignificance beside the bigger loss. Blood spattered from her nose, a constellation against her knuckles. Her vision was awash with dizziness, her tense limbs lacking even the force to claw her way to her feet, but she stared defiant. Horror tightened her expression, chest panting. An accusation of theft.

[Nox]

The net of spirit Ascendancy made dwarfed his own, and it slid into place with minimal effort and the shiver along his skin died with the piercing screams. It still held on to the woman and Nox only held the power out of fear of never grabbing it again. It seared him. The memories of the power scorching his soul was not a distance memory and it made him want to wretch.

Jaxen stepped in front of the tiny laser lights. Much like he'd helped him back in the alley way. Nox took a deep breath as he glanced at the Ascendancy brimming with power. If he was going to die, he might as well do it defending the innocent. Nox pushed away from Cruz and joined Jaxen in front of the Ijiraq and Oriena. He sent flows of air to grab empty champagne glasses and shattered them as he brought them forth.

Nox didn't turn around he watched to make sure Oriena breathed still, but he didn't dare get close, if someone wanted to shoot him, they could. He'd be none-the-wiser. But now the shattered glass floated in a circle around Oriena, refacting the laser light in a thousand directions. Sure the good marks man could still make the shot, but Nox was hoping it would rebound back at them and blind them as well. He probably could have formed a wall infused with silver particles to do the same, but he wasn't sure he had the strength left in him to do it.

He spoke to Jaxen, but to the others as well. "Don't cross the path of the glass. You'll rip your lungs to shreds."

[Marcus DuBois]

Darth Malik felt the full power of the Force flowing through him and even as his attempts failed to cut the woman off, he could barely contain the raw ecstasy that raced through every nerve and fiber in his body. It was truly glorious, connecting him to the multiverse itself, every part of it, sub-quantum strings to the Great Attractor, quarks to the flows of Dark Energy pressure that made up the vast majority of the universe, all of it part of his body. Truly, this was what it meant to be a god.

The Dominions and Nox had joined him, though Nox had modified the weave, softening the blade of spirit that struck at the thick invisible column of the power that connected the woman- a face he recognize from the Almaz- to the heart of the multiverse.

Likely they thought to save the woman, or perhaps to speak to the ijiraq. Malik had no such interest. A pity, but this was survival. These creatures were horrifying and he was only too happy to destroy it. But for whatever reason, between the eight of them- nine when another man joined- the column was too strong to cut. His blade, the other's shields did slip in and out, indicating that it was working. They needed more.

As if in summons, Darth Caedus stepped forward, holding more of the power than he did. A thrill of excitement coursed through him. Not because the man was joining them. No. It was the fact that the one other time he had seen Caedus hold the Force to that extent, Malik was much weaker than him. A hill compared to a mountain. Now....he was stronger, of course. But the difference had lessened greatly.

The core Sith philosophy flashed through his mind. 

Only two Sith Lords may exist at any time.
A master, the embodiment of the power of the dark side of the Force.
An apprentice to crave it.

One day, his time would come. But he was content to learn and grow for now.

Darth Caedus' massive shield slid into place and she screamed. Malik laughed to himself at her torment. It wouldn't do to have Caedus see him cackling like a mad man. First her. Then the Regus. This was the second time he'd dared attack them. 

They were arrayed against the woman. ZARs were coming into the room, rifles drawn, red dots covering her. While it would no doubt kill her, he doubts it would hurt the ijiraq. They needed to be solid....he stopped. The ones that had attacked him and Caedus had. But he had seen the same weaves have no effect on the one controlling the woman, those that made it through.

What would work? He held the Force tightly, trying to think of possibilities when Nox moved toward the woman, weaves of air snatch and shattering flutes, creating fine shards of glass that hovered like a barrier between him, the man and her and the rest of them.

At that moment, the creature fled. Nox still held the barrier, though. None of them could know the woman was truly no longer dangerous. She would need to be taken. So will Nox he thought.

Feeling the majesty of the Force flowing through him, the full amount he could wield, he formed a shield like Caedus had used and threw it. Nox was needed alive. The man had information Malik wanted.

[Evelyn]

Evelyn swelled with relief when Nikolai got up. She attempted to check him over for injuries, but he was immediately drawn to the other male channelers attacked by the same disturbance as he was previously. The rational mind couldn't grasp what was happening, and Evelyn had the most rational and logical mind of the group, so Evelyn compartmentalized the disturbances until the threat was beyond them. Until then, only one thing mattered.

She'd never beheld the wrath of the Ascendancy. He was both absolutely terrifying and astonishingly deadly. Orbs whirred around the room with such ferocity that Evelyn could barely keep up. But it was the weapon conjured to his hands that crimped her heart like the fingers of a bony skeleton clamped down. She didn't know why, but the sight of Nik wielding it spiked queasy warnings in the back of her mind. If he was a master channeler before, he was downright menacing now.

Luckily, he's one of the good guys. 

Meanwhile, Evelyn was drawn to the light of God's power wielded by her sister beyond like a moth to the flame. It made her gasp as tears welled in her eyes simply to behold. This was surely a glimpse into the power of God himself but for the demonness controlling it. 

Blood sprayed new spatter. The demonness fled. Evelyn stared with wide eyes, utterly hating the powerlessness she felt at present. This could not be allowed to continue. She vowed to learn all there was about such specters of worlds under their own.

[Ryker]

None perished. It was almost a shame. Ryker was quite interested in learning how these ghosts slaughtered men and women. Never once did he grapple at the power but for the very early temptation. He considered smashing an abandoned flute and gouging red lines into his own palm as a means to spring the power to attention, but his stealth was maintained regardless. 

Zacarias and the other guests wisely fled. Ryker wandered nearer to the man with another facial deformity, although he only recognized it for the flat movements the glass-eye swiveled in the socket compared to its brother. Perhaps the deformed found the deformed.  His companion was an interesting rodent, sniffling at the potential morsels in every situation. 

Ascendancy lived. The others as well. The woman pawed at the floor, bloodied. Poison crawled her eyes. Ryker stifled a smile. THAT was a woman he had to find again. 

The savagery of his thoughts were forced to silence, however, as he willed his attention to focus on the threats around them. ZARS and other military might flexed their muscles around the perimeter. Only the Ascendancy had the authority to stand them down. Ryker had no interest in becoming a target for their marksmanship practice.

[Ascendancy]

The woman crumpled. The flow of power ceased. With it dissipated the ice slicking his skin. Nik breathed a sigh of relief, but the emotion was shallow alongside the gorge of power delving through his bones. Others fled to offer themselves as human sacrifices before the prostrate body of the woman - Oriena, her name filtered somehow to the surface - though he barely recognized her now. Instinct tempted him to sweep Jaxen and Nox aside. Both were equally useless. 

Scion Marveet was unlikely to take well to Ascendancy crushing his son in cold blood. Nox was a different story. It was doubtful anyone would bother to care if he was erased from existence, but the briefest flicker of doubt stayed Nik's hands. 

The ijiraq fled. Laser sights diffused through something clouding the air around the three of them, poor shield though it was. Nikolai was tempted to slash Nox's weaves just to show him how fallible they were. 

The shield continued to neutralize the woman in case the ijiraq was baited into returning. He turned to Evelyn, finally with a warning. She was wild-eyed with fear and awe. "Do not seize at the power. It might return." 

For the others, he stepped forth. The clothes upon his shoulders were disarrayed. Loose hair fell across his eyes. "The threat has passed," he announced as one of the ZARS officers approached. CSS was alongside, Alric at their center. "Stand them down." The command clipped as the will of the Ascendancy was carried out.

The sights soon disappeared from the three fools. Nik briefly checked the others to ensure they were well. Medics came forth, but Nikolai waved them on toward the bloodied Oriena, to whom they turned their attention next.

Meanwhile, he confronted Nox, fires burning his eyes with anger. "Regus lives?" 

[Nox]

Oriena lay on the ground and the power fled abruptly from him. Nox clawed at the power but there was no way to reach it. Fuck! His own weave used against him. Nox only knew that it was not Ascendancy who did it. One of the others, the man from before. He doubted Jaxen did, why take away an ally. Who else could wield the power of the gods. The glass tinkled to the ground.

Nox could feel the panic rising. He hadn't wanted to grab the power before, but it was gone. He didn't like that, he had nearly gone crazy in the dungeon where he'd last seen the Ascendancy. "Chill, little brother. You'll be fine." Nox wanted to growl but he didn't.

Nox listened to Ascendancy stand down the red lights and then eventually confront him. Nox turned around and looked into the eyes of the man who could burn him down in an instant. Every nerve in his body burned with need for the power, but he smiled anyway for the Ascendancy. He wasn't a threat though for some reason the Ascendancy thought he was. "The only logical explanation unless you think the ancient gods of old created an icon that any idiot can use. You and your team didn't kill him when he fled before. The fire at the Baccarrat might have, but no body has ever been recovered. And now an Ijiraq shows up attacks you again and you think it might be someone else? He's cunning, he's strong, and most of all he hates you more than any of the rest of us. Maybe she'll kill him for us all."

[Ascendancy]

That Nox's life was literally in the Ascendancy's palm did not seem to bother him in the least. He allowed the boy's entrance to this ball tonight for the express purpose of inquiring after Aria's demise and the hunt for Regus. As all of that was now futile, Nox's purpose for existing grew slimmer by the moment. 

Nikolai was never the one who intimidated with physical presence. He relied on wit and intelligence to subjugate those who thought to stand against him.

"You live in my city. You come to my home. You spit at my feet and insult me. Begin to speak with me with greater respect, Nox. The only reason you're walking out of here tonight is because you are a dying breed. The Atharim as they were are done yet creatures like that filth persist. You recall that I was once-" he cut himself short. His emotions were too close to the surface. The power ebbed and flowed with the stirring of soul. Nik was acutely aware that Marcus was watching closely.

He forced himself to stillness despite the racing of his mind. He was shaken. 
Finally, a memory was conjured. "You said an icon. There are icons that control these ijiraq? What do you know about them?" 

[Nox]

Nox bit back the growl that wanted to escape his lips. He wasn't spitting at any anyone's feet. Rude, maybe? He'd been called worse things. But he was not trying to be an ass in this. Cruz was looking at him like he was going to die. And he probably was, the Ascendancy had already told him if he saw him again he'd be dead. This had been a very bad idea from the start, why the fuck Dorian thought it was a good idea was beyond him.

Nox took a deep breath and dropped his gaze. He wasn't afraid to die. But it didn't have to be today. "Good, play nice." Again Nox wanted to growl but he kept his tongue.

"Aria said the Regus used a tablet to control the Ijiraq. She, it, whatever, referenced a key. But Aria is gone, you can't ask her what it looks like and I only know what she told me. Which seems to be more than she told you." Nox found that hard to believe. Aria had to tell someone that the Regus used something, but maybe it hadn't reached the Ascendancy and that made all sorts of little things stir. Nox was actually surprised he hadn't been smited for even knowing that the Ascendancy had been one of them. He'd been hunted. Attacked. Nox knew the feeling, twice now the Atharim had turned their weapons on him. He's survive as long as he could and he'd take as many of them down as he could. But he was pretty sure Ascendancy was going to be the one to kill him first.