Issue #84 – Darkness Falling

The Descendants Vol 7: The New World

• Issue #73 – Give Thanks
• Issue #74 – Bit Part Bad Guys
• Issue #75 – Kaiju for Christmas
• Issue #76 – Silicon Soul, Adamantine Will
• Issue #77 – Date Night
• Issue #78 – Delved Too Deep (Une Mascarade Brisée Part 1)
• Issue #79 – Tome of Secrets (Une Mascarade Brisée Part 2)
• Descendants Special #7 – The Curtain Rises
• Issue #80 – Bitter Work
• Issue #81 – Kin, Speed and Ducks
• Issue #82 – What To Do With Your Downtime
• Issue #83 – Avalon Rises
• Issue #84 – Darkness Falling
• Descendants Annual #7 – First Frost

The first Chaos Nova exploded early, all light and noise. It covered the second, which, by then, wasn’t a Chaos Nova at all anymore. In the moments before throwing it, Chaos had released the pressure at its core, rendering it back into a glob of water, albeit one with the viscosity of mud. The one flew true, the explosion making it so the Angel had no time to react before its crashed into her face, blinding her.

Chaos himself was right behind, using the tornadic winds he’d summoned to protect him from the nova’s explosion. Getting in close, he bent his powers against those of the distracted Fallen Angel, scattering the black heat she’d conjured for her wings, weapon and the designs on her skin.

Where Chaos needed his cape and a constant wind to fly, Darkness needed her black heat to negate her weight and as propulsion. Without it, she plummeted from the sky with Chaos dropping down to follow her. As the ground below rushed up to smite her, Chaos pulled with his powers and the stream gurgling past the burial mound rose up faster and thanks to density control, far softer.

The Angel hit the rising column of water in a frothy spray, only to be deposited non-too gently, but not seriously damaged on the muddy stream bank. The water, however failed to run off her body and instead clung like jelly. Too late, she felt the chill.

Water, held in place by Chaos became ice as Zero emerged from the woods, drawing the heat out of it to replenish her depleted reserves.

Face a mask of rage, the Angel let loose with an inhuman shriek along with a burst of black heat the flash-boiled the ice from around her. “Fool! The one commands what lurks beyond perception: the heat and void that does not touch this world. And I am an instrument to defeat the mistress of the Air and Darkness. Did you presume that ice could truly confine me?”

“Wow. Pompous villain speech and everything. I was expecting it from that Tang guy, but sure, let’s do this.” The Angel turned to face the source of the voice only to be bowled over and knocked back into the stream by the pounce of a golden-furred tiger.

At the same time, crawling sensations roved up and down her spine and through her skull. In the moment, she realized that the tiger was but a distraction from a two-pronged mental attack. With a grunt f exertion and a beam of black heat, she blasted the big cat off her and rolled to a crouch, unerringly picking out Ephemeral and Hope watching her from the top of the mound.

“A valiant effort, but attacking this one’s mind from the material or the astral has no effect on me.” She punctuated that by raking the top of the mound with a wrist-thick ray of black heat that sent the pair scrambling away.

She didn’t get time to follow up on the attack before the air was torn by a scream that almost drove her to her knees in pain. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the gold tiger withdrawing just as a figure in blue closed, wielding a taser. Black heat welled up over her left arm and formed a round shield that neatly blocked the taser as she turned. The move bought her time to reconstruct her glaive while Codex recovered from the block.

“There’s no reason you have to fight us.” said Codex, calm even as she extended her staff. “We’re just as committed to keeping Maeve from attacking this world as you; we just don’t want to see anyone die who doesn’t have to.”

“You have no idea how many have died already that wouldn’t have if not for ignorant or avaricious dullards.” snarled the Angel. “You have not heard their screams. You have not watched the sky snow frozen blood. Had you, then you would have a different view on who ‘has’ to die.”

Leveling the glaive, she lunged. “Dark Dr—” She broke off in a shrill scream of shock as a kali stick took her in the back of the knee, sending her crumpling to a knee and barely had time to parry a blow aimed for her temple.

Grand Dodger parried in return as she swung the glaive at him. “I’m partial to what the shapeshifter thinks of all these speeches. Frankly, I don’t care. Plus, I’m not your friend, so I’m free to say it with a sturdy length of oak to the temple.”

The screamer, still lying on the bank of the stream where Codex set if off, was still pumping out painful noise that assailed the mystic construct, but not the humans. Even so, the Angel handily fought off Grand Dodger and Codex when she joined the fight.

Not to far away, Alloy was shaking his head in reply to a question only he could have heard. “No, guys. If I let you two cut loose, you might hurt Ms. Keyes. You’re both way too amped up after the mind control deal.” He raised the glowing sword in front of him with both hands. “Besides, if I can get this thing to actually work, it’s probably the key to solving all this. Let’s try…”

He swung Caladbolg in an overhead arc. “Light come forth!”

Nothing happened. If his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him, the tiny shard of energy between the prongs might have flickered.

“Huh. Um…” He thrust the weapon skyward. “By the power of Camelot!”

It definitely flickered that time. He wasn’t sure if that was positive or negative.

“Warrick?” Alloy turned to find Renaissance moving up beside him, her gauntlet-mounted launcher trained on the fight between the Angel and the two meleeists, which was going on a surprisingly long time thanks to the screamer’s assist. “Why aren’t you in the fight?”

“Trying to make the sword work.” he admitted. “It might sound dumb, but I thought that it might help break the spell or… whatever.”

She smiled at him. “All things considered, that’s not dumb at all.” Relaxing her stance, she stepped closer. “Thank god you’re alright though. I was so worried when I heard you got shot.”

He gave her a smile in return even though his visor hid it. “I’m good. Hungry as hell and with a taste in my mouth that’s never going to go away… but…” He didn’t know what else to add, what might reassure her, so he shrugged and tried thrusting with the sword again, this time trying, “Shikai!”

“Still.” Renaissance reached over and put a hand on his shoulder…

And the sword exploded to life.

A flurry of multicolored sparks gave way to a howling, swirling vortex of white energy shot through with a thousand flecks of color, taller than either of them. The bottom edge of it ripped up the ground, annihilating moss, dirt, stone and the screamer grenades as it continued to extend, roaring toward the three combatants in the stream.

Grand Dodger, likely aided by his precognition, rolled under a thrust of the Angel’s glaive, grabbed, Codex b the arm, and threw them both out of the way of the undulating wave of destruction. Seeing this, the Fallen Angel also leapt aside, saved mostly by Alloy raising the sword.

The vortex missed her diving form by inches, tearing into the forest beyond until it was finally raised clear of the canopy and held skyward, becoming a searingly bright beacon that pierced the heavens and likely continued on into space.

Alloy stumbled under the strain of keeping Caladbolg pointing skyward and finally sank to a knee under the downward pressure from the energy release. Without warning, the vortex guttered like a flame in a windstorm, then collapsed into a flash of multi-hued light, reverting back to the single, tear-shaped ‘flame’ form from before.”

The armored hero stared at it. “How did I do that?”

He wasn’t the only one wondering. For the third or fourth time in the fight, the Angel lifted herself from the stream. This time, her eyes were locked on Alloy and the sword. “Imperfect Caladbolg.” She muttered, seemingly struck by surprise. Then her expression hardened. “Imperfect.”

Black heat twisted up around her, forming spider-webs of lines up and down her body that thickened around her arms, legs and torso. Thrusting out her hands behind her, she unleashed twin gouts of black heat that were more like tongues of flame than beams. They pushed her forward, skimming over the ground like a rocket, aimed straight at Alloy.

Before the armored hero could react, she was in his face, conjured rocket boosters dismissed so she could use her hands on the offense. One clamped onto the wrist holding Caladbolg aloft while the other closed over the gorget covering his neck. The former twisted the capture limb painfully while the other lifted several hundred pounds of armor and the person inside off the ground. Alloy was vaguely aware of tendrils of black heat stabbing into the ground to distribute the weight—just like some powered armor did.

“Gah!” was the first word that came to Alloy’s mind. Then his mind registered what was going on and he reached up to grab the hand around his throat. There was no telling whether or not the possessed by of Darkness could actually crush his gorget or not, but he didn’t want to find out.

“M-Ms. Keyes, now would be a good time to break out of this because I don’t really want—”

The Angel hissed at him in an inhuman manner. “Drop the sword. Whatever trickery allowed you to call Imperfect Caladbolg was not enough to let you wield it. You are unworthy.”

“Guess not then.” alloy said, not really paying attention to what the Angel was saying. Instead, he was turning he sword around in his captured hand so that it pointed at the arm trying to break his wrist. “Shikai!”

Nothing happened.

“Right. That’s not even how they did it one the show…” Alloy groaned. Then he really groaned as the armor over his wrist started to give despite his powers working on it. Metal buckled and pinched around his wrist and pain started to course down his arm.

The sound of screaming metal let everyone in hearing range know that the attack had offended the sensibilities of Isp and Osp, but they were too slow to claim the right to defend their friend.

A green-clad arm swept up to break the Fallen Angel’s grip on Alloy’s arm and its owner used the leverage to turn and bury her elbow in the Angel’s stomach, knocking her away from Alloy and back into the tree line.

Isp and Osp saved face by keeping Alloy from falling while Renaissance took up a defensive stance between him and the Angel.

For her part, the Angel rolled with the throw, a move Darkness had taught most of the team, and came up conjuring a gigantic ebon claw. A gesture caused the claw to grab the nearest tree, encasing it in black heat before wrenching it out of the ground and hurling it at Renaissance and Alloy.

The tree was only in air for a few seconds, but it was more than long enough for a full blown debate to go through Renaissance’s head: She was fast enough to dodge, but she wasn’t sure if Alloy was. The twins could help, but she wasn’t sure if they saw the tree coming with her in the way. On the other hand, she was super-strong and wasn’t entirely sure of her limits. Even if she did, it wasn’t as if she knew how much the tree weighed…

And then it was too late. The tree was there and the less practical part of her had forced its way into the driver’s seat. One step forward to set herself, bend at the knees and… The bark made contact with her palms and Renaissance put all her strength into pushing up and back.

She felt herself sink into the mud, her back, no matter how nanite-enhanced straining. The tree was moving, but she also felt it pushing her back even as she tried to guide it up and over herself and Alloy.

And then that weight was gone and an explosion of splinters and flashing blades.

The midsection of the tree’s trunk simply ceased to exist as Isp and Osp stabbed trough it and then expanded into more spikes, blade and assorted sharpness than Renaissance thought possible. There were no pieces left to fall on her or Alloy larger than her palm and there weren’t even many of them. The remaining two thirds of the tree crashed to earth on either side of them; the crown end crashing into the stream while the root end bounced and rolled until it hit the mound.

The twins remained extended into dual hedges of razors and looped themselves protectively in front of Renaissance as if to make it clear that she was just as much under their protection as Alloy.

“I’m touched, boys.” Renaissance said, giving them a fond smile. At the same time, she ejected the spent, green-striped cartridge from her gauntlet and replaced it with one bearing a pink stripe. “Really. Right now though, I need an opening to take a shot at her.”

She hadn’t been entirely sure the twins could fully understand her, but a moment later, some of the spikes withdrew, leaving her an open window facing the Angel, who was once again fighting off Facsimile, who was now in the form of a huge, gold eagle, dive-bombing the possessed woman and harrying her with buffeting wings.

Renaissance took aim at her feet and opened fire with rapid shots. The Angel was so busy with Facsimile, that she didn’t even start to fend off the attack before her legs were already coated with pink goo from the capsules Renaissance was shooting at her.

One more dive from Facsimile forced her to step back into the slowly growing puddle of the stuff surrounding her. The step just kept going, as her leg slid out violently behind her. She went down on her hands and knees, but those too were quickly coated in the goo (modified cattle birthing agent) and slipped out from under her as well, sending her sprawling face-down on the ground.

“Got her.” Renaissance reported over her comm. V, wrap her up.”

While Alloy had been trying to get the sword to work, the others had merely been engaging in a stalling tactic. They came at the Fallen Angel in ones and twos to keep her off balance, but to prevent themselves from tiring out. All to buy time. Time enough for a certain speedster to get a crash course in drawing a specific magical containment system.

The Angel struggled to get up, succeeding only in covering herself more thoroughly in the goo. Meanwhile, a familiar yellow and red blur exploded from cover near the burial mound and started running a circuit around her. Dirt flew, courtesy of a sturdy tree branch she was using the scribe the necessary symbols.

Finally, in a pique of rage, the Angel engulfed herself in black heat, incinerating the offending ooze and rose.

She was too late. Vamanos skidded to a stop before her, the branch completing the outer circle encompassing the symbols of the spell.

“Apparit Barrier.” boomed the voice of Occult. Obediently, a dome of gray haze rose from the magic circle to enclose the Angel. The air hummed with energy.

Only when it had completely closed did Occult show herself, emerging from around the other side of the mound where Vamanos came from. She had the Digi-book of Reason in one hand and a set of pre-prepared runes in the other.

She met the Angel’s eye, no blinking at the unmitigated anger she found there. “If you want, you can step forward now. Darkness can leave—you can’t.”

Experimentally, the Angel reached out and pushed one hand through the barrier. It was like watching an orange being peels, only somehow inverted. The hand passed through, but something that seemed to have previously overlapped it encountered the barrier and seemed to pull away (and out of) the hand, buckling and twisting in mind-bending patterns.

She pulled her hand back with a look of shock.

“I was hoping you’d just accept that and be done with it.” Occult admitted. “But if you won’t we’ll have to do the exorcism route.”

She raised the Digi-book before her and in the same motion, broke the little ceramic tile the instant runes were written on. Glowing runic symbols appeared in the air around her and started to arrange themselves as she started to recite. “O thou which has not passed into the veil beyond the living. One who has been fettered by mortal need. I conjure thee, I conjure thee, I conjure thee…”

The Fallen Angel’s earlier shock swiftly reverted to rage and she swung her glaive on guard. “Black Drill!” The spiral of black heat drove out of the weapon and slammed the barrier, causing the hazy dome’s surface to vibrate and twist.

“Can she break out?” Vamanos asked, becoming painfully aware that she was the closest one to the irate super-being.

“Back away, just to be sure.” Codex said from where she and Grand Dodger remained on guard. “And everyone get ready in case she does. These aren’t Darkness’s usual attacks we’ve been seeing. The construct seems to know spells to enhance her use of black heat.”

The eagle that was Facsimile came in for a landing and shifted into her winged humanoid form. “Um… how is that possible? I thought her powers were one of those weird ones where no one knows how it works. How can there be spells for it?”

“How did the builders of the mound know about silicon carbide?” Codex asked, “I think that mysticism aside, the old ‘cunning’ folk knew a lot of natural science: superconductors, wave functions… and maybe even the concepts of dark matter and dark energy.”

Renaissance blinked. “Wait. Are you saying that ‘black heat’ is…”

“I don’t even know how I’d be able to prove it.” Codex cut her off. “But it stands to reason. Either way, head in the game, all.”

Occult had continued incanting the spell throughout the discussion. “By my power, I shatter your fetters.” One of the symbols in the air turned white. “By my word, I absolve your earthly concerns.” A second followed suit, both glowing more brightly. “By my strength, I break your grip!” a third symbol, forming the last point of a triangle with the others flared white as well and the three began to orbit around a central point.

“Upon the veil, I swear my strength. Exorcizamus te !”

The rotating triangle flashed once, then its colors reversed and where once was white there was now darkest black. Inky not-light burst forth in a solid, prism-shaped pulse that engulfed the dome and Fallen Angel, obscuring both from sight for a full minute in which the spell seemed to cancel out all sound.

When the exorcism finally sputtered out, Darkness was lying on the ground, face down with curls of greyish smoke rising from her.

“Alexis!” Chaos blurted out, flying down to her. E didn’t care about secret identities at the moment. There were a million Alexis-es in the world, but only one that mattered to him at the moment. He dropped down beside her and reached down tentatively to help her up. “Are you alright?”

No answer, though he was heartened when she coughed and accepted his hand to get into a sitting position. After a moment, she whispered, “Thank you.”

“As if we were going to let that thing keep it’s claws in you.” Chaos chuckled, hiving her shoulder a squeeze. He wanted to pick her up. To lift her n his arms. To kiss her. But she was obviously in a delicate state and he wasn’t about to jeopardize her healthy.

“No.” She coughed before continuing. “You misunderstand.”

The hairs stood up on the back of Ian’s neck. The inflection was all wrong even if it was Alexis’s voice. “Huh?” He asked, hoping he was mistaken.

“Thank you for making it clear to me.” Like a machine whose hydraulics weren’t working properly, she got to her feet, pushing him aside in the process. Finally, she met his eyes with a gaze of cold hatred. “The only way to preserve Caladbolg and ensure Maeve’s demise… is to sterilize Avalon.”

Wisps of black heat began to swirl around her and more started to roll out of the aether. Straightening her spine, she brought her fists together before her. “Dark. Star. Requiem.”

To Be Continued…