A man walked through a portal made out of roiling winds, gazing at the near empty room laid before him. A simple stone structure with a doorway leading out and a staircase on the opposite side, descending deeper underground.
“Seems like the right place.” He muttered, his eyes glowing teal as he scanned the nearby energy waves. The man took a device out from his pocket and pressed the button at its center. A few minutes later four more elemental gates opened up one after another. The portal made out of light flashed brightly, and a man walked through.
“I knew you’d find her!” The man, Bartholomew, exclaimed. “It’s good to see you, Jonathan!”
“Bartholomew.” Jonathan nodded at him, taking a note of his appearance. Bartholomew was dark skinned with short cropped hair. His amber eyes were glowing with the same sunlight that was shining from his robes. “It has been a while. Didn’t you visit this place before?”
“Decades ago, yes. The Lightbringers were tracking down a fugitive back then too.”
Jonathan didn’t have time to inquire for more details as the shadows in the room deepened. Their attention was drawn to the black gate that seemed to suck the light out of the room, before a blue skinned oni emerged from the portal. He had noble features with a neatly trimmed beard and black, ornamental armor. His black eyes focused on the pair watching him, and he gave them a casual wave.
“Thalco!” Bartholomew beamed, moving in to hug the Oni.
“Master.” Thalco returned the embrace with a hint of awkwardness. “It has been a minute.”
“Too long, I say! And please, stop with the master talk. We’re equal rank now!”
“Which world is this?” The oni asked, breaking away from Bartholomew’s grasp.
“The ring world.” Jonathan replied shortly.
“Agh! To think that she would flee to a backwater place like this!” Thalco complained. “I thought Vilian had more sense of grandeur.”
“If you want to lay low, this is a perfect place for it, don’t you think?” Bartholomew reasoned.
Before the conversation could carry on, the trio’s attention was drawn to the lightning gate. Arcs of electricity crackled, filling the room with the scent of ozone as a short woman with bright pink hair flew through. She was wearing an advanced looking mechanized armor with built in thrusters that lifted her up from the ground. Taking a moment to absorb her surroundings, she finally spoke.
“Ring world, right? The council will not be happy about this. This world is off limits to planar travel for another few millennia. Are you sure she’s here, Johnny? Because if not, you are properly screwed.”
“Nice to meet you too, Tori.” Jonathan replied, the corner of his mouth twitching. She had blurted all of that in one breath and in half the time a normal person would take.
“Well then. We’re still waiting for Leoric? Good. Let me assemble my mechas and we can get going.”
Tori’s right arm released a cloud of gray dust that split up into three groups, starting to assemble her constructs.
“That’s new.” Thalco commented, watching the dust forming into three humanoid shapes. “What are those?”
“Oh these? They are my B-N.E.R.Ts. Badass Nanite Empowered Revolution Techs.”
Thalco gave her a confused look. “What’s with you and acronyms?”
Tori gave him a smile, refusing to elaborate any further.
A couple of minutes passed before the flame gate expanded, increasing the temperature of the room significantly. From the fire a giant form of Leoric emerged, his axe casually held over his shoulder. Everyone’s eyes locked on the nearly three meters tall beast of a man. His black bushy beard looked unkempt, and his casual clothes were torn up, as if he had just come from a fight.
“Let’s make this quick.” The goliath grunted. “There is a war raging in Servata, and I want to get back to it.”
“Who’s fighting?” Thalco asked, seeming interested.
“The orc tribes unionized and invaded the dragon mountains.”
“And you’re fighting to fend them off?”
“Oh hell no. Anavril portaled kobolds to fight the orcs.” Leoric spat on the ground.
“Right.” Thalco nodded, knowingly. Leoric’s hate for kobolds was well known to the group. “By the way, have you grown taller since last time?”
Leoric held up a finger and started to shrink. His muscles deflated slightly and he lost almost half a meter of height.
“No.” The goliath replied after his transformation had come to an end. “Just a skill I picked up.”
“Okay then!” Jonathan clapped his hands. “Now that we’re all caught up, we have a mission to do. If these readings are correct, and believe me when I say that they are, Vilian is in here. I’m sure she already knows of our arrival, so be on your guard. The plan is to kill her, and take her alive only if she surrenders. Knowing her, it is unlikely. Whatever we do, we cannot let her walk.”
“It just had to come to this.” Bartholomew shook his head.
“Can’t be helped.” Thalco patted his shoulder. “She made her choices.”
“I know. I was just hoping there was another way.”
The group descended the stairs, soon finding themselves in a massive underground complex. Pathways and corridors zig-zagging everywhere, like a huge spider’s web. Without Jonathan’s tracker, they would’ve been lost many times over. Stairways up and down led them ever further into the fortress.
What confused Jonathan the most was how empty the place was. He had assumed that they would’ve had to fight through hordes of defenders and disarm traps on their way, but the track was unsettlingly uneventful.
Finally they stopped in front of a massive set of double doors.
“You can feel that, right?” Tori asked the group, looking troubled.
“That idiot…” Commented Thalco
Jonathan was too stunned to speak. What he felt coming through the doors was Aether, the purest form of raw mana. There was no way Vilian was stupid enough to mess around with it. But there was no mistaking the feeling of untamed energies of the ley-lines. No wonder the place was so deep underground and barren of life. Nothing short of a planeswalker could stand being near the energy for too long without being horrifically mutated. Even with an awakened planar core, coming to contact with the wild energy was a dangerous gamble.
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“We’re still going in?” Bartholomew asked, his eyes fixed at the doors.
“We’re still going in. Whatever she’s doing, if she’s experimenting with Aether..” Jonathan paused, gathering up his thoughts. “Capturing her alive is no longer an option. Take her down at all costs.”
Leoric barged through the doors, the heavy wooden frames exploding inwards at his charge. The insides of the large chamber were filled with transparent containers filled to the brim with glowing azure liquid. The walls were covered with luminous teal vines that released unnatural odor that filled the space.
At the far side of the room stood a figure in front of a table, her back turned to the group.
“Vilian!” Jonathan called out, infusing his voice with air mana, causing it to echo around the room. “You have broken the laws of the planar council! You are charged with destruction of Dalmatia, betrayal of primordial Nature..” He paused, looking around the room. “And unlawful experimentation with Aether. Lay down your arms and surrender!”
Vilian turned her head just slightly, enough for the group to see her bringing her finger in front of her lips.
“Shhh!” She hushed, before turning back to the table. “Your mana disrupts the Aether, Johnny-boy.”
Jonathan’s eyes had been glued to his former mentor, but at her words, he focused past her figure, trying to see what she was so fixated on. Jonathan’s heart jolted when he realized what was on the table, or rather, floating about half a meter above it.
“Is that…?” A whisper escaped his lips.
What he saw was a small tear in space. A puncture in reality, penetrating the soft membrane keeping Aether ley-lines hidden between the folds of existence. Not only was a ley-line exposed, but judging from the power emanations radiating from it, it was damaged.
“You’re mad!”
As planeswalkers, one of their major missions was to keep the ley-lines of the world intact. Whenever a disruption was found, a specialized group was sent to mend the wound to prevent it from spreading. Jonathan couldn’t comprehend the idea that Vilian was not only experimenting with Aether, but intentionally keeping a ley-line open.
The inaction seemed to be too much for Leoric. Before Jonathan could react, fiery wings erupted from the goliath’s back as he charged in, his axe raised to strike. That broke the stillness hanging in the air as everyone but Vilian and Jonathan dashed in action.
Streams of lightning connected Tori to her bots as she took direct control of them, like a puppet master with their strings. Thalco materialized a black sword to his hand before fading to invisibility, while an aura of sunlight expanded from Bartholomew, coating his allies in its embrace.
The team's tactics were honed through decades of practice, each piece playing flawlessly on each other's strengths, while covering their weaknesses. Leoric drew the enemy’s attention with his physique, flashy powers and the pure muscle he brought to the combat. Tori’s role was to overwhelm and block off escape with numbers, Thalco took advantage of hidden openings, striking from the dark at opportune moments, while Bartholomew and Jonathan provided ranged support from the backlines, Bartholomew with his light auras and Jonathan by offensive wind magic.
The tactic had worked for them for ages, but against Vilian the effort was futile. Within a second of engagement, the formation had already fallen.
Faster that anyone could’ve thought, Vilian had spun around, her arms extended. Slapping Leoric’s swing away with ease, she engulfed the goliath with green flames that burst out of her fingertips. Once the shock of a nature planeswalker wielding fire had worn off, another one followed as they saw Leoric on the ground, his skin burnt to a crisp. He was still alive, but barely, Leoric’s breaths coming and going in short, ragged pants. Flame walkers were supposed to be immune to all forms of fire. How had Vilian found a workaround?.
The next second she was holding Thalco’s sword by the blade, caught within a centimeter of her neck. Thalco’s form became visible as green energy started leaking out of him. As more of the energy was drawn out of him and into Vilian, it became apparent that she was using a life drain spell, another impossibility for a nature mage.
Bartholomew’s aura withdrew as he gathered his inner sunlight, and used the energy to fire off two beams of healing light, aimed at Thalco and Leoric. Green light barriers covered in runes sprouted up in front of the downed planeswalkers, drawing in the energy before releasing it back towards Bartholomew. The light that shot out was sickly green, radiating danger. Tori moved two of her bots to take the beams before they found their target, causing them to collapse in a pile of gray dust on the floor.
“Pitiful.” Vilian spat, letting go of her hold of Thalco’s sword, which clanked on the stone floor as the man wielding it collapsed.
“I had imagined that you would’ve improved even a bit since Dalmatia.”
“How is this possible?!” Bartholomew exclaimed. Two of their friends were already down, taken out of the fight with ease. At their levels, the group of planeswalkers were practically gods in their own rights.
Vilian smiled as she walked slowly towards them.
“Oh Johnny. Did you really think you would stand a chance? I traveled with you. I trained you personally. Didn’t you think I prepared methods to bring all of you down if it became necessary?”
“What you did.. the fire! That’s impossible!” Jonathan gasped. The clash had been so brief he hadn’t managed to make a move, and was still standing by the entrance.
“Clearly not.” Vilian scoffed. “Just the fruits of my labor, finally enjoyed by my friends.”
Tori took advantage of the moment of stillness, firing a bolt of lightning at Vilian. The bolt hit the far wall as Vilian vanished, appearing in front of the gnome with a flash of lighting, holding her by the throat. A loud crack echoed across the room as Tori’s neck was broken, and her limp body fell on the ground.
As Vilian kept approaching Jonathan, Bartholomew took a protective stance in front of him, his body glowing ever brighter.
“Oh stop it Barry.” Vilian waved her hand, and the light Bartholomew was radiating was pushed back.
“How?” He grunted, fending off the darkness pushing against his light.
“Johnny.” Vilian ignored the man standing between her and her former disciple. “Kill Barry, and I will let you live. I will forgive this trespass, and if you want, I will give you power that defies reality.”
“Shut up!” Bartholomew snarled, the darkness pushing him on his knees. Vilian smiled gently at Jonathan.
“Come on. I miss you, Johnny. It can be just like the old times. Together, we can take down the council. The planes will be ours!”
“SHUT UP!” Bartholomew roared, forcing himself on his feet again.
During all of this, Jonathan stood still, his mind racing. His friends had fallen. The only family he had known for half a century, taken out by his former master, wielding powers that were impossible.
A blade of wind slowly started to coalesce around his palm. Bartholomew could clearly feel the wind gathering behind him, as he turned his head to look at the last living member of their group.
“Don’t listen to her, Jonathan!” He pleaded. Jonathan could see tears running down his cheeks. “Don’t do it!”
“Kill him for me.” Vilian encouraged, stopping her advancement as she observed the situation evolving.
“I’m.. sorry..” Jonathan whispered and raised his hand.
A soft breeze left from Jonathan’s body, floating in Bartholomew’s ear.
“Duck!”
Bartholomew collapsed his aura, falling on the ground as Jonathan brought his hand down. The wind blade shot off, flying through where Bartholomew’s head had been a fraction of a second earlier. Vilian dodged the attack with a simple side step, the wind blade striking the wall behind her.
Vilian shook her head.
“I’m disappointed in you, Johnny. Did you think I wouldn’t hear that?”
Jonathan raised his head, his expression steely.
“I knew you would. Just as you knew I would never take your offer.”
A gust of wind blew out from Jonathan, lifting the fallen doors up before slamming them on their place at the same time as runes started flying from his hands, covering the room in arcane sigils.
Vilian watched the proceedings with amusement.
“A deadlock seal? Dimension blockers, ooh Johnny! This is rather impressive. But do tell me, what do you hope to accomplish by sealing the room? You just cut off your only means of escape.”
“I can’t beat you with my own strength.” Jonathan confessed, preparing for the pain. “But I can take you with me.”
Vilian’s expression turned into one of confusion for only a second, before her head turned to look behind her.
The wind blade Jonathan had shot off had hit the exposed ley-line, widening the wound Vilian had made to harvest Aether. Azure liquid was flowing out of the rip in space,more and more every second as the tear widened due to the pressure.
“You…!” Vilian growled, hesitating for a second whether to rush to the ley-line or kill the two remaining planeswalkers. The second was all the ley-line needed to fully rupture.
A torrent of Aether gushed into the room, breaking the cylindrical containers filling the space with more power.
“I’ll see you in hell!” Jonathan stated, as an Aether chamber burst open right next to him, engulfing him in the liquid.
The world went dark for Jonathan, and he knew no more.