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This was not going as planned.
Crowded streets all cleared away
One by one
Hollow heroes separate
As they run
The main street of Onyx was deserted of anything that could remotely be called “alive” - only a few brave souls peered out between chunks of black rough-hewn basalt.
Qismet stood at one end, in his dove-gray and black leathers, hood thrown back. The Corona Coronet - a thin orichalcum circlet carved with sunbursts and rays, given by the Unconquered Sun himself - shone brightly at his brow, shedding golden light in all directions. Anguish and Agony, his paired short soulsteel daiklaves, lay restlessly in his grasp, hungry.
“Quinn! Don’t do this. Please. You still have a choice -” Qismet’s voice echoed hollowly down the street, skittering across the rounded cobbles.
At the far end, two men waited. One in gleaming robes and armor of liquid silver, his face hidden behind a swept-back helmet. His gauntleted hand rested lightly on the shoulder of the other, shorter figure. The second wore light leathers of bone white, grimy and torn, except for the splash of bloody crimson across his chest and dripping from the eyeholes of his featureless mask.
The Silver nodded to the other and left, walking up the hill to the Fortress.
“That is not my name,” said Quinn long moments later, in a whisper that rasped across the distance between them, grating in Qismet’s ears. “There is no other option.”
You're so cold
Keep your hand in mine
Wise men wonder while
Strong men die
Qismet had dropped and rolled before the first flicker of Sorcery left Quinn’s open hand, avoiding the fusillade of razor edged obsidian shapes. Agony flashed violet, shattering the few that would have impacted on Qismet’s skull. Anguish keened as the other blade swept upward from the tumble, catching on the wrist of a necrotech construct as it dropped from the roof of a nearby building, fists aiming for the Night Caste.
Lumbering hulks suddenly filled the street - bigger than Gin, with twice the anger issues and a quarter the intelligence - they turned as one and focused on Qismet. Quinn’s eyes glowed crimson far down the road: from his hands flashed hair thin sorcerous threads of sanguine essence. Qismet’s former circlemate made a puppetmaster’s finger contortions.
The necrotech creatures began stomping towards him.
Show me how it ends
It's alright
Show me how defenseless
You really are
Satisfied and empty inside
That's alright
A wash of essence - the colors of false dawn, the flavors of night after a hard rain - flooded Qismet’s system. His vision shifted and the path through the monsters lit up; eddies of light like the glow in a ship’s wake at midnight. He felt the Sun’s music wake in his flesh and he was dancing through them, each beat of the song echoed by the clang of his swords.
He ran up the back of one; Anguish bit through the threads of sorcery and the creature collapsed into a pile of bones and pieces of armor. Another snatched him off its fellow’s falling corpse. Its hand wrapped Qismet’s torso in a steel grip, squeezing his arms to his body.
Qismet growled. His anima flared, obscuring him in a flash of gold-lined indigo light. The hulk screamed - a brassy, mechanical screech - and pawed at its face, dropping the Solar. Qismet vanished down a side street under the cover of his anima eagle’s wide-spread wings.
Let's give this another try
If you find your family
Don't you cry
In this land of make believe
Dead and dry
“Qismet...”
His former friend paused, hands still and quiet in front of him. The hulks’ bullet heads swiveled back and forth, seeking their prey. “Qismet, you won’t win. Give in to Oblivion, save yourself some pain...”
Agony flashed out from an alley and embedded itself in the skull plates of a hulk. Two left.
The Night Caste leapt out after his blade and drew it from the beast. A wisp of a soul followed it, curling up the blade and caressing his cheek. Thank you, brother... It said, before blowing away, dissolving into the winds of Lethe. Qismet stopped, startled, catching familiar feminine features of his sister in the spirit’s face.
“Quinn! That was my family?!” He pointed Anguish down the street at the Deathknight, ignoring the hulks beginning to advance on him again. His anima shrieked in anger and grief.
“All available weapons must be used against a dangerous enemy.” Quinn’s hands moved again; one of the remaining hulks picked up a piece of metal shrapnel and brandished it in huge swipes at the Night Caste. “Mental and emotional attacks can prove as efficacious as physical pain.”
You're so cold
But you feel alive
Lay your hands on me
One last time
Qismet danced down the street, running up walls and flipping between roofs. Dropping down on one of the last hulks, he cut off its connection to its maker with a flick of Anguish.
The last one waited until he was nearly on top of it, opening its mouth and vomiting vile blackness at the Solar. The acid bit through his leathers. Qismet hissed in pain and Agony keened as they bounced off the hulk’s chest and charged Quinn.
Quinn never moved, never took his eyes off the Night Caste. A tornado of silver and black essence sprang up around him; a shield of necrotic essence between them. The deathknight flicked his fingers and threads of sanguine sorcery flashed, wrapping Qismet’s limbs like one of his own puppets. His charge ended as his former friend pulled his feet out from under him, sending him into a skidding, tumbling fall, his limbs locked into place.
“Quinn. Let me go - let me go you too-clever-for-your-own-good bastard. For Tris’ sake - Quinn!” Qismet struggled against the sorcery, his teeth gritted in a frozen snarl.
“That. Is. Not. My. NAME--” The Deathknight made a fist-closing jerking gesture and Qismet flew across the remaining space to land with a bone-jarring thud at Quinn’s feet.
“Yes, it is. Cut him--” Anguish and Agony were already in his hands; with that command, the blades screamed , the soulsteel’s voices raised in keening harmony. The blades pulsed, and pulsed, and pulsed again; a heartbeat of indigo light. On the final beat, the blades moved; flicking Qismet’s wrists. The sorcery snapped like too-tight wire, recoiling to burn Quinn’s fingertips.
Free, Qismet rolled. He hit the Deathknight at the knees and dropped him like a hung corpse. Quinn had never been his equal in a melee. Sheathing Anguish with one hand, his knees pinning Quinn’s hands to the ground, Qismet ripped off his friend’s mask.
“Fuck you,” Qismet huffed, and, pressing his hand to Quinn’s throat, triggered the charm.