Heroes: Shadows over Millenium

[B4UTRUST]

Kyosuke kept his weapon leveled at the shadow dragon.
"You have no clue do you. Are you that ignorant of your own self that you don't know? That is no place between shadows. No shadow ever held so much pain and suffering. I ask again quite literally, where in the eight hells did you just take us?"

[LadyTevar]

"And I tell you ... again," Argent answered, her silver dragon-eyes narrowing with obvious annoyance. " .. that I do not know." Her head turned away from him, the eyes hooding as she worked to get her anger under control. "Once I thought it might be my father's realm... I was mistaken." Not all her emotions were able to be hidden. A hint of what she felt escaped, while farther away Saibot was feeling much more of it, as Lei tried to deal with emotions from her childhood.

For she had thought it was her father's realm when she first entered it. She had been ten, looking for a way to escape her attic prison, if only for a night. She had returned as often as she could, trying to search that great Between, looking for her father and mother. The disappointment, hurt, and betrayal when she realized the emptiness of that place, that the great heartbeat was only the echo of her own heart; those emotions still boiled inside her, and that was what she fought off now.

"I brought you here for a reason, Kyosuke-san." she stated harshly. "Are you using this as an excuse to back out? Shall I return you to the apartment, then?"

[B4UTRUST]

Kyosuke's eyes narrowed.
"I am not backing out, nor do I apprecite the insinuation that I am. I do, however, have issue with being drug through some nether realm without warning.

"Now before I have second thoughts about continuing this endevour, show me what it is that you wish to show me."

[LadyTevar]

"this was not the first time I have taken you there, Demonhunter...." Lei replied, more than a bit testily. "or have you forgotten yesterday this soon?" One wing swept out, pointing to the wreckage of the building. "This is the building I spoke of, that Abaddon tried to bring down on our heads. He climbed out of it, only to die on top of the ruins. I will say no more until you have had a chance to investigate."

[B4UTRUST]

"Yesterday consisted of transfering from one floor of a building to another,not across the city. What was a brief second in that place vs several..."

Kyosuke turned and looked at the ruins. Police tape crisscrossed at various points, endevouring to keep people out of the rubble to avoid them getting hurt. He moved closer to the ruins, opening his mind to that sense that seemed to throb in the prescense of the spiritual.

He moved under the caution tape and started making his way to the top of the rubble. Towards the top the rubble sunk inwards, revealing a pit down to the ground, the final stand of Abaddon.

Hopping down into the pit he dropped to his knees and brushed his fingertips over the ground. His eyes closed and he concentrated. It was like a different set of colors overlaid over the actual ones. The dark reds and forest greens were bloted out by a core of blackness in which resided a tinge of grey and festering white. Malice, anger, lust for power, negative spirituality, disease and the taint of the artificial. The colors swam together and around each other but they told him what he needed to know. The feel was right, the colors were right. It was a demon, of sorts.

He crawled back out of the hole and made his way back down the pile of rubble to the waiting dragon.
"You are correct concerning Abaddon. To an extent at least. It was a demon, but only partly so I believe. This... disturbs me with its meaning. I've seen it before, in bound weapons and artifacts. But to do what you describe means it was bound to a person..."

[LadyTevar]

"As I said... there were runes upon his body that hurt to look upon." Lei answered, having yet to shift out of her dragonshape. The time he had taken to investigate Lei had used to get control of her own emotions, and was once again nuetrally polite when she spoke to him.

"If you wish to continue to the Astronomer's base, I will once again have to teleport between," she politely warned him. "It will be a journey of two heartbeats."

[B4UTRUST]

"Very well. Lets see this Astronomer's lair."
Kyosuke steeled himself for the voyage in between, wherever exactly that was. He didn't know exactly but he knew he didn't care for it.

[LadyTevar]

Once again, she gently stretched out her wing to cradle him, and dove inside the nearest shadow, taking them once again between. Nothing seemed to change there, no true sounds but the beating of the great heart Argent claimed was her own, no light but that which shown fro her body and eyes, fading as she moved along. If there was land or water here, it did not reflect her silver glow, or was too far away to be touched by it.

She emerged with him inside the Astronomer's base, in a hallway. Since there was less room here, the dragonform dissipated, revealing her human form. "To our right is the torture chamber," she said, nodding down the hallway with her chin. "To the left, the altarroom."

[B4UTRUST]

Kyosuke nodded as he stepped away from the shadows once more. This trip hadn't been as long but it was long enough to make him uncomfortable. He really really didn't care for her method of travel.

He turned to the left and then to the right. He felt that the altar room would probably be the best bet to find any traces of the infernal. He moved off in that direction, letting his mind open again to his surroundings. He was very much glad that he couldn't feel the lingering emotions prevailent in this place. Argent had told him enough about what had happened here, he had no desire to feel it. Even without empathy the faint smells that hung in the air told him things he didn't wish to know. This was not a nice place at all.

He made his way to the altar room. He entered the doorway. He stood alone in the darkened room. The pungent stench of mildew eminated from the wet stone walls. The door hung by a single hinge, part of it broken from where someone had burst through it. Blood, dried dark and brown stained the floor. Pools here and there, splatters across the wall and floor.

He made his way over to the altar itself, crusted blood and other unmentionable gore and viscera, thick upon it. He once more closed his eyes and reached out. The aura overlaid on his vision, revealing to him what he needed to know.

He opened his eyes and flicked his hand out, sending a splatter of gore off of him. He turned and made his way back to the shadow dragon.

[LadyTevar]

Truthfully, Argent was not that far behind him. She did not want to be alone in this place, there was too much in the walls that had her jumpy and uncomfortable. "Have you seen enough, Kyosuke-san?"

[B4UTRUST]

"I think I have. Unless there is something else you think I should see. The Astronomer, whatever he may have been, was not a demon. The man was indeed up to something, but it was not the infernal."

[LadyTevar]

There was a slight look of disappointment on her face. "Then it was purely human evil he did here...."

She shook her head, brushing away thoughts. "If you wish, I'll return you to your apartment, and we can discuss Abaddon more there."

[B4UTRUST]

"Purely human evil is often times infinitely worse then anything those that exist beyond could come up with. Every one of the written hells is our own evils turn against us. To look disappointed at stopping such vileness is not appropriate.

"But let us return. And quickly, please. The less time spent in between the better."

[LadyTevar]

Argent nodded, then assumed her dragonshape to teleport him back to his quarters.

It took three heartbeats to travel the distance, flying/swimming thru the darkness between, then they were back where they had left, in his living room.

[B4UTRUST]

"You know... I am never going to like that particular method of travel..."

He sat down on the floor in the lotus position and looked up at her.
"Alright. Let us discuss Abaddon."

[LadyTevar]

"I am sorry to hear that. Perhaps you might tell me what the problem is, instead of threatening me with your sword and yelling at me next time..." Argent answered wryly. "But yes... Abaddon. Do you want to feel what I felt upon seeing him rise out of the building that day?"

[B4UTRUST]

"We'll discuss your methodology of transporation later. It's not a pressing problem.

"I'm not sure I need to feel Abaddon at this point. Abaddon is an enigma. The only way to describe what I see is as an aura, but that's not entirely correct either. It's coloring and feeling and knowing. And what I saw from the traces of Abaddon left at the ruin... it troubles me. Stories from all over the world tell tales of wonderous artifacts and powerful weapons bound with spirits. Things that man has sought to merge with the power of beings from beyond our realm.

"Likewise there are equal number of stories of possession by demons and foul spirits. Hapless initiates into dark arts who try to take on to much, unwholesome souls that are ripe for the plucking.

"This, this was different. Abaddon was, is both. Abaddon, the demon, is a seperate entity from what you fought I believe. I want to say it was a demon host, a person posessed by the demon. But that isn't exactly it. The person wanted to be possessed, was coursing with the desire for the power that was brought. But this too isn't everything. It doesn't explain the artificial. Corruption doesn't cause that, and even Abaddon's taint couldn't darken it. If it were possible, I would suggest a homunculus, but I feel that the person themselves were changed. Why, or how, I don't know. But it was not natural."

[LadyTevar]

"Which sums up what I -felt- around him elegantly." Argent answered with a sigh. "Unfortunately, unless there is a way for you to arrange to see what is left of the body, I do not know where to go from here. .. or why touching Blackheart's Other made me think of Abaddon."

[B4UTRUST]

"Do not ask me about the body. I'm just on loan here. I have no authority over anything, much less the ability to order up bodies.

"As for Blackheart... my feelings on his "Other" are clear."

[LadyTevar]

"You believe he has a demon inside him. And I ... " Argent answered softy. "After what I felt of it... Mindless, full of hate, malice, and a lust for killing ... I cannot disagree." She rubbed her forehead. "Blackheart did not believe you ... mainly because you told him no more than what he already knew. There is something inside him, and it's trying to take him over. Whether he will believe it is a demon is unclear .. and I do not know if he will believe me should I say that now."

Her hand dropped to her side as she frowned slightly. "Yet ... now... I cannot shake the idea that there is a reason for all these demons to appear now. In eight years, I had never touched another that was even half-demon, but now I have encountered two in as many weeks." Her black-on-black eyes look at him wryly. "As well as a DemonHunter..."

[B4UTRUST]

He caught her eyes and stared right back.
"Are you implying something about my sudden arrival?"

[SirNitram]

Gravitas was dressing, and while he started to put on his eufiber three-peice, the glowing emblems somehow a part of his skin were pulsing softly in time with his heartbeat. The occult signifigance of no less than three powerful binding spells literally etched into his skin was lost on Blast, and hopefully on the medical officials who had seen him.

"You've got a good heart, kid." He said, buttoning his undershirt. "You've only known him for a while, and you were ready to do something crazy for him. We're coming together in all the right ways." He cracked his neck absently.

"What Blackheart faces is just sort of a blown-up, in-your-face version of what we all face. His powers.. Or at least, the source of them.. Will irrevocably change him. He's at peace with this. But the nasty truth? It changes all of us. Even you, as you grow into your powers and older, will find yourself changing from what you have that others don't."

"They talk about Tarot.. You know his power has changed him. No connection to the spacetime continuum, he loses connection with people. Why should he, I suppose he thinks, when they'll turn to dust in a few measly centuries." Gravitas shrugs. "Maybe people think I see things the same way, with the 'God' stuff. But I'm interconnected.. I feel everything in existance. It changed me. We can't guess how our powers will change us.. 'Cept maybe to know it'll be with us."

[LadyTevar]

"Tarot has a way of arranging things..." Argent answered, her mouth twisting. "The last time he arranged for something to happen, it nearly killed Saibot and I both. Yet, before we could have a talk with him about it... he has vanished to Japan, and sent you here."

She shook her head, her eyes closing briefly. "I do not mean to accuse you of anything, Kyosuke-san. Yet I cannot deny that there have been far too many coincidences. Demons, gods, man or meta... Something has pulled threads, woven fate."

[frigidmagi]

"Do we have any control over that change? I mean, is there any choice at all?" Blast asked eyeing the symbols.. One or two looked faintly Catholic, there was cross and a Latin phrase or so he thought he saw. One looked like it was in Arabic, the rest looked downright pagan he thought suppressing a shudder.

[SirNitram]

"We have free will." Gravitas replied, shrugging a bit. "We choose our actions. Our personalities may change.. But our actions remain our own." He caught the shudder. "Sorry," He muttered. "I try to keep these covered up. Long story. With luck, you won't notice them again."