Reunion

Edgar prowled the streets of the Rogue Isles. He thought to himself how this whole island was like South Florida on Crack. He could feel the balance shifting throughout the day. After his arrival, and being introduced to the woman who would be keeping an eye on Eric Crane, he could tell that that wasn't going to produce much. He couldn't blame the girl for not wanting to be anywhere near him.

As Edgar neared a cliff overlooking the coast, he could make out a figure leaning against some kind of magical altar. Edgar was too far away to make out the details of the figure, but he knew who it was. Edgar closed the distance between himself and his nemesis. Edgar could smell the blood coming from the same direction, keeping his prey in his sights, the moonlight casting shadows from the nearby trees, a light breeze playing at the figure's coattails.

Edgar's paw stepped in something wet, looking down far too late to realize what exactly he had stepped into, feeling the release of magic all arcross the cliff. Edgar stood up as the figure pushed off from the tree he was leaning against, closing the rest of the distance, coming to stand right in front of Edgar. The man was 6 feet tall, wearing the typical black Armani suit that the gentleman was so fond of, with a bright red shirt that peeked through the well-tailored suit.

"How long has it been, my long lost friend? Days? Years? It was hard to keep track in my prison."

Edgar scoffed as he glared at the man. Goqua was also very fond of taking the body of very attractive men. Edgar's voice betrayed a rising temper, "Friends? So you've come back just to insult me?"

Goqua's voice was calm and silky, "How long have we danced this dance? Did you miss me? How was your retirement?"

"Is this how you treat your friends? By keeping them shut in a cage?", Edgar replied a little more hotly than Edgar intended.

"Well, I could say that I'm just repaying the hospitality you've shown me, but I just wanted to talk. Like I said, we've done this before. It's like, old hat. But really, is this the reward you were seeking? To have the good life ripped away from you the minute I return. Aren't you tired of this? Stuck in the mortal coil, restrained by the rules, cleaning up my messes for another 1000 years until you figure out how to break the rules and bottle me up again? Kudos on that by the way. I really didn't think you had it in you."

Edgar started to tremble with his anger, "It was done once, it can be done again."

Goqua smiled, crooning, "Are you so sure about that? This world. It's special. Full of chaos already, just inviting me to add my artistry to it's canvas. You know, just with the gifts you've been given, and breaking the rules, takes a bit of chaos. You know, together..."

Edgar laughed, "Bite me."

Goqua smiled again, "You've really adopted the language. You've broken the rules before. Why not just quit this time? Walk away. Go to Maui, or the Carrabian. Talking cats, beasts of lore, all comonplace here. You could really be yourself and enjoy yourself here."

Edgar snarled, "You know what I enjoyed most? Beating you."

Goqua's tone became more sarcastic, "Yes, of course. I heard about Angel. You ran off for your retirement and left her alone, and oops! She went off and finally got herself killed."

At this, Edgar lept at his adversary, claws flashing in the moonlight. Goqua mearly batted Edgar away with the back of his hand, like a ragdoll. Edgar went flying into the stone alter, leaving a dent in the stone.

The magic shield around the cliff faded as Goqua straightened his sleeves, looking over at Edgar's slumped body, the hate written all over Edgars face, "Silly cat. The 'pendulum' is on my side now."

As Goqua tugged on his sleeves, his physical form molded into a man with long blond hair, and slightly shorter than he originally appeared, speaking with an english accent, "Cherio."

All Hell Breaks Lose, Part Two

Rose Lucian hovered above Untruth's smoldering compound, throwing more flames to add to the fires in random intervals, waiting for him to arrive.

Rather than confront her when he first arrived, Derek slipped through shadows in the rooms his wives' and wife-to-be had been assaulted. His first stop was Kyra, where he wicked away the flames and healed her wounds, placing her into a deep sleep before teleporting her to a safe place. Then, he found Raene, her wounds healed instantaneously by his touch, a hand stroking her cheek before he sent her off along with Kyra. Finally, he went to Lyria, dissipating the shadows around her and teleporting her to a safe room in the temple where she could be tended by the Order's telepaths. Only then did he hover up out of the compound, propelled by his telekinesis, using it to extinguish the flames around him, screaming at Rose. "This is how you seek my forgiveness? With yet another betrayal?"

"YOU! You call ME a liar! You planned it all along - taking my power and my temple for your own! Reducing me to a prisoner to be abused and beaten!" Her eyes began to glow as she gathered up all the power available to her now, preparing for a mystical strike that was meant to consume him with fire and darkness that constantly regenerated itself as it wrapped around him.

"You didn't forgive me, so why should I forgive you?" she demanded as she unleashed the power as punctuation to her question, throwing everything she had at him.

Untruth threw up every shield he had to deflect her attack, but even that was not enough to keep a painful, burning sting from assaulting him. The moment he felt it, he lashed outward, directing one of the most powerful blasts he'd ever used on a living being at her, attempting to bore into her mind, and at the same time, he used the massive energy required to send a message to Sabine, the psychic outrage filled with all she needed to see the truth of this attack.

Most of the energy he sent at her was absorbed by her protections, but even that wasn't enough to keep her from being knocked backward feet over head, losing elevation before she could right herself to turn and glare at him with a twisted, mad grin. "That's right! That's MY power you're using! You can't be the big alpha male without making me all weak and kittenish, so you can kick me around, can you?"

While Rose began to gather up more energy for another attack, Sabine appeared at Untruth's side, her sharp gaze taking in the scene around her as she assessed the situation with a murmured, "Oh, hell."

Untruth propelled himself along toward her, his hands outstretched, and his psychic blades shimmering blue from the back of his hands. "My power you whore! I was letting you borrow it for a time, but that time passed when you began your paranoid little campaign and sought to order me around like a lapdog."

He slashed at her head as soon as he was near her, knowing Sabine had joined them, but no longer caring. For the moment, this battle was his, his mind open to Sabine, though, the carefully hidden desire that he may be going toe to toe with their true foe burned brightly. He was relishing the chance to kill another god, and had been since he'd been told one was coming.

Sabine watched for a moment, already able to see the forces of chaos at work between them. It was clear to her within moments that Rose had somehow been infused with Goqua's power and had somehow infected Derek. With a cool head, she turned her attention to the air around them, seeking out the creature's true position.

Rose cried out as Untruth's blade glanced off of her head, unable to avoid him completely as she tried to dodge the blow. The pain just added to her anger and the building energy, which she lobbed at him as she spun away from him mid-air, either ignoring or not caring about Sabine's existence. "Yes, funny how my paranoia that you were planning to move against me turned out to be all too true! Silly me!"

Derek laughed as the energy struck him, some pain written on his face, but pain of battle was nothing new to him. He'd learned to ignore it on far too many battlefields. "Bullshit Rose! Bullshit! You NEVER suspected me. You were all too happy to draw on my energies through our link, to use fear of me to keep your enemies away, and all the while I listened to your paranoid rantings about how the piece of you that you threw away was going to get you."

He spat at her in the air, coming nowhere close to hitting her, but doing it all the same as he flew toward her again, diving at the last moment to grab at her ankle in an attempt to grab and throw her at the ground with all of his strength.

Rose failed to anticipate the fake out quickly enough to keep from getting caught by the ankle and found herself hurtling toward the ground, barely able to compensate in time by casting a protective spell on herself to slow her descent enough to keep her from being damaged as she landed on the ground.

Sabine realized that the chaos entity was nowhere nearby and turned her attentions to Derek, speaking directly to his mind with a telepathy spell. "It's not in her, Derek! She's been infected, and so have you! Focus on me!"

Quickly, Sabine began to shape her own spell - adept at doing so after centuries of practice - to dampen the chaotic swirl in his mind, attempting to give him back his self-control.

Untruth growled as Rose hurtled toward the ground, nearly every instinct telling him to dive after her, to drive the bitch into the ground, but the part of his mind that trusted Sabine calmed the battle lust in him, and he focused on her, letting her do what she must.

Rose ascended up into the air again, readying another attack without thinking to question why he wasn't on top of her the moment she'd landed. All she could think of was making him pay for her humiliation, and so, she called to herself a spell of immense power, meant to rip his body apart with a combination of teleportation and holy fire. A scroll appeared in her hands, and she pulled it open and began to read, her eyes continuing to flit between him and the arcane words in case he came at her again before she could finish.

Sabine was quicker. As soon as Derek responded to her spell, she was at his side taking his hand. "Do -not- resist," she instructed him as her gaze fell to Rose, drawing on his power to aid her own. Unlike Rose, she already had the spell she meant to use prepared, and she unleashed it on the former goddess. With a pained scream, Rose dropped the scroll from her hands and glared up at the two before her own power - and that which infected her - began to swirl around her like a cyclone. From the center of the cyclone, the swirling energies flew skyward, draining themselves from her.

After several moments, even Rose's life force was drawn up into the cyclone, and she finally dropped to the ground motionless, barely breathing. The cyclone continued to swirl in a cascade of color upward into the clouds and out of sight, scattered to the corners of the universe.

Untruth floated down to the ground, watching Rose's body, and the breath in it. He reached out to it with his powers to ensure she remained alive, once again forming a link between them, this time wholly with his own energies so that she would have no chance to corrupt it.

Sabine simply spoke quietly from his side. "She's not dead."

"No, and it's a good thing she isn't."

"I did what I had to do." Another simple statement, lacking emotion.

"She didn't know what she was doing when she let Goqua loose," he responded. "I can promise you that."

Sabine nodded. "She didn't know where that power surge came from either, nor did she care. In fact, whatever It did to her blinded her to the severity of her actions."

Derek turned to Sabine, giving her his focus again. "I know. She's a dangerous pet, but I prefer her to an animal."

"And now, she is barely an animal. I stripped her of -all- of her power, not just Goqua's."

Derek nodded. "I suppose this means our enemy is on the move?"

"I'm not sure what the purpose of this was, but yes, 'on the move' is a good way to put it."

With a wave of his hand, Rose was teleported to his room while the compound, itself, was already reforming around them where they stood in the courtyard. "And what is our next move then? This thing came after me, after what is MINE, in MY HOME."

"If I knew what It meant to gain by this, I'd have an answer for you. It isn't here, and I'll need to go home to gather what I need to see if It's in this world now."

"And I have damage to undo."

Sabine lingered for a moment, turning to look up at him. "I think it's safe to say that It had no purpose beyond loosing her with the ability to do her worst and the drive to do so. I think -she- was the target, and she chose -you- as her target."

"And she'll be punished for that, and so will It when the day comes and It decides to take a form. I'll be waiting to put my fist down It's throat and rip It apart piece by piece."

All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One

“I'm so sorry, Derek,” Rose whispered in her dark, cramped prison. “Please, believe me.”

She'd pleaded and begged as he called her a liar, punishing her for her part in whatever was going on out in the 'real world' beyond her enforced imprisonment. She'd never seen him so angry – not even when Raene had returned her to him after her attempt to escape.

As her mind turned to Raene with a renewed disgust and hatred, Rose felt something that seemed to fill her, prodding that hatred into a hot rage that grew exponentially. With that unspeakable rage came power – something not her own but that leapt to her command and drove her forward. Without interest in questioning it, she focused everything within her to teleport away from her prison, into the world waiting above, and a cruel grin found her lips. “Payback time.”

Hovering above Untruth's compound, she sensed his absence – particularly in his bawdy 'throne room' – hardly capable of rational thought. All she wanted was revenge, and now, she would get it. With a flick of her wrist, the roof over the throne room ignited in the magical equivalent of napalm, burning it away quickly until there was a hole large enough for her to slip through, wrapped in shadow that kept her unseen. She watched as Untruth's men poured into the room, trying in vain to stop the flames as they spread and ate away everything in their way with a wicked self-satisfied smile.

The first of her prey appeared to answer the alarm set up by the minions – Derek's first wife, Raene, who began throwing force fields around the fires to keep them from spreading and shouting orders to the men. Rose teleported to the space just behind Raene, an athame appearing in her hand so that, as Raene sensed her arrival and turned toward her, she sunk the dagger into the woman's side and drew it across her stomach, gutting her.

Rather than take the time to gloat over the woman's body, Rose moved quickly now, teleporting to the compound's medi-port unit, disabling it with more of the arcane fire. Normally, she could only accomplish such a powerful spell after gathering the energy to wield it, but today, it was as though it waited in her fingertips, ready at a moment's notice. It felt as though she wasn't just wielding that power, but she was infused with it, driven to use it by anger and viciousness she'd always controlled.

With another thought, she was standing outside a bedroom door, unseen by the occasional groups of men who ran by to respond to the alarms coming from all over the compound. She knew Lyria was inside, alerting Derek telepathically to the trouble. Good. She couldn't wait to see him and make him pay further. The door before her flew open, and before Lyria could have a chance to react, Rose's hand extended toward her, wrapping her in dark magic, holding her in place. Stepping up to the helpless woman, Rose raised her hand to lay her palm to her forehead and unleashed a powerful spell within her mind, breaking down the order within until her nightmares ran rampant. As Lyria's body slumped to the floor, Rose spit a curse down at her. “You were supposed to be MINE.”

After leaving Lyria's room, Rose began to float silently down hallways, setting random fires at her whim or disabling one of Derek's men when they were unfortunate enough to run across her, until she came to a corridor she didn't remember existing when she used to be a visitor to the buildings. Curious, she made her way down the hall, eventually coming across a room guarded by two men – a barbarian and a...knight?

Careful to remain out of sight in the shadows, she conjured a dozen shadows that solidified into men, sending them into combat against the odd guards to keep them occupied as she teleported into the room beyond. A young girl with raven curls turned toward Rose the instant she appeared in the room and snarled, throwing a fireball at the once goddess that was easily absorbed by her protections. Rose regarded the girl with an evil smile.

“Oh, I can see why he likes you,” Rose laughed, surrounding the girl with the same kind of shadows that held Lyria in place. “What to do, what to do? I hate just doing the same thing twice. Seems lazy, don't you think?”

Kyra struggled against the binding shadows as she narrowed her eyes at the woman in front of her. Another shot of fire flew from her toward her tormentor, only to be absorbed yet again. With an inhuman twist of her grin, Rose nodded.

“Wonderful idea, pet.” she cooed before enshrouding her in the magic flames, burning the girl's flesh and eating away her clothing.

Satisfied, Rose teleported out of the room to hover above the compound once again, dropping another flame here and there as she waited for Untruth to arrive. She couldn't wait to give him what he deserved.

The dilemma

“So build another trap.”

Sabine near growled her frustration. It had been infuriating enough that Lara Damon hadn't shown up at the meeting she'd convened to discuss this threat, but to have to repeat the arguments held there was enough to require nearly all her control not to just lash out at the small-minded twit. “I will, but it will take more time than we have before it arrives.”

“Just go get the one Jade used! It can't be that hard for you, the grand mistress of Magic for all of Vislandia! You always did call him a hack, if I remember correctly,” snipped Lara, her deep blue gaze reflective of the contempt she'd always held for Sabine.

“That contraption imploded the day it was used,” came the carefully worded response. Lara would do her no good if she couldn't get her to go do the task she'd given her. “It took Jade years to find the components, each one an artifact of great power, enchanted to execute a specific task. Not only did they have to work together at the moment of entrapment, but they couldn't, in layman's terms, explode when constructed! He had more worlds to draw from and a more magical world on which to create it!”

“And you have Vahlis and Lia!” shouted Lara in her own mounting irritation.

“No, I don't!” Sabine countered, losing control of her temper finally, shouting just as loudly. “The moment I told her it was coming, she closed the portal! Vahlis isn't accessible by order of the gods, especially to a world that is about to be home to one of the most dangerous kind of demigods ever to exist! Unlike Earth, it is protected by its gods, and now, I'm just as trapped here as you've chosen to be!”

Stunned into silence, Lara regarded the mage almost with a sort of sympathy. While there was no love lost between them, they'd always understood the other's position, and to cut Sabine off from the very world she'd called home must have been the worst kind of punishment. Lara, herself, could survive on any world and never could resist the urge to wander. Quietly, anger gone, she had no choice but to acquiesce. “You think he'll target this world's Angel?”

“Almost certain,” Sabine responded curtly. “As much as I'd happily sacrifice her, it's imperative that we know exactly who It chooses as Its vessel. If it isn't one of these people who have traces of Its power, then it'll be someone who can get to them.”

“I'll watch her,” Lara relented. “If I remember how this goes, it won't be long before he's made his presence known. He likes games with ever-changing rules and lots of betrayal and blood. Without a way to capture him...”

Sabine nodded. “Yes. This is just the beginning.”

Loss

Sheridan studied the man before her with a cold expression that would worry the savviest poker player. He was atypical for a bounty hunter, sporting an expensive 3 piece suit on his six foot, medium build frame, clean-shaven, and steel-eyed. She knew this would not be one of the usual simple fights that generally ended up with her pursuer in the hospital or dead while she was long gone. No. This was going to be...fun.

“I don't think you look like a Cynthia,” he said with a bit of teasing in his deep, clear tone that reminded her of those sexy baritone jazz voices she liked so much. If this guy wasn't so clearly dangerous, she'd already be trying to get him into bed. “You look like a Sheridan to me.”

Her suspicions confirmed, the demonic shadows that to this point were simply waiting with her sprung to life, encircling her, infusing themselves with her, anticipating the gun before she ever saw it. With a lightning-quick leap, she was behind the bar before he could get the shot off, and with the sound, the music in the club stopped as people screamed and ran for the exits.

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With a sly grin, Sheridan rolled off of him and left the bed. She'd been right about how much fun the fight itself would be, and the sex after was almost as good. With a lazy flick of her hand, the shadows gathered her strewn clothing and settled it in the bathroom as she stopped just at the door to turn back and look at the bed.

“Don't overstay your welcome, Samuel,” she said in a soft, almost tender way, giving him a playful grin. She knew he'd be gone by the end of her shower. They always were. If the fight hadn't shown them that they were out-classed, the sex was a more than satisfactory trade-off for the lost bounty and often bruised ego.

In the end, though, they meant nothing. In fact, of late, it seemed like everything was nothing. Ever since she'd gained control of the demonic entities that once enslaved her, she'd enjoyed everything her new-found freedom could afford her. She took jobs that she knew she shouldn't be able to walk away from. She partied hard. She drank too much. Her bed was rarely empty. She'd made a mint and spent it.

None of it meant anything. She'd already lost love more times than any woman should have to. She'd pushed away any meaningful friendships she'd had. She was lost in the darkness that the demons were, and she welcomed the sense of oblivion they brought. In being given control over them, she'd been influenced by them more than ever before. Why not? She no longer had to fight their control, so of course, she'd let them in. After all, they'd at least remained constant in her life when no one else would be.

Well...when Jadzia wouldn't be.