The Coming of the End

Maya looked at the man in front of her, he stood in the circle of the Wind currents flowing around her, completely unaffected by them. His hair didn't even slightly sway, yet she knew that it should be billowing about as if in the direct path of a storm.

"I do know who you are," Maya said, even though he didn't really ask. She was buying time. She turned her palm and pulled out an object out of her storage ring. A small disk array landed in her palm, she could feel the runes attached to it, placed there by Berion a while back.

She pressed it, felt the array activate and then... Nothing. She pressed the rescue beacon again, the message was supposed to be nearly instant, and her armor had an anchor that Berion could reach across any distance. She waited for the twisting of space as Berion teleported her away, but again nothing happened. She pressed the beacon once more, then again, now rapidly.

The man didn't react in any way. After a few more seconds, when she realized that nothing was going to happen, he spoke again.

"Nothing leaves this place without me allowing it."

She looked in those dark eyes, the two orbs that drew everything in and let nothing out, filled with bottomless depths, and she shivered.

She couldn't feel his power, she couldn't tell what he was doing. She dropped the beacon and two longswords appeared in her hands.

The man's face twitched, the skin rupturing below his eyes. For a moment a hole in reality was there, shaped like a maw of a beast, and then it pulled back, skin flakes appearing and attaching themselves back to his face in reverse. Maya froze.

"You know why I AM HERE," his voice thundered inside her body, though he didn't raise his voice. The words were shaking her soul. "YOU TOOK WHAT IS MINE."

The world lost its color, the light dimmed around him and her Wind vanished. She felt light as a feather, as if gravity had lessened. The world beyond the two of them faded away, as if it was cut off, and the Air around her was diminished enough that she struggled to take a breath. A moment of time seemed to stretch for an age and at the same time felt like it had skipped a beat. As if it too was confused by what was happening.

She pulled on her armor, more runes activating and her Soul slipped into them to power them. The wind roared back in, her Soul and Framework providing as her perks activated. Her power manifested Essence, and it fought against whatever it was that he did. He didn't look bothered, instead his expression remained unchanged.

She gathered her thoughts and her power, then met his eyes. She had stared down High Rankers in the eyes as she carved their hearts out. She wasn't afraid, he had caught her off-guard, that was all.

"We didn't take anything that was yours," she said. "We didn't strike at your territories or your people."

"TALI IS MY PEOPLE."

She grimaced as his voice reverberated strangely, as if it was coming from all around her, yet somehow bounced around wrong. He called her Tali, that suggested that they were closer than they had thought. The Unchained knew about him, they had looked into him as a potential target.

"You are not our enemy," Maya said, trying to make her voice louder, firmer. "We go after only those that oppress, that cause misery and pain. You aren't on our list."

"ANATALIEN."

Maya took a deep breath, the grip on her swords tightening, her focus sharpening.

"She wasn't acting as part of your faction," Maya said. "She had oppressed and murdered before her fall. And at the dome, she betrayed a comrade she was supposed to be fighting alongside. They betrayed, and their battle killed thousands of innocents. That is not an action of—"

"—I DON'T CARE," his face twitched again, contorting into a bestial shape made out of pure darkness, a nothingness that promised only the end. Maya didn't respond immediately, instead she watched as it slowly pulled back, restoring his visage.

They had bent their own rules for Anatalien, she knew that. But it was for a worthy cause. With what Ra'azel had promised them for what they had done, they would finally be able to act in the open. They would no longer need to hide. The greatest victories, required them to make the tough choices. They had taken on the burden of the world and all those who were suffering onto themselves. They couldn't afford to fail, even if they had to make the choices that stained their own hands red. It would all be worth it in the end.

She could see that there would be no talking with him. She knew little about him as a person, only his accomplishments. He had climbed the ranks of the High Rankers and was obviously incredibly powerful. But so was Maya, and she had Ra'azel's armor and weapons.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and Maya nearly acted. But then he tilted his head one way then the other, before opening his eyes and looking at her with what felt like a lot less intensity. As if he had pulled himself back. "I've been told that everybody deserves a second chance. You have acted against me and mine, and for that I would've killed you all." He spoke slowly, as if struggling to keep himself calm. "You will tell me where she is and I will come for her, and you will live."

Maya wondered if she could deceive him for long enough to somehow get a message out, or for her presence to be missed, though that was unlikely.

In an instant she reacted. She triggered the Full-Soul Rune chain on her armor, the most powerful carvings that it possessed. Instantly her power skyrocketed as agony lanced through her Soul. They hadn't used this in a combat situation yet, not even against the Warden where Maya had wanted to. Kael thought that it was too dangerous, that the price it required was too high. Maya didn't have another option.

A storm came into being around her, the Wind answering her call. A shearing gale blasted outward from her body, charged by the Runes for power and sharpness, an orange glow bled into them as wind blades cut through the air. She turned, not waiting to see the attack land. Her Qi blew through her conduits, her {Zephyr's Advance} exploded out of her skin, the runes on her armor caught it, amplified it and manifested it into the world. She blasted out of the small clearing she was just a moment before. Flying outward with a force that blasted the ground with such intensity that it cracked open into a ravine, trees were pulled out of the ground and sent flying. A new storm was born where nothing was a moment before. The weather of the entire territory changing in an instant as she poured power into all of her perks, throwing everything that she had behind her. She flew at a speed that made the ground blur and sent shockwaves in all directions. The Air Essence of the territory buckled and shattered under the weight of the Essence she was pouring into the territory. It changed the balance of the territory, and she knew that it would cause irreparable damage to the land.

In the distance, the shockwave of her flight reached the coast and blasted the ocean, sending the water retreating far beyond the beach. In a day, or more, as it bled the power she had released, the water would return as a tsunami, washing everything away. It would crash down on the town, if they survived the storm. She had doomed them, but she had to make the hard choice.

Her perception alerted her a moment before it happened, and still she couldn't react fast enough. Beams of pure darkness lanced from above, dozens of them, each cutting around her, disrupting her perks, her techniques, her power. The speed of the Wind carrying her was broken, her speed dropping.

Beams started hitting her from above, and her Soul leaked out in a wave as the armor used it to power its defense. There was no force behind the beams, to send her flying, so she tried to recover, to fly and evade. She pulled more Qi, and blasted a new Wind Current, this one powered by her own core, and increased her speed again. She lashed out behind her with {Zephyr's Carnage}, a storm of wind that was could cut a mountain in half.

Then the gravity around her winked out, giving her a boost of speed for a moment. Before she could take advantage, the gravity returned. Like a titan reaching down from above, it slammed into her, pressing her effortlessly down. Her attempts at evading and her great speed sent her tumbling through the air far faster than she intended to go. She slammed into a hill, breaking it apart and burrowing through it. She crashed into a forest, tearing through tree trunks and boulders the size of houses. Then her armor hit something and just... Stopped. Her body continued moving forward inside of the armor, she felt her flesh squishing together, her bones grinding against one another as they smashed into the back of her armor. The front of her armor then came forward, groaning as it pressed at her from the other side, crumpling and crushing her within. She could feel the runes cracking and breaking, but a chain on the inside for durability persisted, her Soul pouring into it to keep the armor from collapsing completely and turning her to mush.

And then it was over, her speed completely bleed off, and her movement stopped.

She groaned, her body feeling broken. One of her eyes opened to look through a red haze outward, while she felt only wetness dripping down her cheek for the other.

A shadow obscured her vision, and a rumbling voice pierced through the ringing in her ears. She blinked her eye and cleared her vision enough to see the man. He was missing an arm, and a piece of wooden debris was buried in the middle of his chest. Slowly, it was pushed out, the wound behind it closed and his arm regrew.

"So these are Runes," he said slowly, kneeling down and placing a hand on her armor. "I see, just a tool then. No better than any other focus, if you know what you are doing."

She couldn't move, she couldn't respond at all. Then she heard her armor groan, runes breaking apart as he pulled it apart and pulled her out.

"Can't have you die yet," he said slowly, his dark eyes looking down on her. "Not before you tell me what I want to know."

Maya shivered, unable to glance away from the terrible sight in front of her eyes.