tushanshu_logs | ENDPLOT | ROLL THE BONES, PART 2

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ENDPLOT | ROLL THE BONES, PART 2

Characters: ALL!
Date: Mid-Late November
Location: In the Dreaming
Situation: It's either Malicant or the Foreigners... and their worlds.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings as needed.

Locating the Vilii Stone has been dealt with and now it's time to take on Malicant directly. It's a relatively simple interpretation that proves the answer to the conundrum of how to share the object between all involved: shatter it, and make sure everyone has a shard. It clears any remaining taint of Malicant's essence from those who still more it and makes said evil furious. They're all feeling it now-- the throbthrobthrob of his telepathic presence has swamped the caverns where the stone once lay, and the only safe harbour is the Hotel. There's only so long even the Hotel will be able to withstand that force.

Inside the Dreaming, that force can't be felt. Inside the Dreaming, the caverns are reflected on long smooth lines, riveted by sinew and muscle, a true combination of the realms in this space that becomes a living maze to work against them. There are many offshoots, and when the Foreigners arrive in the Dreaming they will find themselves separated, both willingly and unwillingly, three or four apiece to each individual set of caverns that seal behind them. They're going to have to move fast and defend one another. Their collective power is all that remains between Malicant and everything else, and every part of him must be defeated.

He's waiting, but he's not without a plan.

The Foreigners will find that they are facing the embodiments of their greatest fears and weaknesses. An enemy they were never able to defeat, a friend who betrayed them, a fateful event that they couldn't outrun, even a physical feat they could never overcome. Malicant has had a long time to study them, to befriend them as Asti, to gain their trust and exploit their secrets. Where there are individuals, these embodiments will be targeted and where there are groups, they'll be something that encompasses multiple forms.

But the Foreigners are not without recourse: they are in the Dreaming Realm, a plane shaped by willpower, by desire... and even to a degree, by the very fears they are facing. The Gha'nal venom will allow them to manipulate what they perceive as the "reality" around them, and the shard of Vilii Stone they've been given will become a weapon or tool fitting to the situation, to help them.

LINKS
Part 1 - Beneath The Shell/Midnight Hotel | Part 1 - Malicant’s Tools/The Vilii Stone | OOC - Plotting Post

OOC
So here's the final log! There's a lot of freedom for players to write what they feel will be their biggest obstacle to overcome, and how Malicant will appear to be challenging them. The common traits to what all players are going to face are listed in the description above. This log will be open until the end of the month, at which point an interim log and OOC post will be going up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

When Jacob stopped her Raine glanced over, then down at his hand. She couldn't quite connect why he had, but the gesture was a warmth in the midst of the turmoil, and at the recurring instance of that disconcerting voice reached over to touch his hand briefly.

"She doesn't mean to go back, you know," Virginia said. She wasn't harsh about it, just explanatory, like this was something they both needed to understand. That was almost worse. "Given the choice, she'd stay. Wouldn't you, Raine?"

Raine couldn't answer that for a moment, swallowed hard. "I might," she said, quiet, seeing no point in dissembling by now.

"Leaving behind your family." Virginia shook her head at that, disappointed. "And for what? This doomed city, busy tearing itself apart? Broken men with death wishes? A world that isn't even yours?"

"Friends," Raine said, still soft. "I'm not-- I didn't-- Even if I failed to return, Genis would be able to keep on. I have that much faith in how I raised him. Yes. I would stay. For love of my friends." Raine lifted her chin a little, unapologetic.

This seemed to make Virginia pause, and she returned to attending to the doll for a short time. "For love of your friends," she said, thoughtfully, addressing the doll. "Oh, Raine, my poor pitiful, foolish daughter, what makes you think they need you? The one person who does you've set aside for this." A dismissive gesture around, a sweep of her free hand that included Jacob. "You're a disappointment, Raine, you and your human blood, and you always have been. Is it any wonder I left you there?"

Even if she should know better by now, had had it proven to her that all these things were untrue, the words still struck old wounds, things that never quite healed. Raine's shoulders curled in, and she couldn't quite lift her eyes. Jacob was still there, she knew, witnessing all this, and that almost made it worse, a near-stranger seeing the worst of her all in these few minutes.

Raine's hand brushing his own brought a sardonic smile to his lips and he dipped his head. No need to worry about him. These things were disconcerting but Cain had been through so much worse that the preying on the confusion of a single interaction with a Reaper wasn't even going to break the surface. That was what he was telling himself, anyway, because it had to be true. With the way that things were going, Cain had to be the strong and immovable one for Raine to come out of this so that they could escape together. Strength in numbers.

His hand tightened about her elbow as a gesture intended to remind her of his presence, hopefully bring her back to something real and physical rather than an imitation's poor attempt at talking her down. Cain was getting fed up with it, his natural reaction being to lash out and fight, never take it laying down or let someone have their way with him and leave him broken. Why would he let Raine fall prey to the same trap?

"You really like to talk," he noted. "Really, really like to talk, but you know what? If the worst you can do is talk, then the only danger we're actually in right now is watching this after school special until we die of boredom. If you had something more, you would have used it by now."

There was motion behind him, a shifting of grass and weight moving along it. Nothing like a usual weight and nothing like regular movement, but whatever disturbance had occurred was enough to tip him off and Cain looked down, back toward the sound, froze as he noticed something that took his breath away: his missing shadow no longer standing aside Raine's own.

When he tried to reclaim air for his lungs, he couldn't. A painful tug wrapped around his throat, something indescribably pressing down on his airways and pulling him backward; his own lifespan, the numbers printed along his neck that he was never to see for himself, was being used as a wire to choke him and drag him away from Raine. That motion meant he could at least dip his head back and stare up into the hood of the Reaper silently strangling him. Lack of flight led into fight and Cain struggled, one hand going up and behind to try and tug his captor away by the scuff of its neck out of instinct, the other digging into his pocket for his switchblade to cut at the hand holding his breath captive.

Two things happened at once. The first was that the knife hit true and the entire hand holding at his numbers like a bunched up collar simply separated at the wrist and dropped to the ground with hardly a thump to mark it. Black, viscous ooze drained from the hand and stump both. What happened second was even worse: the hood pulled back as the Reaper retreated another step and let Cain drop onto the ground, the face staring back at him being his own, the one he shared with one other person in the world. It was a handsome face framed by lack of emotion, eyes a chilling and unnatural silver, skin pale as ash, numbers carved into his neck ticking down to some unknown deadline while blood dripped from the changing wounds.

There was no change in expression on the Reaper who merely tilted his head to the side, that damnable headtilt that was a smile Abel no longer knew how to express. It was a good motion that meant there was a human still inside and feeling even if he didn't know what that feeling meant. It was everything Cain loved about and hoped for in his older brother with that stupid little motion. Abel spoke, voice a rasp embodied by the rattling whisper of the Reapers that was enough to put a fear of death in the man that Death could not claim. He said, "hello, Cain."

Virginia ignored Jacob this time, all her focus still on Raine. For her part Raine barely heard him, wrapped up in her own troubles, but she felt his touch, and it was something grounding. Not much. Maybe enough.

"I never wanted you," Virginia said simply, terribly gentle, matter-of-fact. "It's a terrible existence, to be a half-elf, both for you and the people around you. Ozette. Heimdall. Your father. Me. It would have been so much kinder if you were never born, Raine. No one to let down. No one to abandon. Just peace." She took a step toward Raine, then another, coming perilously close, holding Raine's attention while Jacob was dragged backward.

Raine wavered on the spot. It almost made sense. She was being selfish. But she'd seen this before, hadn't she...? She knew not to trust her mother's face. Should know. "Let go, Raine," Virginia said, and it was tempting, more than it should have been. And yet. There had been a logical inconsistency. "There's no point. There's no one to save. No one coming for you. Why prolong your suffering?"

The touch at her elbow was gone, there was a bloodstain on her jacket over her heart, and two minutes ago Virginia had been chastising her for abandonment. Raine's head snapped up, and she took two steps back, up the still-present tree's roots, out of her mother's grasp. "No," she said, firmer than she'd felt since the plunge into the water. "Lloyd came for us, even when I expected him not to. Again, and again. Skulduggery made the effort to save me, when the alternative was simpler and safer. Even Jacob came after me, despite that we barely know each other. And you wouldn't be so eager for me to let go if there wasn't something left to save. That's enough." Her tone brooked no argument, and incredibly Virginia faded back a step.

Raine didn't know where her staff had gone, but Virginia was near the tree and the Dreaming could be controlled, and wild roots thick with uncontrolled mana snared the imitation's ankles. It would hold for now, though likely not too long.

"Enough," Raine said again, when Virginia tried to speak to her once more, and she turned away, to see what had become of Jacob. He didn't seem overly harmed, but the person opposite him wore his face, and the numbers though she didn't understand them seemed distinctly ominous. That second shadow, no longer lurking. If Virginia had more than cruel words to offer, there might be trouble. For the moment Raine waited warily, watching both.

All of his world narrowed to the man in front of him. Cain coughed to clear out his throat and then rolled onto his knees and rocked to his feet in a surprisingly smooth motion, all without taking his eyes off of Abel's face. He knew this form, the terrible merging between his brother and his own Reaper that should never have been. Although it had seemed frightening then, the image in front of him was even worse, even further decayed from the man that his brother still was.

And yet.

Abel still had his mannerisms, his expressions and everything about his countenance. It was right, and that was why it was wrong. For as much as Abel was confounded by human culture and emotions, he was still a part of it, still possessed those feelings for himself. This Abel in front of him seemed to have both feet in the grave and watched Cain with his brother's usual amount of intense scrutiny.

"so this is where you have been," Abel said. His voice was flat, the only indication of his thoughts being the tilt of his head that he maintained. "you cannot simply run as soon as things become troubled between us, Cain. i have found you now."

"That's not what this is." Cain's reaction was immediate, instinctive in response to the accusation of his brother. He wouldn't dare just leave Abel like that. "I didn't run anywhere."

Abel's neck straightened out, no longer 'smiling'. "you always run."

As they spoke, the black ooze standing in for a dead man's blood began to fill up inside of an invisible mold in the shape of a new hand. It spilled around inside until it was completely reformed, skin and nails all back in place, now glowing a purple-black as Abel raised it toward Cain and shot off a blast of death magic energy. It struck Cain straight on and he fell to his knees with an unimpressive cry while clutching at his midsection where blood began to spill outside the large hole that had been made there. Ah shit, that definitely burned.

The imitation's words told Raine this likely wasn't some dark mirror, a fear of what Jacob might become, but someone who shared his face and knew him. A twin, then. Family.

"As you pointed out," Raine said, "separation is not abandonment-- Jacob!" He went down and she was reaching for mana, instinctively shaping a healing arte, but without the focus of her staff it took a much more concerted effort, and when her mother spoke again it all apart, the familiar voice shaking her even if Raine had been resolved not to listen.

"What do you imagine you can do, Raine?" Virginia said, the lack of accusation still somehow worse than outright contempt. She bent then, laid a hand on the roots that held her, and they began to break away, severed, one by one. That wouldn't last much longer. "You can't help any of your friends."

Raine backed a few more steps up, gaze flickering between the manifestations of Malicant. "I'll find a way," she said, low. Determined to make sure they both came through this alive somehow. "Jacob. Can you hold on?"

Somehow, with everything else moving around him and the world gone soft with pain, it was only Raine's last question that cut through the fog. Cain started to laugh, weak at first but rapidly growing in strength. Blood that had stained his sleeves was already flowing back into his veins, damaged tissue and muscle and organ all overlapping and coming back together while Cain stood. He didn't dare look away from Abel, but the corners of his eyes crinkled with a reassuring smile meant for Raine.

"Don't worry," he said, breath the only thing left for him to reclaim now. All that was left of the attack was the seared and ruined clothing, no trace of the blood to say that it had even happened while worn. Abel held his brother's gaze and neither of them broke the lock they had put each other into; Abel's head inclined and Cain allowed himself an actual smile, wry though it may have been. "We're just settling a dispute our own way right now."

"there's nothing to dispute," the twin said. He walked forward, each sentence punctuated by Cain's movement with a wary half-step backward. It wasn't enough, and Abel gained on Cain easily. "you are a coward who could not even tell me your own involvement with the Clockless. you ran until i was caught up in it, too. that collar was not pleasant."

As he got closer, his hand came up again. This time it clutched a handgun, squeezing off several bullets right into Cain's upper chest. He jerked and and couldn't help the terrible hacking coughs that wracked him as ribs were shattered, lungs torn and the magical bullets acted like barbs as they ripped through. Cain spat something on the ground and didn't move, not even when Abel stood right in front of him to grab his shoulder and hold him still, dig the heated muzzle into one of the bullet holes.

Not even healing, really, outright reversal-- Raine stared, fascinated for a moment, before movement at the corners of her eyes caught her attention, and she was reminded that the image of her mother was still a threat.

She appreciated Jacob's attempt to reassure her, but it lacked something.

As the twin advanced on Jacob, Virginia broke the last of the roots away, but rather than advance herself just stood there, tightened her grip on the doll in her arms. "Useless," she said. "Better that you just disappear, rather than let more people down. You say you'll find a way-- and how far have you gotten with the last person you promised that?"

Raine flinched at that, because she was right, but all the same, there was someone hurt beside her, which meant that personal emotions had to wait. While there was still something she could do, anything, she couldn't give up. "You're repeating yourself now," she returned, voice tight. "Jacob. Whatever you may owe the actual person, this isn't him." Was he even going to try to defend himself? Even if all the harm done to him reversed itself, she wouldn't be surprised if Malicant had a way to end him permanently, and it was still causing suffering. "Neither of them can be here. Don't give up. Please."

Was that a circle, beneath Virginia's feet? Raine tensed, poised to throw herself aside if she had to. Virginia hadn't so far been outright violent, but that might yet change.

It was only instinct to the pain that had Cain jerking, trying to pull away. Abel wouldn't allow that with his iron grip on Cain's shoulder and something inside of him was grateful; he didn't really intend to deny his brother whatever anger he felt like expressing. At least it was some kind of emotion. Some of the bullet wounds began to close, the aggravated ones having trouble around the searing heat of the gun pulling them further apart, and his head was stuck somewhere between clarity and the fire in his nerve endings.

"This is what giving up looks like to you?" It was in response to what Raine had said, but mostly said for his own benefit. Was this giving up? It was... it wasn't Abel, he did have to remind himself of that, but the fact that even the shadow hadn't gone for anything lethal made it easy for him to simply take whatever damage it dished out without complaint. He turned to look Abel in those Reaper-drowned eyes, back from where he had involuntarily looked away in pain, and swallowed back a protest. This wasn't Abel. Right? He didn't need to explain himself to anyone who wasn't actually Abel. He didn't.

"giving up is what you've already done." Abel-notAbel shifted, position changing almost too fast to catch while he knocked Cain to the ground with one hand, the other holding his upper arm in such a way that the force of the fall resulted in a sickening crack. He dropped the arm, stepped on the half-closed fist and prompted even more terrible sounds before the business end of a rifle was pressed underneath Cain's chin. No need to get down on his new level in order to deal with him. "when you took everything from me, when you did not tell me that i would die. you gave up, Cain, when you killed me."

That was it. It wasn't even Abel's voice, but the sound of his brother through the filter of a Reaper in some twisted amalgam that still made no sense. It wasn't his voice, but that accusation speaking aloud the thing Cain had always claimed responsibility for and vindicating thousands of years of damage. His brother's death was his own fault, sure as the original Cain had killed his older brother eons before Remus and Romulus were born, and it tore something precious from him to have Abel himself agree. His next breath was wracked with pain, but not of the physical sort, not in reaction to the multiple breaks along his dominant arm or anything Abel had inflicted on him.

"I know."

She didn't have an answer, for it did look rather like giving up, this refusal to fight back. Perhaps things were different for him, if he couldn't be permanently harmed, but neither did this really resemble the behavior of someone who wanted to live.

Raine hesitated, and in that time Malicant kept up his cruelties. What could she do? Anything? But her mother still presented a possible threat, she couldn't risk turning her back, and there was precious little she could offer without a weapon, without enough safe time to focus. "No," Raine said, halfway to furious. At her own inaction, at the way Jacob fell, at the faces Malicant had chosen to twist the metaphorical knife. "Giving up is stopping-- if you keep moving forward, no matter what you've done, there's still the chance to change."

That was the circle for an arte now, she was certain, and she readied herself to dodge. But Virginia's gaze shifted, her focus no longer on Raine but past her, and Raine recognized the flare of light mana a little too well, turned in horror as the harsh brightness of a holy lance spanned the ground beneath not her but Jacob.

Forget that she knew he could absorb the damage; forget that she knew there was nothing she could feasibly do now. Raine darted that way, logic forgotten, instinct taking her toward the hurt friend instead of toward the originator of the spell. "Jacob--!" She didn't even make it that far, tripped over the roots of the tree and went sprawling instead. She caught herself on hands and knees, scrabbling, found that in the rush something had fallen from her pocket. A shard of stone. She closed one hand on it for lack of anything else, recalling what it was, why she had it, but what good did it do her now when all she could do was watch?

As if they were two sides of the same coin, because they were the right and left hands of the same mind, Abel stepped away once Virginia's arte had reached its crescendo. Neatly right outside the area of attack while it sliced through the very human, very fragile Cain on the ground. It cut a large swathe neatly through his torso, accompanying fragments of other mana lances dropping all around and piercing his body from different angles where they managed to coincide with the position of his sprawled limbs. He hardly had time to gasp or twitch, the attack far too foreign and sudden for him to have any kind of resistance.

There was a moment of pure and utter silence before Abel merely stepped back into place. He crouched down, head canted just so to the side, reformed hand reaching to press lightly at the fractures in a shoulder that hadn't the chance to heal, then at Cain's temple to nudge his head aside. Like some kind of curious child trying to prod a pet into getting up and playing, or perhaps a brother taunting their sibling. Raine's panic, her rush and her fall, were all ignored by Abel; each shadow had their own target, and this one knew that its job here was not yet done.

The smell of blood was strong, fresh and burned alike as flesh had been cauterized around the edge of the wounds but nothing so pretty inside of the entry points. An arte only lasted such a short while and soon there was nothing to hide the ugly and pathetically squishy mass that made up the average person on the other side of their skin. Despite all of that, the impossibility of survival against the barrage and the horrible, screaming pain it would cause to still live, there was a shudder from Cain. Already his organs were repairing, the important things absolutely needed for survival before his brain could be turned back on and the rest taken care of afterward. His first sense back was touch and it was all he needed to be stolen of breath, unable to make a sound as his insides twisted and repaired and he felt every single movement.

His hands clenched tight into the grass, broken hand unheeded in comparison to the agony elsewhere. His eyes were half-open and unseeing and—no, he was yelling because Abel had shifted his hand from Cain's temple and was reaching inside of the wound to begin rooting around, finding anything he could get a good grasp on to pull.

"can you hear me, Cain? even if we stayed like this for centuries and these wounds never healed, it would not even be a fraction of the pain you have caused for me," said Abel. It sounded dispassionate, the product of someone who didn't know how to emote or force proper meaning into their words and had generally given up trying. It was completely at odds with the actions he was taking now to make up for it. "this is all your fault."

Virginia seemed almost an afterthought now, the pale shadow of the mother she never had been, and Raine couldn't bring herself to care over much about her own weaknesses when there was someone, a friend, suffering right in front of her. Screaming. If there was something, anything she could do, she had to act. Had to help him.

Raine pushed herself up, got her legs under her, near scrambling. She didn't know what she intended to do, if anything, hadn't shaped anything beyond the certainty that Jacob's twin needed to step away from him, right now. The shard of the Vilii stone, still in her hand, warmed faintly. It felt like more than stone now, all full of the rich potential that was mana, and when she looked down it was glowing, original shape gone. It was life in her hand, pure and overwhelming and the only weapon she had, and she was suddenly very, very sure of what to do next.

"Great protector and nurturer of the earth," she said softly. Maybe it was the Tree she addressed; maybe it was the idea of Martel. Maybe it was Tu Vishan, what remained of him. It didn't matter. "Grant me thy strength--" And Raine pressed that light against her collarbone, fed the mana into her exsphere, felt something shift in her as she did. Pain hit her for a moment, brief but blinding -- be strong, and endure -- and she doubled over with the force of it.

A warmth at her throat, at her wrists, at her shoulder blades. The pain faded. Raine straightened, and she was alight, feet no longer wholly on the ground, wings of silver-white brilliance fanning out behind her. Borrowed power, only, not any she'd want to keep knowing what it meant, but it would serve for now. "Get away from him," she snapped at Malicant's manifestation, flexing her hands. No staff, but light mana leapt to her fingertips like it had been born there, fell into the shape of an arte as easily as breathing. "Angel feathers--" Bright crescents of light, the same silver-white as her new wings, arced toward Abel at her command.

She hadn't wholly forgotten it was foolish to turn her back on her mother, and she was conscious of the need to be wary, but all the same Jacob was the much more pressing concern, and for the moment Virginia was left un-checked, eyes narrow with malice and gathering mana once more.

Blinding pain transformed into a dull and slowly reversing ache, something Cain couldn't come to process right away. It took him a moment, took him a precious few seconds that the action happening right over his head was someone coming to his defense, blasting away the figment of Abel all the way down the hall like the doll that it truly was. His major injury healed first, the largest gouge in his abdomen beginning to close up by the time Cain was rolling unsteadily to his feet, arm still broken and pinpricks still lacing his body. He swayed, attention finally stolen from the unmoving form of his brother toward the spectacle of light and awe that Raine had become.

He stared dumbly for a moment, then a light smile graced his lips almost unbidden. "Nice trick," he commented, taking in all the ways that Raine had changed and had not. He didn't understand the significance but it was ethereal as it was beautiful and he wasn't so macho as to deny it. He was, however, a complete mess in comparison no matter that his wounds were beginning to close and evidence of the physical trauma was rapidly disappearing.

Whatever relief Cain felt didn't last for long. Behind him, robes beginning to tatter and fray thanks to the assault, Abel rose again like a puppet following its strings. He was entirely nonplussed at the attack despite the damage that could be seen through the slices on his robes, the things that couldn't be healed thanks to the origin of the attack, and he now was paying Raine an equal amount of attention as he had been Cain. "i see," he said. "you cannot even fight for yourself, Cain. always an empire or an army. or me. no matter what happens, you cannot save yourself."

Raine looked him over sharply, noted he was healing and less of a mess than he had been. Good. "Borrowed from a friend," she said, with a tight, fierce little smile. She felt light mana flare again, twisted aside from the sharp golden burst before she'd even properly processed it, a faint silvery trail like stardust in her wake. Ordinarily her reflexes were nowhere near this good, but the transformation had sharpened her, and light above all was clear to her in its movement.

Virginia still watched her, forbidding, not saying anything more yet. Malicant couldn't have given up on that angle, but Jacob's shadow was for now the more pressing. "And?" Raine prompted, once he had done speaking. "Is that all? Every person has times when they can't save themselves. It may be hard, to ask for help, but friends will fight when you cannot. And, in turn, there will be times when you can save those who can't fight for themselves. You've already done that today; I'd be dead without you." The last she said softly, intended for Jacob alone though doubtless Malicant heard and knew what passed between them anyway.

Mana shifted again, from Virginia's direction, and Raine rounded on her, spotting the tell-tale circle for an arte again and having had quite enough of light magic turned against them. She closed with the woman, knowing a physical jolt would be more effective to disrupt casting, raised one glowing hand to toss Malicant back--

All that looked back at her was her mother, weeping over her doll, and Raine froze there mid-motion, unable to find her anything other than pitiful in that moment. It was enough. Raine shifted sideways, but light still burst hot and sharp against her shoulder, leaving her scorched and bleeding. It was not as bad a blow as it might have been, for it had always been foolish to come after an angel with light alone, but painful enough, and Raine drifted back a little, warier now.

Even though her words were true, Cain couldn't help but hear Abel more sharply. It was impossible for him to drown out whatever Abel might say, even if it wasn't Abel, and he felt a twisting in his gut that had nothing to do with his injuries. This was nearly unbearable to have someone here to see the suffering he had caused, the gaping maw of regrets where he had locked away the shame over hundreds of years. Only Cain should have been privy to it; now that it was unlocked and floating free, he could feel it weighing him down with every word Abel spoke. He wanted nothing more in the world than to make it up to Abel, to prevent anything from ripping them apart again, but he knew that now was not the time. Abel didn't know and it would only hurt him more if Cain forced it upon him.

Abel was his own problem to be dealt with in his own time. What was also now his problem was the figment of Raine's mother. Her docility and previous tactics had kept her out of Cain's narrow focus but that attack to Raine, the the young woman he had unintentionally taken under his wing when he'd saved her life, was enough to pull him together. Not physically, that would happen on its own time, but he had a lot of rage pent up for someone who would taken advantage of Cain distracting someone to hurt them. If they wanted to hurt him, that was fine (he would recover); he wouldn't stand for someone using him to hurt someone else without his say-so.

His arms came up to cradle the rifle that was already there, long tripod underneath angled perfectly for his shot. He didn't need to worry so much about trajectories and physics here: he really just wanted to shoot the woman and that was what he was going to do. He spared a moment to look down the sights before he pulled the trigger, a high powered shot aiming right for the heart. Head would have been poetic, but Cain was more practical than that and wanted to see what the shadow would do. Was it susceptible to the same things as the form it took? Just what was underneath that facade?

"Raine, keep close," he said. For the moment, he could allow himself clarity. At least until Raine was safe, when it was just him and his own nightmare to sort out. He couldn't lose himself here if Raine was in danger and needed a hand. What he had unintentionally done by changing his focus was leave an opening in another direction. A blot of dark energy fizzled to life aside from Raine and there were only a few seconds of warning before Abel swung a machete angled for her torso, a hacking weapon meant more to lodge and damage rather than make clean slices.

Once Abel landed from his attack, he continued to speak. Not even out of breath, not even bothered by the increased activity of a fight winding up. "what will you do with your protectors gone? you will be alone, and then you will lose."

With Raine clear, settled mid-air to assess the damage and cast a quick first aid on herself, Virginia was left to cast again-- but the gunshot disrupted her. It lost momentum on the translucent green bubble that she summoned to shield herself, but struck true enough. Virginia staggered, clutched her doll to her chest. Didn't fall. When she lowered her hands a little there was a slowly spreading bloodstain, but she didn't seem too perturbed. "Both of you," she said, regretfully. "So determined to die saving people who will never be worth the breath you spend, as if that will give you some meaning beyond the failures you are. And when you fall, incapable of anything save watching each other die, you will know exactly how pointless this struggle has been, how much better it would have been had you disappeared sooner. So be it."

At Jacob's words Raine winged back, a distinctly unsettled look on her face as she watched her mother. The expression earlier had been misleading, but this sounded more now like Malicant, peevish and cruel, rather than Virginia, whether the half-mad one or the version from Mithos' trap. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse. "You're wrong," she said, or started to say, for then there was the other one, Jacob's shadow, too close, too close--

Raine turned with the blow, her own force field up just in time, and it blunted the strike but did not completely avert it. She cried out, then, almost more startled than anything else, and curled in on herself mid-air. The blade had lodged in her side, not wholly deep but twisted, and with some effort she jerked it free as Abel spoke. Her altered state certainly made her more durable, dulled the pain, and she could function like this if she had to, but there was rather too much blood between her fingers for her liking. Still a scholar, not a warrior. "You're wrong," she bit out, properly this time, directed at both shadows. No focus for a more vehement denial, only the action to determine that neither of them ended up alone. She gathered mana, cast, and it came so much more easily to her now, only a few seconds before a stronger spell closed the wound and she straightened, wary.

"Dying isn't on the menu today," Cain said, stronger than he had been before. Abel was still there and still a threat, but something about taking true action had bolstered him. Maybe because it was a lot easier to keep moving when he had someone at his side, maybe because he had worked so hard and long to make his Remus imitation a reality that he flourished in the protection of others. Maybe he was just too far gone to keep caring about letting himself be beaten down when he still had fight buried deep inside him. "Hasn't been in a long time."

As he moved, the rifle disappeared to better benefit his next idea. That movement was enough to finally dislodge the Vilii stone from his pocket; the holy lance from earlier had put in enough holes for it to easily fall loose. He paused, potential energy tight in the air before he scooped it up and let the shard shape into what he truly desired. It was cut off again, changing into a large buckler for him to crouch behind when Abel whipped out a pistol and shot at him. The blows exploded against the immaculate metal and faded away into wisps of smoke reaching around to try and grab at Cain regardless. He stood up with a quick whirl to dispel them, used the motion and momentum to throw the buckler like a disc straight for Virginia's throat. "Stop talking," he ordered, already pulling the Vilii weapon back to him with the force of his will.

Abel tossed the pistol away as it proved ineffective, reaching inside of his robe for something with more flare. It was a machine gun and only effect had him pause in order to aim the sights toward Raine. Rather, toward her wings and anything new that had appeared during her transformation. That had to go. "no."

The shape of the conflict was now something Raine was on a little more solid ground with. In some way she was grateful to Jacob, when he struck at Virginia again, when the woman who was definitely not her mother could not block the momentum of the shield and crumpled. Malicant or not, hatred or love between them, Raine wasn't sure she could strike with intent to kill at the person wearing that face. There, too, was the potential for Malicant to use the faces of people she loved against her-- no. She wasn't going there.

Well, then. If Jacob was doing what she couldn't, she'd do what it seemed he was reluctant to in return. Virginia was already straightening again, head at an odd angle, bleeding more profusely and seemingly animated by hate more than life itself. That fit, Raine thought distantly, with the perception of her mother she'd held most of her life, and then Jacob's manifestation was aiming a weapon at her and the time for contemplation of the mental dynamics of the situation was gone.

Raine flew, tracing a weaving path in the air, with half a thought to draw Abel's fire away from Jacob. Her wings were mana, not flesh and blood, not much of a worry unless there was more to the bullets than simple projectiles, which... could be the case. She erred on the side of caution rather than stay still, and when she finally moved to counter the light she sent his way was half-formed, a little unfocused. Still it should do to distract him, to buy her the few seconds she needed to properly cast.

That light required dodging. Abel stepped to the side, fraying robes being the only thing caught in the blast. It was discarded shortly after, a meaningless motion before Abel swapped out for something much lower tech: it was a sling. However less of a threat it might have seemed, his appearance underneath the robe was definitely threatening enough: what was once a well-tailored suit was in rags, holes and tears at every angle; underneath the clothes were the mangled limbs and torso of a man who had apparently been eaten alive, torn apart by some wild animals. One arm was almost entirely picked clean, cloth barely hanging on to the bone. Even his face had changed to reflect his previously-hidden atrocity, although it did nothing to lessen the focus from the bloodied socket of his eye used to be. The momentum of his sling appropriately built, the let loose and let the projectile fly. Once it got close to Raine, it almost slowed in the air before it let loose a concussive blast.

Cain had retrieved the buckler, already changing its shape once again. He drew his arm back and aimed as arrows crackling with fire on their tips formed in the arch of his bow, pulling it back far as he could manage after being so long out of practice, and shot straight for Virginia. He wouldn't let her get used to whatever tactics he chose, wouldn't allow her a moment of rest in between the assault until she simply stopped getting back up again.

His attention was stolen by the sound of Abel's attack and he stole a glance. Whatever he had expected to see, it was clear by the pained sound he made that this was probably one of the worst possible options. "No," he said, word caught in his throat and impossibly loud to his own ears. No, that wasn't how Abel looked. No, that wasn't how Abel thought of himself. No, that was something Cain had never wished to see again. It was everything—absolutely everything—at the center of what Cain's life had become. It was the worst, most painful failure of his life set out in brilliant technicolor and horrifying definition.

Time was time, no matter what Abel was using it to do. Raine stopped mid-air when he did, and light gathered under her, more formless than a proper circle. Not time enough for anything grander, and she didn't release the spell till the projectile he'd loosed was nearly on her. "Angel feathers!" The same soaring crescents as before, homing in on the man, and only now, free from the focus of the arte, did she properly notice his new appearance.

What in the world. The blast shook her, sent her toppling wildly through the air, and her wings fanned wildly to steady her even though they were more symbolic manifestations than anything else. When Raine righted herself finally she was nearer to Jacob again, hovering at a more normal elevation. A brief pause to assess -- she probably had some new internal problems, but nothing that couldn't wait -- and she was focused again.

Virginia had leaned to one side, scorched in the wake of the arrow's passing but not much more harmed. At Jacob's distraction she raised one hand, glowing, took advantage of the two of them stilled to cast again. Raine flexed her own fingers, directed half-thought shards of light at Virginia in a too little, too late attempt at distraction.

Prismatic light, across the ground beneath not her, but Jacob, who had drawn Virginia's focus quite adeptly. Despite that she knew he could heal, holy lance before had cut through him like so much paper and emotion, not rationality, tugged Raine to cover the rest of the distance between him, shove Jacob forcefully outside the radius in those scant few seconds. She closed her arms to cover her face, slammed her force field into as solid of an existence as she could muster, and the lances rained down.

It could have been worse. Angelic resistance and the defensive spell meant she survived handily, and she was on her feet when the light cleared, but bleeding from a number of places. She exhaled heavily, unclenched her fists, eyed both manifestations again. One of them had to give soon; they couldn't keep up like this much longer even with the stone's help.

With the force of her shove, Cain tumbled easily and recovered on his feet only thanks to the rush of a fight running through his veins. All of his attention was still on the brother who was now more than a ghost, but a phantom to haunt his nightmares. He could practically hear the slavering dogs gorging themselves on the escaping slave, momentarily distracted from their second target who had only been able to stand and watch. In his hand, the Vilii shard turned to nothing more than a stone to weigh him down, a hum reminding him of its presence with no form to protect him. He could hardly think just yet.

Abel, however, had no such distraction. In fact, Virginia's attack only gave him the precious few seconds to conjure up another weapon. This time, it was what appeared to be the handle of a knife. As he threw it and it sailed through the air, a blade of death energy materialized and intensified the closer it came to reaching Raine. Instead of reaching a fleshy mark, it embedded inside a wall of tree roots, dropping off as the blade disappeared. Cain was shaking his head, vehement and still not quite there, but there were some things instincts were great for: fighting in the absence of a will to do so was one he had honed quite well over the years.

Straightening, Abel considered Cain once again. "it is too late to begin fighting. what is the point? you left me to those animals and now you get in my way? that is not how a little brother should act, Cain."

Cain said nothing in response, eyes wide and gaze wavering as he took in every injury across Abel's body. It fit. It all fit and it hurt and he didn't have time to be traumatized, but his brain refused to listen to his body. How was he supposed to make this stop if all he could do was merely react instead of make his own independent move? He turned to regard Virginia, eyes narrowing in forced focus. His arm came up and his shoulder was weighed down as the rocket launcher took shape and became a rather comforting hold. He didn't bother to aim, simply fired the round directly toward Raine's figment of a mother and let it fly. It was essentially point blank range where they were at, but he was closer than Raine and he could block the shockwave with his body and still topple Virginia like a doll. He wasn't sure if it would be enough to bring her down, but what the hell. No kill like overkill, right?

So close, and with so little warning -- the rocket launcher had frankly been a surprise -- Virginia had nothing to do but shield, and even that wasn't enough in the face of a stone-powered missile. The explosion rocked the dream, shook the cohesion of the landscape, and, perhaps more pertinently, felled Virginia herself; when the smoke of it cleared, what remained was a charred body, prone and barely recognizable and certainly not moving.

Hard to tell if that shadow of Malicant really had been bested, or if it was playing possum, waiting for a dropped guard, but Raine could feel no more movement of mana from that source, and it felt, for a moment, like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Moving on.

The fact Jacob's brother was talking again suggested he'd found another weak point, that this accusation too was true, or close enough to true to rattle Jacob. Well. His name might well be Cain, by the repetition, but that might also as easily have negative connotations attached; Raine would hold with the way he'd introduced himself, save the other for getting his attention if necessary.

Still, she was going to need a few seconds uninterrupted for the arte she had in mind. That left little room for attracting his brother's attention, either, so loud denials in the spirit of Lloyd were right out. "It's never too late," Raine murmured instead, soft. The ground beneath her feet started to glow, and in a moment more so did she. "If you can keep him talking for just a little longer..."

Cain rocked on his feet at the blast but managed to keep himself up with the help of more tree roots bracing his legs. He stepped out easily moments later, the Vilii shard shifting to an innocuous knife for now; he didn't feel safe and his guard refused to go down. He knew exactly why, because he could hardly stand to look Abel in the face. It was manipulating at its finest point and only someone able to manipulate the reality around them and get inside his head at the same time could come up with something convincing enough to shake Cain so thoroughly.

He liked to think he had grown past regular manipulation techniques. What else were all of his years for if not gaining wisdom and callouses to how the world worked? This was not how the world was supposed to work, it was a dream, and that probably was what made it easier. He clenched his free fist and shifted to regard the shadow of his brother. Abel, who had turned his head to watch the smoldering remains of the other shadow, head tipped and posture just right for inconvenience and consideration. The angle made it a bit easier to bear, some of the marks on his body hidden by the twist of his body and Cain narrowed his eyes to study the position Abel had taken. He hadn't expected to lose his partner in crime, it appeared, and there was a plan cooking up in that brain.

Abel turned, then, and Cain stepped around Raine to draw the shadow's attention. He held his head high and blocked out the screaming in the back of his head, the young and terrified man drop to his knees and beg for forgiveness, willing to give up absolutely everything for one moment of Remus' smile returned. That was a familiar ache and one Cain could endure for a while longer if Raine had a plan. "She still has time," he said, trying to tell himself this was just a regular conversation with Abel. Some kind of misunderstanding they were bouncing back and forth in order to find a satisfying conclusion. "So do I. I know I have time left, we know she has time left. You have no reason to kill us."

"you betrayed me," said the ghost. It was just that simple and Cain felt a flinch try to roll down his spine and he suppressed it ruthlessly. Now was not the time to keep showing weakness. "she is helping you. that is enough. this betrayal is not fitting of family. what of me? what of Holly? what of the balance? everything is in danger now because of your actions."

Jacob in front of her was reassuring, a solid enough barrier that Raine was secure in her focus. She hated to make him be her shield again, but if she could finish this arte it would be, more or less, moot. She put her trust in him, and closed her eyes, shaping mana into a form she had never herself made, though she'd seen it often enough. For all her inexperience it came smoothly, though, structuring reality with the ease of a dream.

What time he bought her was enough. In the space of quiet once his shadow had done speaking, Raine opened her eyes, stepped forward to Jacob's side with magic held ready. This one was broad in its power, she knew, and she thought she could direct it at Malicant alone but for safety's sake she slipped her hand into Jacob's. Her fingers were sticky with blood by this point, but her grip was solid.

"That's enough," she said firmly, free hand raised, glowing white. "Sacred powers, cast thy purifying light upon this corrupt soul. Judgment!"

The space around them darkened, then, till there was little light left save that in Raine's hand. Then that flared, and as it did pillars of pure, brilliant light came falling from the sky, one after another in quicker and quicker succession, and the majority fell toward Abel. Some few went astray, but those close enough to Raine and Jacob to be felt were only warm, lacking the searing heat that the others would carry. Through it all Raine was intently focused on Abel, quietly furious. Malicant had used family against them both, family and lies close enough to truth that the weakness in them listened, and she would not stand for that.

In her grip, Cain's hand was shaking. He couldn't look away, his strength spent in every possible way, and even the show of spectacular lights and awe-inspiring power meant nothing to him so much as it was the final means to banish this shadow. The power nearly shook the entire hallway — and it was definitely back to a hallway now. As the manifestation point of his power seemed to do nothing so much as disintegrate in the light mana's powerful concentration, everything became deathly quiet.

Light cleared into proper illumination and there were hardly scraps of cloth left to flutter to the ground. If it had actually been Abel, he would have made sure he'd disappeared without a trace even to the end... or tried to get some gore on his attacker before being forced down. Before he knew what was happening, laughter bubbled up in his throat and he began to chuckle. Quiet at first, before it grew into something louder and quickly turned into something he couldn't control while his emotions went completely haywire.

It took his breath, took his sanity and his thoughts, and Cain fell to his knees with a hand going to cover his eyes as if it would help him regain some of his composure. There was moisture streaming down his face and it only made his laugh turn somewhat hysterical. What an idiot he was, had always been, would always be. That was what this really meant to him: to be so drawn in, to have had to face his brother down while they destroyed the likeness, it hurt so fucking bad and all he could do was laugh at it. It wasn't amusing in the slightest, just desperate and painful and he didn't even notice when the scenery around them began to flicker while he tried putting everything back into its place after they had been so rudely dragged out into the light.

Empty plains in the darkness, a field giving way to forest, the utterly horrifying sound of beasts gorging themselves; fear, blood, a scream. A blank room lit only by a dim light hanging over an operating chair, temperature kept uncomfortably warm, and the buzzing sound of someone talking with no focus to hear it; anxiety, antiseptic, sobbing. Another room much like the previous, well-lit and well-stocked for many nightmarish operations, an impassable cage in the corner and old, tunes that didn't match up to the scene; exhaustion, judging eyes, the sound of time ticking away.

Through it all, Cain couldn't stop laughing, couldn't stop crying.

Quiet. Emptiness. Even the remnants of what had been Virginia, gone now -- that explosion must have been enough. Raine exhaled heavily, and her shoulders slumped a little. It didn't feel like a great triumph, really. Just empty. But they were alive.

And then Jacob started laughing. Hysteria, not mirth. Raine glanced away, conscious that just as she'd rather not have had anyone witness to her own weaknesses, what she'd seen on display here had to have been intensely personal. If he needed this moment of breakdown to reclaim something of himself, she could at least do him the courtesy of not staring. She did not, however, let go his hand, reasoning that some kind of grounding reminder might help.

It was, she reflected, probably for the best that neither of them had wound up alone. No matter how hard it might be to have the worst of yourself laid bare for another to see, worse still without the reminder that those things could be overcome. Though she might wish Jacob hadn't gotten hurt quite as much, ultimately Raine didn't regret having been in his company.

The surroundings beginning to change again, however, set to rest the notion of simply waiting. At first she thought they truly had missed one of the shadows, but neither Virginia nor his brother stepped into view, and no attack came, from any quarter. Then this, these progressively more worrisome shifts, must be the result of the Dreaming's response to Jacob. Familiarity and emotion, and that was bad enough, given what she was seeing.

Raine knelt beside him, squeezed his hand briefly. Not alone. "Jacob," she said quietly. "Are you still with me?"

ENDPLOT | ROLL THE BONES, PART 2

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belatedly: warning for violence, a lot, last sevenish tags, we spaced sorry!

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