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Hell had broken loose worse than a Rakdos riot, and Gideon and Chandra found themselves in the middle of it. Back to back they smote foes with fire and light, a perfect team as the eternals surrounded them.
This didn't mean that they were in the clear just yet. There seemed to be no end to the dreadhorde, and Chandra found herself feeling taxed.
"Ugh, come on! I can't stay here, I gotta get to Dovin!" She whined, frustration clearly present in her tone.
"Focus Chandra!" Gideon said, his blade chopping off the head of an unfortunate eternal. "We'll get out of this mess soon enough, but we need to be patient!"
Chandra gritted her teeth and growled in frustration. Easy for him to say with his fancy sword and invulnerability. Her hands were getting far too hot and she didn't know how much longer she could keep this up. She was about to blast another eternal for getting too close when to her surprise, a familiar blue-robed mind-mage gave it a nasty right hook. Funny, she didn't remember him having that in him.
"Jace!" She exclaimed, relaxing her stance a bit. "Took you long enough. Where have you been?"
From behind her, a voice said, "It's a long story." She yelped and turned around, surprised to see another version of him creating more illusions of himself. This was probably the real one. Maybe. "I'll maybe tell it later, but for now you guys need help."
He kept making illusions to distract the eternals and turned to Gideon and Chandra when he finally had made enough to give them a rest.
"You have my thanks, Jace," Gideon said with relief. "If it weren't for you, who knows how long we'd have been there."
"Yeah thanks! Now I can go pay Dovin a good, old-fashioned Kaladeshian visit." Chandra said while punching her palm.
"Wait, before you do that, we're not out of danger," Jace said, blocking her path with his arm. Chandra was about to get indignant until Jace said, "If my prediction is correct, we're gonna have a visitor in 3… 2...."
"Well well! Have you changed your mind on my offer yet, Guildpact?" Said a loud, husky, yet raspy voice from over Jace's shoulder. "After all, you did a wonderful job of grabbing my attention."
"Just as I thought…" Jace said with a smirk.
Gideon was less enthusiastic about his prediction. "Dear Gods, is that a Medusa?" He got into a fighting stance to accentuate his point. Chandra also seemed a bit frightened and her hair blazed with renewed intensity.
"A Gorgon, actually," Jace said, surprisingly calm at the situation. "Do not fear, I can handle this."
Gideon almost sputtered his protests, "I… wha… are you… sure Jace?" Jace had already started to slowly approach the new foe, and Gideon almost thought his question went on deaf ears.
"You know what, Vraska? That's exactly what I came here to do!" Jace shouted back, holding up his arms to show that he meant no harm.
Chandra and Gideon's eyebrows shot up and they both gave each other a concerned look. Vraska also raised one eyebrow in skeptic curiosity.
"Oh? Finally come to your senses, Beleren?" She replied in an almost haughty tone. "Well I'm afraid that it's too little, too late. Bolas has me under orders to make sure his plans run flawlessly, and I know for a fact that he wants you dead." She began to charge her petrification magic and her eyes started to feel that familiar warm glow.
Though oddly enough, Jace didn't look away. 'This Jace is probably another illusion…' she thought.
After a light chuckle, Jace shouted back, "Aw come on Vraska! There's no need to be so...." He dropped his arms to emphasize his next word, "Belligerent."
Vraska felt her magic sputter. There's no way. It wasn't possible. She made sure to use every assassins trick in the book to cover her tracks. How did he know the name of her ship?
"You have 3 seconds to explain yourself before I turn you into Bolas' next paperweight."
Jace only laughed and started to… derobe? "Now now, there's no need to be so cold, Vraska. After all, it's like I said. I wanted to join forces with you!" At this point he left his discarded robe on the ground. "Well, more like RE-join forces with you…"
Gideon and Chandra were utterly confused at the situation. Gideon had his head tilted like a dog and Chandra had to be careful not to catch flies with how slack-jawed she was.
"J… Jace?" Chandra asked, confusion gone and fear replacing her tone. This was extremely uncharacteristic of him.
Vraska also looked notably uncomfortable and confused. He started working at the belts on his shirt. "I have no time for this, Guildpact! Another step and I'll petrify you where you stand!" Her threat seemed hollow even to herself, because she started to notice just how chiseled Jace's muscles looked.
Jace was smirking at this point, which didn't help Vraska's focus. What in the world was going on?! Why did that smile seem… flirtatious?! He only laughed and said, "Look, you and I both know how this will go. Well, sort of. You don't have it in you." At this point, he had taken out his rather… strong looking tattooed arm from out of his sleeve. Vraska couldn't help but follow the lines of his tattoo up and around the muscles on his arms.
Gideon and Chandra were simply shocked at this point. Chandra asked, "Hey Gids… did you and Jace ever actually do those exercises you always wanted him to try?" Chandra noted how Jace's shoulder muscles moved as he lowered his now free arm.
"N… no… we never did…" Gideon said, suddenly feeling… was this self-consciousness?!
Vraska was losing control of the situation. She had to calm down. Clearly this was some kind of bluff. Jace was tricky, so there was no way that this wasn't some kind of illusion. She tried to collect herself and refocus her magic by saying, "Hmph! Bold words, Beleren!" She quickly strode towards him, her magic almost charged. Jace was reaching to take off his other sleeve, but Vraska was going to put a stop to all this. "But not very bold if they're said by an Illusion!" For emphasis, she tried to shove him with an open hand.
Only to be stopped by a very real, very solid, and VERY distracting pectoral muscle. He didn't even budge at the force of her push. She froze. Something was wrong. Jace was supposed to be a pasty-paper-pusher. He couldn't seriously have been hiding all this for all these years.... right?
"Gods above, that's actually Jace?!" Gideon nearly shouted, causing Chandra to yelp. Vraska also jumped at the sound and felt the warmth from her eyes migrate down to her cheeks. She took a step back. Jace took one step forward. He was almost done taking of his other sleeve, and Vraska swore she saw a bit of a six-pack sticking out from under his now loosely hanging top.
"Come on Vraska, take it easy, It's like I said," Jace said, throwing his shirt off to the side and now completely topless. "I'm just here to re-join forces with you."
Honestly, petrifying Jace wouldn't have done him justice. Not even a master sculptor from Theros could capture his likeness. Unimpeded by a flimsy shirt, Vraska had clear view of Jace's nearly washboard abs. She almost found herself putting her hands up to cover her face from the ridiculousness of it all.
However, Jace's expression softened and he tenderly reached for Vraska's hand with his own. Vraska, nearly petrified herself, found herself trusting him and oddly enough seemed to relax a bit. Had she finally jumped off the deep end?
"Jace, what's going on?" She said, inching just a bit further back, "Why do you want to "re-join" forces?"
He simply smiled and said back, "Because I promised I would." He then gave a light bow with his other arm and said, "My Captain…"
All at once, a sledgehammer collided with Vraska's head, and she found herself having the worst migraine she'd ever experienced in her life. Flashes of her journey after coming to a white island off the coast of Ixalan and threatening a scrawny looking mind-mage up until a tearful and emotional goodbye near the Immortal Sun played in stunning realism. She nearly collapsed and felt what she could only describe as a mind version of herself being pulled up by her waist and floating as if on a Rakdos puppet string. She could only watch as her adventure on Ixalan, her TRUE adventure on Ixalan, played back in snippets.
Once her mind started to calm down, and her headache subsided a bit. Vraska found herself staring at the ground. A bit confused, she glanced around and found that a rather muscular arm was keeping her from breaking her nose on the stone below. She looked up and found a rather sheepish looking Jace who said, "Sorry I took so long, Captain."
She nearly jumped out of his arm, whispering some colorful Brazen Coalition curses before dusting off her Queen's gown and saying, "You are such a piece of Maaka scat!"
Jace put his hand behind his head and said, "Sorry Captain, but I had to be sure you wouldn't try to petrify me. This was the most logical way I could think of doing that."
Vraska crossed her arms and gave him a terse look. Jace only shrunk a bit more before straightening and saying, "Oh, that's right! I haven't introduced you to my friends!" He walked over to a pair of shocked looking statues who were looking right at the two of them. "Captain, this is Gideon and Chandra, members of the Gatewatch. Gideon, Chandra, meet Vraska: Queen of the Golgari, and Captain of the Belligerent."
They didn't answer, and instead just kept staring. Unblinking. Vraska had seen some disturbing things in her life, but even this gave her a bit of a shudder.
"They'll come around," Jace said, making his way towards his discarded robe and shirt. At this point, his illusions had done a good job of tricking the dreadhorde into attacking themselves enough to clear out the immediate area. "Now come on. We've got a war to end."
Vraska smirked and said, "Alright… but you're paying for the coffee and book now."
He shrinked a bit and said, "Aw come on, really?"
She softened her gaze and said, "You're right, that was silly of me." Her face then hardened and she said, "Coffee and TWO books."
Jace could only sigh and say, "Aye, Captain."