Darkness.
Remus drifted through a nothingness. It was comfy there, a vacant space where his body had no weight, no substance. Nothing that could identify him as real. He wasn't doing anything; he didn’t have to. Didn’t have to do so much as lift a finger. Unanchored as he was, Remus doubted such intricate movement was even a possibility. Why would he need to move anyway? The subtlest twitch of his body would serve no purpose.
Here, there wasn’t any war to fight, no clans he had to save. No woes to despair over, and no need to overthink until his brain ached.
He simply existed. Alone, Remus knew nothing but peace.
Drifting . . . drifting . . . Remus didn’t think often, but when he did, he noticed the error of his first impression. He wasn’t the only resident of this space. Of course he wasn’t. It suddenly became so painfully obvious that he was the guest here, intruding in this dark cavity.
Through the gloom of his soul, that white light blazed. It imprinted upon the retinas of the mind in a glorious mosaic.
Winding, twisting, entangling tubes. Yes, pearly white tubes. He had been an idiot not to notice their presence before.
They clutched against his body, or the body of his mind, like grasping hands reaching for his neck. But Remus sensed no ill intent emanating from the vine-like structures. No, they wanted to bond with him. To become one whole of a puzzle that had become separated. Or were they already together?
Was this all him then? What was this all?
There seemed to be something beyond all of this, whatever this was. The crash of some asteroid, the roar of a frantic battle, or perhaps something else all together.
More and more, Remus felt his mind rise out of the depths of solitude. The hollow contents of the resting brain suddenly became so active; so alive with ideas, dredges of thoughts, and an explosion of sensations, like paint being splattered against white walls.
He recalled himself. Memories adrift through an ocean of Infinity, recollections of a carpenter they called Remus. No, not a carpenter, but a warrior. Wait, no! He was neither — or was he both?
He was getting a headache. That pounding noise from outside was doing nothing to assist Remus either. In fact, it was getting louder, and more aggressive by the minute. Or had it always been there, and Remus was only now conscious enough to notice it?
The questions had no ceasefire. Getting over the confusion of remembering everything all at once, felt as if his mind was tearing apart. A dance of crazed gore in the prison of his skull.
Part of him was scared. A random echo of the past hit Remus, of being seven years old, clutching onto his brother’s hand for support. He wanted that again now. But he was too old, much too old. He had responsibilities now, which seemed to Remus at that moment like the worst word of them all.
With the memories, logic was restored. The events, scrambled at first in the worst jigsaw he could have asked for, returning to Remus in the oddest order. Yet these were his experiences, his impressions, and nobody knew them better.
He was Remus. Warrior in name, but carpenter at heart. He was Remus, and this place, this delusion of the mind, this was Infinity.
Remus had been basking in the resource following the Supreme Fiend’s attack, but for how long? Still more questions. Though this time, the answers weren’t going to magically find their way back to him.
To forget himself while channelling Infinity — how was that even possible?
Up above, loomed the vast structure of his Bank Mould that Remus had somehow visited, if only in spirit, like an ant cresting a mountain. It was remarkable, in a way. Like he was looking at himself exposed. Through the skin, perhaps even deeper than the superficial layers of his soul, this was Remus. Or at least the part that indented deeper into reality than any meagre flesh.
He may die, but this power, be it via dispersing back into the cosmos where it belonged, to empower some other plucky clansman, would never truly perish. Even if the universe collapsed in upon itself, there would be Infinity.
Remus’ eyes flickered across the branches of his Mould, which towered up above him in a tree that put the legend of yggdrasil to shame. Remus was taken aback at the thought that he had built this.
Though that wasn’t nearly as surprising as what laid above.
The outer perimeter of this place, of this absence in time and space, shook. As if waiting in reserve until just this moment, Remus felt something tugging him away.
How Remus had gotten here in the first place was a mystery. No wonder it was pushing him out; he didn’t suppose this was something any man was meant to see. No more than a stone is supposed to become aware of its own existence.
The outside noise grew louder, developing into intelligible, recognisable voices. Deep, but not overly so, overflowing with concern. Was that Tanguy?
Remus could have laughed in glee. Tanguy! He hadn’t heard from the man in so long . . . or at least since he was last aware.
How long have I been lost within myself? Remus thought. What kind of condition will my body be in when I get back?
Louder and louder, like the rising crescendo of a dirge, the voices screamed out at Remus. It was deafening, painful to hear, but Remus couldn’t blank it out, no matter how hard he tried. So instead, he fixated on the noise, used it as his anchor to return.
Up and up he rose, the tendrils of Infinity encompassing him finally relenting.
He became groggy, for nothing around him was making any sense. The previous, organised tubes became a blur to his senses, the Infinite tendrils that had held him down for so long nowhere to be seen. Yet it didn’t feel as if Remus was going back to sleep. No, he was waking up, and he would finally be free of this place, his body aligning to the mind.
There was a darkness in between that darkness, and the light that came after. Remus first noted the rigid feel of his body — of his real body — numb and consumed by pins and needles. His eyelids were so heavy, and it would have been oh-so easy to fall adrift into sleep again, if not for one little detail.
The two men screaming in his face.
“Remus!” Aziel yelped, and that was the one last urging tug to snap Remus’s eyes open.
Tanguy and Aziel were crouched by him, their expressions masks of relief, but he saw through the cracks underneath. They had been fearing for him, terrified at whatever state the last few days had rendered him in.
Remus made to speak, only to be confronted by the shallow desert of his throat. Before he knew it, Aziel placed a waterskin on his lips. He drank deep out of instinct, and it was at that moment of overwhelming relief that Remus noted the other conditions seizing his body.
His stomach was an empty sack, crying out for food like the most impoverished of Labour District. The light all around was blinding to his eyes, but inwardly . . .
Inwardly, his Bank had never looked so powerful. So immense. It wasn’t completed yet, though it was so close. Remus estimated about a tenth was all that remained to forge.
“You must be hungry, alright,” Aziel muttered, as Tanguy passed over a small crate of rations. Remus chowed it down before even taking notice of what it was he was eating. Some kind of pre-cooked meat. “And here I was thinking it was only bears that hibernate.”
Remus only looked up once the entirety of the box was empty. “Thank you.” He said, a little too shakily. “Where- what happened?”
“We thought you would know better than us,” Tanguy admitted, breathing a little easier. “Once the Supreme Fiend went berserk, waves of Infinity were sent flying for miles all around. At how close we were, it was like being trapped in a tornado.”
“We were separated.” Aziel cut to the chase. “It took Aziel and I almost two days to find each other again.”
Remus blinked, and now that his vision had adjusted, examined his two allies. Their clothes were tattered, with the arm of Tanguy’s tunic torn off completely, revealing the muscular build underneath. But Remus focused more on the litany of bruises that purpled Tanguy’s flesh. He hadn’t noticed before, but there was a slit above Aziel’s left eyebrow too, that was likely to scar. It rarely happened beyond early Ranks, but some injuries could slip through the cracks.
If this was how these two had been left, when conscious and likely fighting for their lives . . .
Remus looked at himself once more. He was bruised, exhausted, and had a few nasty cuts of his own. Though for everything his body must have been through when his mind was absent, he had come out of the other side without too much to complain about. Due to a great load of good fortune, no doubt.
“Are you two okay?” He suddenly became red in the face. That probably should have been the first thing Remus asked.
“Are we okay?” Aziel made it out to be the stupidest question in the world. “What about you? How did you make it out? Once we saw you . . . we were worried that you were-”
“I’m fine. I think.” Remus pushed himself upright, and when no part of his body made a popping sound, sighed with relief. “I don’t know what happened, I was unconscious.”
Aziel and Tanguy exchanged a look. “What, did you hit your head?”
“No. At least I don’t think so.” Remus rubbed the back of his scalp. His palm returned blood free. “I think I was channelling Infinity. I remember mental images of my Bank. It was so lifelike . . . I’m not sure if it was real or not.”
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
When no-one muttered a word, Remus looked at his friends head-on. They were staring at him, and some sinister part of Remus was reminded of crows. Crows looking at carrion. As though, if what Remus was saying was true, which he knew it must be, then in his place should be a corpse. Not a clansman who had benefited from the experience.
“That shouldn’t be possible.” Tanguy uttered. “Even as far away as we were, there would have been traces of Rot in that storm. If you were to just channel that for three days, non-stop-”
“The Rot should have killed you.” Aziel finished.
“I feel fine.” Remus said, as firmly as he could. He didn’t like the direction this was going. “I spent nearly a full Passing in the Silver Cavities. Compared to that, this is next to nothing.”
Tanguy took a seat on a stone nearby. In the pandemonium of it all, Remus had hardly taken the time to register their surroundings: a sandy vista, decorated by great protrusions of rock. Everywhere in ten miles of here was much the same.
“Only you would see a life-threatening storm closing in on you, and see it as an opportunity to train. Gods above.”
“Three days. And you were just working on your Mould the whole time?”
Remus nodded. “I’m close to breaking into Foot-Soldier. I can feel it.”
Tanguy looked at him with a certain glint to his eye that Remus couldn’t define. After devouring another pack of rations, and downing another swig of the waterskin, it was time to get moving.
Remus needed to get his Ichor flowing again, so paced around in circles while the three of them devised a plan. Everything felt so surreal, like he was experiencing every nuance of life again for the first time.
The sand beneath his battered sandals, the heat of the sun threatening to blister his skin; the rise of the sun in the horizon glowing as a channel of multicoloured tinges. Everything was fascinating.
“How is the fight with the Supreme Fiend going, anyway?”
“How about you go see for yourself.” Aziel replied, without looking back from the map he was burning into the sand. “The top of that dune over there has a good view.”
Intrigued, Remus sauntered over. Upon reaching the crest of the mound, it was like having a blindfold removed.
The army of shadows littered the scene like toy soldiers. They surrounded the central piece of the warzone, rendered completely white with Rot, with an unmoving giant slapping away tide after tide of the Old One’s minions. Cracks had begun to sprout over his metallic body, fissures Remus would have loved nothing more but to see expand.
But nothing had changed after three days.
The Old One’s numbers had no doubt dwindled, and while there were still great crowds of the twilight troopers, the difference was stark. One vital question lingered in Remus’ mind, like a parasite he couldn’t relinquish from his cranium. Who will hold out longer, the Old one or the Fiend?
Remus felt his hands bulging into fists. If even the Old One failed, not only one of the most powerful beings yet to have ascended, but one of the only ones capable of circumventing the powers of Rot, then what hope was there?
It was this that Remus mulled over, when something snagged his attention. There was another presence heading over there: tall, muscular, but too far away for Remus to assess any other details of.
“Hey,” Aziel called over, his preparations to leave finally arranged, “what do you see over there?”
“I’m not sure,” Remus replied slowly. “There’s someone else coming to join the fight, I think.”
Tanguy turned his head over. “Someone else? Who?”
“I can’t make them out from over here very well, but they're strong, have a muscular build . . . they look old actually, I think they’re bald.”
“What, is it a Warlord up there?” Aziel got closer. “I don’t think there are many geriatric God-Graced, apart from Eloise. Are they fighting the Fiend?”
“Wait a minute.” Remus paused.
His eyes scanned the man one more time. Closer now, where he dived into the fray like a cannon from a pirate ship. Remus finally recognised the terrible detail screaming out at him: the carpenter’s uniform that adorned his great grandad.
What had Andreas done?
----------------------------------------
Koa flew through the wilderness of Territory Two, faster than he could traverse through his own city of Hybrid.
The gaping hole where his eye had once been mattered little. After spending so long here, learning where there was danger, and where there was less of it, Koa knew the optimum routes in and out of this mess better than the lines tracing down his palm.
He dived in and out of the ground, swimming through mud like it was his own personal sea.
In the span of perhaps five minutes, he had reached his prison. He jolted through the entrance, tore apart the remaining wreckage of the place with his Supreme halberd, and found nothing inside.
Koa was scrambling at this point. He called out Octavia’s name, heedless of who may overhear, until the lining of his throat hurt. No response came.
He commanded all the bugs he could control in the vicinity to search for the poor girl. Where was she? Had the Pet-Keeper been tricking him? Was Koa really so gullible, to fall for a deception so obvious?
Regardless, he couldn’t quit.
Koa swivelled on the spot, focused on the darkness around that seemed alive. Like a thousand watchful eyes, making up one monstrous whole, was watching him always. He took a deep breath to steady himself, expanded his diaphragm, and called out into the gloom: “if someone’s out there, anyone at all, show yourself, so we can settle this quickly!”
No answer. Not even the whisper of a response.
If the dozens of bugs all around hadn't warned him, the pincer would have slit Koa’s throat.
He jolted out of the way, spun to the side, and drew up short from another pincer attack, just in time to block the pointed end with his halberd. Both weapons rattled against each other, and even with the toxic fluid leaking out of Draven’s tail, his grimace was a poison of its own.
“Where is she?” Koa was close to spitting in the clansman’s face.
Draven didn’t mutter a word, though inclined his head to the side. Koa didn’t dare take his eye off the man, instead opening out his senses to focus on where he indicated.
Immediately, a mass of Infinity harassed his senses. He didn’t have to waste a second of thinking to recognise who it was, as well as the smaller presence at their side. Angel was in fierce combat with Octavia.
Angel. How had Koa forgotten about Angel?
“I knew you would come,” Draven snagged back his attention. “The Pet-Keeper said you would. Killing you will be the greatest gift he ever gives me.”
Koa smiled, ignoring the pain roaring up his arms. “What, do I annoy you?”
“Don’t act tough,” a kick thudded into Koa’s leg. It took all he had not to crumple into a heap. “He might have taken your eye, but I specifically asked to finish you off.” Draven licked his lips. “I wonder how you’ll look blue in the face, and pumped full of poison.”
“Is that your best attempt to unnerve me?
“No.” Draven smiled. “It was to distract you.”
Koa made the foolish mistake of shooting his head over to Octavia. He didn’t even get to see how far she was being dragged away, before Draven made his assault.
Fists pummeled against his arms, pushing Koa a metre back. He staggered, had enough time to summon a wooden shield to block Draven’s pincer, before ducking, swerving, and doing everything in his power to dodge the crazed man.
Bugs scattered around him, fireflies illuminating the scene in a haunting amber. They would warn Koa of any danger, or he would at least detect any outside movement through them. He kept his right side away from Draven — even with the fireflies assistance, he didn’t want the scorpion to take advantage of his blindspot.
Koa blasted off the earth, barreling straight into Draven’s chest. The clansman planted his tail into the mud below to anchor himself, swung around on the earthbound tendon, and used Koa’s momentum to land messily on his feet.
Within a second, they clashed again. Every moment of contact, each and every meeting of halberd on tail, or fist on chitin, elicited a thunderous noise. Draven’s lips slowly transformed from a cocky smile, to a concentrated line. He fought with growing intensity, limbs flying out faster than Koa could hope to block.
Like with their first encounter, Koa was on the backstep. Before Draven could do anything about it, Koa dived into the earth, bounding back up behind the man. Draven turned a tad too slowly, raising his tail in stark surprise. The axe of Koa’s halberd swung into the exoskeleton of his stomach. Shards of chitin ricocheted off, exposing more raw, human–looking flesh underneath.
Koa smiled like an idiot at the sight. This was out he defeated Draven; he just had to break through that impossible armour of his, and-
The tail flew towards Koa so quickly, there was no hope in dodging it. He slid to the side in the little time he had, reached out for the tail, and held the writhing construct tight. Draven screeched, and two pincers closed in on Koa faster than he could hope of letting go.
In the fastest decision of his life, Koa focused hard on his Bank. It was still processing all the Infinity he had consumed prior, rushing through the pearly white tubes and extending them when it reached their ends. Koa thought of Octavia, of the Pet-Keeper getting away from him unavenged, and then everything suddenly became ten times easier.
The Infinity flooded to his hands, but that was too general for his Delicate Touch Mould. If he wanted to optimise its power, he would have to be more specific. So his fingers, then. The little bone, muscle, and other tissue that comprised Koa’s hands flourished. Now, he had to go deeper. Improve the littlest point of existence he could access.
The very cells within his palms. His hands glowed a subtle white, supercharged with enough divine essence that he could crush boulders.
He threw his halberd up above, got a firmer hold of Draven, and lifted the scorpion's entire body in one dramatic movement. Koa leaned back at the waist, smashing Draven into a layer of wood he quickly created at the other side.
The Infinity still rattling through his body, Koa vaulted up, grasped his blade, before submerging himself into the earth below.
He was rushing away, even before the scattered landmarks of nature dotted around became apparent to him. He used these as his guide, but nothing directed him more than the plethora of power on offer further left.
Koa sped towards it, burning all of his Infinity like fuel for the strangest vehicle Descent would ever see: himself. Octavia and Angel would be there, he just knew it. But how powerful was Angel? Octavia could take care of herself, beyond any reasonable doubt, yet still . . . Koa would rather be fighting alongside her. That way, he could make sure for himself that nothing-
A hand grasped Koa’s arm, pulling him out of the earth faster than he could fathom. Through a dust cloud sent billowing out of the dirt, Koa was thrown aside. He blinked rapidly, the image of a tail sweeping through the fog the only thing alerting him into action.
He swung rapidly with his halberd. Only by some saving grace did he divert the poisoned tip, but when met with a flurry of pincers, Koa wasn’t so lucky. They ruptured through his fickle oak amour, chafing the skin beneath raw.
Koa screeched in pain, grasped his side to stop the blood flow, and scrambled away from Draven.
When Draven launched into view, Koa half-hoped the man would have some finishing words to utter, to gift Koa a few extra seconds to stall. Alas, they were far past talking.
Koa clutched tightly onto his halberd, and that was when he heard the screams. In tandem, he and Draven looked over to the source of the monstrous cries.
Now that the dust had cleared, he could see it clearly. Koa had travelled further than he had thought, and as ample reward, reality had graced him with the most relieving sight of his life.
Octavia stood before Angel, the scale of whom Koa could only appreciate now, when they were up close and personal. Strands of Supreme Silk were weaved in between Octavia’s outstretched tendrils, and in their metallic sheen, the sight of black, oozing blood was unmistakable.
Angel shrieked again, and it was apparent why: one of her legs was severed completely off, the fuzzy tendril soaking in its own blood a metre away.
While he still had the chance, Koa spun on his feet, concentrated a chunk of Infinity into one incoherent mass, and tossed it at Draven with all of his might.
He didn’t wait to see the man’s reaction.
“Wait up Octavia, I’m coming!”
Koa had only uttered those words for a second, before Angel pounced on her.