Koa’s eyes snapped open, and he was being dragged across the skyline of First Rite.
An arm stronger than it had any right to be launched his body into a wall of stone. Koa had barely slipped back into consciousness before finding himself flung inside somebody’s living chambers.
Dust suffused the air, and a stream of light projected down on Koa, crumpled beneath a pile of bricks. The furniture of the room would have been in no worse shape if it had been consumed and ejected from the heart of a tornado, and a corona of soot stuck to Koa’s skin as he hastily flicked a chair leg off his thigh.
His remote eyes stabilised with the return to consciousness. Two of the floating organs were placed on either side of the now trembling building, and Koa didn’t like what they saw.
In-between a maze of steadily growing branches – as if all of civilisation had abandoned earth leaving nature behind to reclaim it – a glowing tribute to the cosmos rushed to intercept Koa.
Koa somersaulted upwards, pressing his legs deep into the ceiling and causing even more damage to the infrastructure. Hanging upside down, a new wave of dust obscured the interior.
We never took a moment to consider the collateral damage to the city. Not on this scale. Memories were returning slowly to Koa now, of how he had gotten into this mess. He was bleeding and aching all over, and he was fairly sure he’d spent the last five minutes being flung around as Ash’s favourite ragdoll. We’ll flatten the very capital we’re trying to save . . .
Koa’s detached eyes saw Ash approach. His Mark flared, a jagged shard of stone erupting from his arm. His brother sped into the room, a phantom spectre on the loose, and with a scream, Koa cut down from above.
A spurt of golden liquid erupted from Ash’s shoulder, but the boy barely reacted. Instead of flinching, Ash leaned into the blow, pushing Koa through yet another wall and ignoring the tear in his muscle.
Koa failed to stifle a yelp, time seeming to move two paces ahead of where his mind lagged behind.
Don’t pass out again. He could taste blood seeping between his teeth. He’s trying to kill you! Don’t pass out–
Koa ignored how fuzzy his vision was becoming, gripping onto Ash’s wrists as his brother dragged him yet again above the dying city.
“Stopp-” He spluttered, gargling Ichor. “Ash, stop letting him control you!”
No matter how solid Koa’s grip, it was nothing to Ash. His brother discarded Koa with the same retired energy of an unamused parent putting down a clingy child. This time a blur of greens and browns smeared across the judging cerulean of the skies, as sheer force swept Koa along.
All this time, Koa’s Mark had been in play, following Vidu’s order to expend a sun’s worth of energy into creating the greatest nature reserve First Rite had ever seen. Now those entangled branches were turned against him, obstacles smashing into each one of his major limbs as he was left at the mercy of gravity.
Flickering past, Koa saw his fellow Talents fighting with Paladins clad in all black – stalks of oak their clumsy fighting place. His expansive forest became charred and withered wherever the Extinction clansmen made contact, painting an absurd tapestry of newly born nature next to freshly reaped death.
Koa allowed himself to fall, instead focusing his efforts on commanding the oversized trees to move. They obeyed his call, first diverging open like the mouth of mother natural widening to swallow him whole, before snapping back into their original places. Koa surged an extra wave of energy through each branch, forcing them to spike out and expand into a ceiling of oak that covered him completely.
In the dark, encased inside of some street alley, Koa collapsed to the floor.
It was almost completely dark here, but Koa could see well enough to spot the blood running down the bridge of his nose. Now that his body had the chance to relax, all of the stress seemed to seize it in one violent push.
He couldn’t spot an exposed inch of his skin that wasn’t scratched or bleeding to some capacity. His brow was split open, only a congealed lump of Ichor and dishevelled hair sparing his eyes from the downfall. A raging headache made it feel like there was a wildfire inside of his skull, every cell of his brain matter fighting for dear life. Koa had assumed it was only the once that he’d been knocked unconscious, likely during the first few seconds of their fight. Yet judging on how cloudy the details were becoming, the contrary seemed more plausible.
I’m holding back. Koa slowly stood up, grasping onto an alley wall for support. He spat a mouthful of blood on the stone pathway at his feet, not totally surprised to see a tooth swimming in the Ichor like a lonely fish.
There was a peculiar feeling starting to steadily rise within Koa. One that urged him to abandon all self-restraint, and pour his all into breaking every bone in Ash’s body. To accept that his brother would never be saved; to make the boy suffer.
For what he had to done to her. Octavia.
The impulse swept him up like flotsam caught in a raging sea storm. He was a puppet fighting against the pull of his strings, but Koa knew for the sake of his brother – for the promise he made to Juniper – he would have to sever those connections. A quiet capacity for violence was bubbling inside of him, and he had to manually jam a plug over those ebbing streams before all other senses were drowned out.
That wasn’t Ash that killed Octavia.
Koa was circulating as many natural remedies as he could summon throughout his body, hoping that none had any unexpected side effects when put together. This was a style of healing he’d been playing around with since first concocting an antidote to Draven’s poison, during their confrontation seemingly so long ago.
Killing Ash will be no revenge at all. Enos will simply find the next pawn he can manipulate to his own ends, and I’ll have lost the only family I have left.
The herbal medicines were kicking in, and although drained, Koa didn’t feel quite so on the cusp of death. His remote eyeballs were beyond the wooden barrier, and saw Ash hovering over First Rite, trying to locate where his brother was.
Fighting on the backfoot had rewarded Koa with a rattled skull and a beaten body. Leaving the rest of the forest’s construction to the Branches, it was time to focus his energies for a more direct attack. Koa took one last manual inhale to replenish himself, before launching upwards.
The wooden ceiling parted for him, and, as his legs leaped ahead, so did a fanciful idea spring forth from the back of his mind. Bursting upwards, he summoned all of the creatures that populated his artificial forest. Each of them were provided by the Branches before being strengthened via the help of Daphne. Within seconds, a buzzing haze of insects, squawking birds, and other strange shapes covered by the flock dominated the skies.
Suddenly, Koa felt the stubborn grip of gravity gradually slip away. Down below, he could spy a team of Talents heralding from the Gravity Clan keeping him airborne. He gave a thumbs up to the group, doubting they would even spot the gesture of goodwill that far down.
This far up, on the other hand, the magnitude of the capital’s fate finally settled into the marrow of Koa''s bones. Their third of the land was a sprawling jungle, Paladins, Talents, and berserker animals alike all duking it out over a stretch of wilderness – a piece of mother nature that was baptised not by rain, but by thunderous dollops of blood.
The buildings below were mostly covered by Koa’s colossal branches. He’d done his best to protect the main residents of First Rite by closing them in. Alas, there was enough rubble polluting his jungle that Koa knew all too many buildings had already fallen. Crushing who knew how many residents with them.
A wave of guilt made Koa’s chest a little tighter, his hands a little clammier, and he could barely imagine what it must be like for those cityfolk. Shrouded in darkness, hearing the chaos that was unfolding around. Unable to do anything but pray that it wouldn''t be their residence that came tumbling down next.
Further away, a thick smog covered another portion of the city. Koa instantly recognised the obscured body of the Ruling District, yet even the aftermath of Damosh’s avalanche was impossible to make out beneath the twilight veil. Over that fog, Koa’s jaw only dropped lower at the sight that awaited him. The entire western section of the city wall had simply been . . . moved – an unfeasible amount of stone, put aside as easily as a pebble in someone''s path kicked out of the way. Not a scratch or indent in the bulwark seemed to have been made, nor were there any signs that some brutish behemoth had wrenched the fortifications off their foundations. Through his spiritual senses, however, Koa could sense the remnants of Violet’s Chaotic energy clinging to the site.
The Unbounded Warlord had removed the wall like it was nothing.
She might even be approaching a God-Graced’s power. All of this observation was taking place in less time than it took to draw a breath, but Koa was stunned. When you put it like that, it becomes clear now – she’s been advancing even faster than Remus.
The final third of the city hadn’t been spared. Labour was set so ablaze that Koa could hardly make out what was happening. All he could sense was a frenzy of mad motion concealed beneath the sea of light. Koa had always thought of Remus as being a demon in a battle, and with the hellscape that was his battleground, that analogy was becoming far too literal.
A third consumed by nature. A third dominated by a sun-defying fog and ravaged by its own King. And a third blazing with the brilliance of a million torches.
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First Rite was eating itself alive.
Koa put aside his growing fear that there was no saving the city. A trail of buzzing insects and airborne creatures completely covered his body. Focusing on his spiritual senses, Koa did his best to mute the steady stream of power that was rushing out of his Mark. Like putting your hand around a torch to dim its light, Koa hoped Ash wouldn’t be able to sense his location from his Mark’s spiritual impulses.
Ash levitated in the middle of this airborne flock. His body from the neck down didn’t visibly move, only his gaze wandering from right to left at a glacial pace.
“You’re right to hide.” He intoned, all the clamorous discord thousands of feet below seeming to dampen. “It’s the natural reaction for an animal cornered by a superior predator. When they know they can’t possibly win. It’s in our very DNA.”
Koa didn’t see his brother move, and yet a section of the flock erupted like they were nothing more than balloons filled with blood. The screams of an entire murder of crows drowned out Koa’s ears with their fell omen, and it took all his self-control not to flinch.
“Do you know who else hid from me like this Koa? Right before I tortured her to death. Like husband, like wife!”
Another streak of blood, and Koa could barely contain himself. The flying creatures were vying for control over Koa’s command, to flee as fast and as far away from Ash as their wings could carry them. And yet Koa reaffirmed his power over each of the beasts with a pulsation of Wilderness energy. It was a delicate balancing act: trying to keep his physical and spiritual disguises under control, all whilst a fiery impulse was burning away his inhibitions.
“I killed her Koa – I killed her!” Ash threw his hands up. “Don’t you see? This is who I am! Who I’ve always been destined to become. There’s nothing left of your brother. My rebirth was baptised by the very blood of the woman you loved, and not a single strand remains left of the Ash that was! I severed those ties; I shredded that skin!”
More creatures were dying. Ash was screaming hoarsely, transforming the skies into a mad circus of raining blood. The sloshing was punctuated by the shrill wails of the flock– the sounds of his brother’s strained vocal cords blending in until Koa couldn’t tell apart one from the other.
That feeling that something was tugging on Koa’s emotions returned again, and suddenly his fingers trembled with the impulse to crush Ash’s spine. Still, he stopped himself. He had to wait for the right moment to strike.
“How - much – more – convincing – do – you – need!” Ash underscored each word with a punch to the dying animals, his celestial form painted red.
Koa saw his chance and didn’t hesitate.
“Ash exists no more!”
The Right-bearer had his back turned to him, and speeding forward now, something heavy materialised between Koa’s fingers. Ash didn’t have the time of day to turn around. As sure as the wind sweeping through his hair, a gigantic hammer crushed the side of Ash’s head.
Koa followed close behind as his brother was sent hurtling feet-first. Ash flew through the squawking crowd of birds, blood smothering his body like he was being dragged through a pool of gore. As if it was a parasite planting itself inside of a new host, vines emerged from the hammer with wicked animation. The tentacles clawed at Ash’s skin, drawing Ichor, and dragging him ever closer to Koa’s wrathful clutches.
Dazed, Ash was too stunned to fight back as Koa seized his moment, and the moment too seized his better inhibitions.
His arms were no longer his own, and Koa became the plaything of his most abhorrent desires; the most vibrant shade of red the boy would ever see coloured his eyes. Koa could only process what was happening through the sensations of his body: the feel of the breeze sweeping against his raised arms – the way the bones of his forearm rattled with every downward swing.
Koa didn’t have to see through his one functional eye – neither his remote gifts from the Sight Clan – to know one fatal truth.
Ash was taking an ugly beating.
Like the hand of a puppetmaster sweeping upward, and Koa felt the strings compelling him grow taunt. More and more, he abandoned any sense of self, channeling all the regret, all of the hurt, into each furious swing.
Memory overlaid reality. One moment, all the world quietly slipped away, and Koa could register nothing but Octavia: he could smell her strange perfume, feel the impression of her body against his, and hear the cascading ripple of her laughter. The next, he would be beating furiously at Ash’s features, arms compelled by a will that did not seem like his own, determined to make the monster suffer with a will as hard as concrete.
Koa’s eyes finally seemed to clear, the impenetrable crimson softening to a waving haze of pink. The hammer was raised above his hair, droplets of Ash’s blood running down from its bulk and onto Koa.
This isn’t . . .
As if struggling against a will implanted inside of his very muscles, Koa pulled away.
Right!
Ash swept away by reflex, shivering in the air as Koa took in the destruction he had wrought. Against the cosmic imprint that was Ash’s tainted form, purpled flesh and streams of Ichor stood out, like buckets of paint thrown against a master artwork.
“Look at this blood Ash!” Koa cried, grabbing his brother by one shoulder, holding up a fist covered by blood in the other. He left the hammer to drop far below. “Your blood!”
“That gold is the greatest evidence there is. Undeniable proof of the reality I know you’re suppressing: that you haven’t abandoned your humanity yet!”
Again, Ash didn’t move. As slow as a statue, he turned his attention to the dripping steam of gold.
“You still don’t understand.” Ash gritted his teeth. “How can you not understand! I could tear apart an orphanage, burn everyone you love to the littlest shreds, and still – you would call me your brother like this blood on my hands is not my own. ”
The wounds on Ash’s face began to patch up, and he lifted his head with a dreadful resolve.. “Let me show you Koa who I really am.”
Simultaneous to those words, two behemoths of stone floated into view.
Ash’s prisoners in tow.
Diego twisted against stone confines, bound to the side of a meteor by a thick ring of rock. He seemed to be beating strategically against the material, noticing fracture points within the stone with the wits of his namesake.. But those tricks of the Wisdom Clan did him not good, and the gaps filled themselves as quickly as he chiselled them out.
Not far away was Daphne in her own stone prison. She was frothing at the mouth, eyes feral like that of a wild dog. For all her worth, her body was tempered by a terrible concoction of drugs, bringing inhuman strength to her limbs as she provided the shackles much more of a challenge than Diego’s flimsy punches. Alas, she achieved little else in return for their efforts than sending clumps of soot raining below. All the damage was reversed by Ash with but a flex of his Divine Right.
Koa bellowed at his imprisoned companions, wooden projectiles flying out of his body and digging deep into their encasements. Still, that rock refused to crumble. Like horses pulling a carriage along despite the whippings of their coachman, Koa’s body acted as if by its own accord.
All Koa sensed was an impossible weight pressing against his cheek. Ash’s slap sent him tumbling through the air, the force of the blow even testing the Gravity clansmen sustaining Koa’s flight as they struggled to keep him airborne.
Finally, like falling on-top of an invisible cushion, Koa oriented himself, half of his face stinging.
His eyes settled back onto his imprisoned companions, aghast at the fate that met them.
Spikes emerged from the inner section of their stone confines, pricking against both Daphne and Diego as their plight turned from disastrous to deadly.
Again, Koa charged forward to intervene. Ash raised a hand, and a wave of projectiles hailed down from the heavens, as if it was raining spiked pebbles. Koa’s skin had since healed from the beginning of their fight, but now, what felt like a million cuts reopened that tender flesh.
And, more terribly, prevented him from reaching the two of them.
“Ash, if there is any good left in you-” A stone the size of Koa’s head smacked against his temple. The utterance died uncompleted upon his lips.
Again, Koa found himself kept at bay, a spectator to Ash’s sick machinations.
Diego was drenched in Ichor, like a balloon pierced in a dozen places and radically deflating.
“Koa,” he squirmed, the pale colour of his face hidden beneath a coating of bleeding gold. “Someone’s leading you along. You can’t let yourself-”
The stone walls crashed in, and Diego ceased to exist.
Daphne and Koa screeched in unison. An indifferent Ash watched on as Daphne approached her own demise. Her screams hollowed out, as if distilled of her rage, and her body progressed from rattling trembles to no motion at all.
Nothing seemed to exist. Koa could only sense the frantic beats of his racing heart, the perspiration dripping down his torn skin, and the all-consuming urge to purge Ash from this earth.
He blasted forward, ignoring the avalanche of stones cutting past his skin and deeper into the flesh. With a flourish, Koa remembered the weapon once gifted to him by Donovan. The halberd imparted to Koa by the Shadow clansman took centre stage in his mind, each minor detail of its design recalled like a long treasured memory. Only a pole at first extended from his fingers, organic matter taking life from but a furious surge of Chantal’s power.
Before the halberd’s curved surface had even fully formed, Koa was slicing and dicing through the miniaturised asteroid belt. He left a stream of blood behind, each drop like a little part of himself shredded and abandoned. Maybe there really was nothing human about Ichor. After all, wasn’t that bestowed power the source of humanity’s strife?
Koa spun through the air before he could think of an answer, a flurry of creatures holding Ash in place as Koa threw his weapon.
The halberd arced through the sky, and nothing in Koa’s life had ever been more satisfying than the laceration it cut through Ash’s chest. From that gaping cavity, a fountain of Ichor erupted forth like water from a facet.
Ash looked down slowly to the hole in his body, then, as if he had all the time in the world to dawdle, and not a wick of pain to inconvenience him, raised his head back to Koa.
He grasped the handle of the halberd before Koa could move, a freakishly wide smile spreading across his lips as he wrenched the weapon out of his body, like a sword from a sheath.
“Now you see me . . .”
Ash held the halberd up towards the sun, admiring its glinting beauty.
Koa’s spiritual senses screamed out with all the raucous warning of a thousand ancestors rising from the grave to come to his protection. Or maybe they were more mortified about what the other prize of their lineage had come to.
The natural vermillion gleam of the weapon underwent a horrific transformation. The colour dampened, first to an abhorrent grey, before a cloud of red seemed to gradually diffuse through its shape. The fern-like appearance was replaced by a squirming mass of gore. Like a healing wound was being mended by a body that had forgotten what a functional limb looked like, Ash conjured a splatter of fibre and muscle.
Donovan’s memory was left to rot and die.
“This is what I’ve always been” Blood streamed from his bottom lip, and Ash pointed the halberd Koa’s way.
“Little brother.”