ꜱ1ᴇ4　amine's plot / klahan's onslaught!

ᴛʜɪs ɪs ɴᴏᴛ ᴀɴ ᴏᴘᴇɴ sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀ. ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜɪs ᴘᴏsᴛ.

↳ ᴀᴜɢᴜsᴛ 04, 2051
↳ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: midnight oil - tommee profit, fleurie ; dance in the dark - au/ra ; killing butterflies - lewis blissett ; stfd - teza talks
↳ ᴋʟᴀʜᴀɴ: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e9/dd/25/e9dd257b2f7fe86dfe1c930b7b475107.jpg

When the day had dawned, Klahan had woken with his entire body cold and aching, though he had settled in for a week-long sleep and he was wrapped in a cocoon of five blankets. It was a sign, an omen—it was a warning that something evil was coming. He had run from his room in his pajamas and screamed from the staircase banister that all of the Guards were not to leave the barracks without weapons, even if they weren't on a work day.

And Klahan's instincts had been true.

The festival had turned bloody when masked hunters of the terrorist group Mortem had attacked. A brutal knot of bloodshed had tied itself throughout the city, Mortem and Dream Guard and Vos and more entangled in a bitter conflict.

Klahan slipped away from the Dream Guard early in the battle, leaving behind his earpiece and his sigil so that his comrades could not track him, and set out on a path for a building that held the woman who was behind the brutality of April and now, and the suffering of the past four months. He had burned the path into his brain, memorized the way that had been given to him by a young man who had approached him to tell him he knew where to find the head of Mortem.

If this was a trap, Klahan did not care. He did not fear death. He would let it take him without a fight, but in his many years, Klahan had never encountered anyone who was capable of tearing him from this world, and even Gods had tried.

Mortem's building was a tall, grand affair, resembling high-end apartments more than the headquarters of a violent and vile organization. But even if the hunters were human and not creatures of darkness, Klahan could practically feel the darkness and evil that curled around the building, like a writhing mass of serpents in a pit. As the ancient phoenix drew nearer, the feeling grew stronger, urging him to purify and cleanse the corruption.

He did not reach the door before hunters poured out of the building, weapons in hand as though they were going to stop the Dream Guard, who did not draw either of the swords sheathed at his hip. Instead, he lifted one of his hands and unleashed a torrent of ice lances, deadly in force and accuracy. The hunters of Mortem had left behind guards that were not prepared to handle a creature like Klahan. He almost felt sorry for the poor things, as he stepped over their corpses and pushed inside the building.

The halls were brightly illuminated, polished from floor to ceiling and the high-end apartment building aesthetic was present even inside. Klahan curled his lip at the third vase of artificial white roses he passed in the halls, looking for a staircase. He had been told that he would find the woman he sought in her office, on the top floor of the building, but he was going to eliminate every hunter that stood between himself and his destination.

Drawing his sukhela, Klahan stormed up the staircase. A group of hunters were descending toward him, but Klahan's sharp blade cut through them, their bodies littering the stairs behind him as he continued on his way up. He paid no mind to how many hunters stood between him as his goal, only struck them down as they entered his path. He left the beautiful floors running with the red of blood, the blade of his sukhela dripping to leave a trail behind him as he finally stopped before the door of Colette Reivana's office.

Klahan didn't bother to reach for the door knob. He reared back and kicked the door off of its hinges, planting a foot across the threshold as he glowed with the light of the sun. Blinding, dazzling, almost divine as he heard the woman in the office scrambling to get to her feet. She shouted for her guards, but their blood had wet Klahan's blade and no one was coming to her defense, and got up from her chair, patting blindly along the surface of her desk as though searching for something. In no hurry to spare her eyes and take her life instead, the phoenix took a moment to look about the room. There was a distasteful bearskin rug on the floor, a gun cabinet behind her desk, pictures of herself and a boy—the same one that had sent Klahan here, to find the head of Mortem. It painted a gruesome picture of what their family was like, if this was mother and son as he suspected.

The phoenix's glow subsided, and Colette Reivana's fingers wrapped around the grip of a handgun. Rather lazily, Klahan flicked white flame at the woman hand and at the rug on the floor.

As expected, Colette put her efforts into evading the fire rather than firing her weapon at the phoenix. Before she could get enough wits together to attack him, Klahan closed his eyes and let the fire contained in his veins breach the surface. He was a creature of immaculate control, and a nature that had been contained for too many years shrieked its glee as it was finally unleashed, spreading over his body in an instant.

When he opened his eyes again, flames danced within.

"Who are you?" the hunter demanded. She lifted the gun and pointed it at him, but Klahan only raised an eyebrow. As though she could kill him with that. Klahan would never be so lucky.

"I have many names," Klahan answered. He urged the fire to spread, and spread, and spread, around her wood office with all of her family portraits and her awful—burned to a crisp—rug and her gun case. "This city knows me as Klahan."

It passed quickly—a torrent of fire to urge her to drop her gun, a quick grapple back and forth before Klahan pinned her against her desk and gripped her by the throat. The fire that surrounded him over her, hissing as it devoured the woman whose screams echoed through deadened halls. Klahan was thorough and as she cried out and writhed under the fire that was eating her alive, the phoenix hoisted her off of her desk and dragged her out to the staircase.

He pushed her over the banister and watched her fall toward the ground floor, entombed in flames and scream echoing up toward him until the wet thump cut her off.

Klahan's job here was not done. He descended the staircase, headed for the middle floor, and when he had arrived, he walked until he found what he was certain was the center of the building. He would be too lucky if a collapsing building killed him, and being trapped under rubble would be humiliating, but he had an escape route. Satisfied, the phoenix took a stance, his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands held in front of him. He closed his eyes, seeing the glow of the one he had taken as a mother, reaching for the hottest fire that was inside of him, the brilliant flames of the sun.

He hadn't used such fire since he had used the name Ming. He had used it in the fatal battle against Apollo, when the Greek had taken even more from him. It rose slowly, feeling its way through his body, hesitant to come to his calling after so long without use. But he coaxed it gently, promised that he would let it dance throughout him more often.

The majestic phoenix clapped his palms together, and fire exploded around him—



The Mortem Headquarters were reduced to a smoking ruin, charred and broken corpse laying crushed under rubble. Ash settled in the white-blonde hair of the man who stood amid the wreckage, black clothes dusted grey. He reached up and pushed his hair out of glowing eyes, his smile bitter.

Now to find the rest of Mortem.

@☠　Beau Reivana ↳ ᴀᴜɢᴜsᴛ 4, 2051
↳ ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: la serena - azam ali
↳ ᴀɪʟᴇʟʟ: https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ef/3b/14/ef3b144360f603d13cc1c4d9faf0084c.jpg

The sky was black, the night was still, the lights of the city glowed harshly and Ailell Brier's child soldiers lay broken on a field watered by blood, outnumbering the monster corpses that lay alongside them. Not a soul moved, amid the bodies that stretched as far, it felt, as the eye could see. Ailell was alone in the garden of Hades, the wind barely moving his blonde hair. All was still, not even a carrion bird circling over the death, some sort of spell warding them away but leaving Ailell well and truly /alone/.

Mortem Squad 719's leader had been moving slowly through the bodies, carefully removing the mask from each and every face and gathering the fallen members of Mortem together to transport elsewhere, to burn or to bury, whichever was decided—his child army had fallen, all of those children he had raised from the ground up laying at his feet in pools of their own blood because of the hatred of humanity—and it was a sight that was so familiar, an occurrence that repeated itself again and again and Ailell could feel the crushing claws of darkness closing around his lungs again, squeezing until he could not breathe—these children had been given to him and then they had been taken from him and sent out to die and he was only one man who could not protect them all.

Ailell knew each and every Mortem soldier who lay on that battlefield by name.

Some, however, were yet to be accounted for, but he did not dare to hope that they could have survived. This attack had been foolhardy and born of haste, Colette Reivana's desire to cause suffering in the city, and the ones who paid for it were Ailell's children.

As was always the case.

Memories of fire and smoke weighed heavy on his mind as he approached smoking rubble, where a phoenix had torn another large gash through the city with fire and rage. Fear hastened his steps, nearly tripping over a charred board when he saw a broken lump laying in ash and coal, body blackened and burnt but—

Ailell would know her anywhere.

Aside from Lian she had been—though he would never admit he had favorites—his favorite child, even given her cruel tendencies and sadistic behavior; he knew her, even before he dropped to his knees and gathered her warm—toowarmtoowarmhothothot—body into his arms and saw the mask, the mask that had once again melted to her skin—

Shaking fingers checked for breath, and if Ailell Brier lowered his head as tears silently began to drip down his face, there was no one to witness his silent pain.

He couldn't lose this one child. This one, out of all that he had raised, that lay in his arms when there was one person, one person who might be able to help her—

Ailell would give anything to save this child.