The Flame of the Crimson Rose

"Come," The God's voice resounded, carrying more force than any heard in millennia. "Put your power up against my creation. Let's see if you can kill a God. Can you stop my divine experiment?"

An unearthly howl escaped Caleb/Chaos's mouth, "Theres only one way to find out!"

Caleb was ready to charge, but the supernatural appearence of Ea's divine weapons checked his advance. He shrugged, deciding that he could survive whatever assault Ea launched. He clearly had the advantage! He had ripped one of the mighty scorpians gargantuam limbs off, and forced Ea to morph into his old form. What could go wrong?

The arrow that tore Caleb's leg from its socket for one. In the midst of his charge, the arrow had come fast, and struck true. A geyser of black blood sprayed from the gaping wound, as agony creeped into the rest of Calebs body. Caleb gasped in alarm, and nearly crashed to the ground. Chaos however steadied him.

"Patience," He said simply.

Suddenly veins which served as channels for the coursing dark energy that sustained Chaos slithered forth from the horrendous wound. More and more appeared, until they became so closely knit, that a new limb took form. Unfortunately, it was a chicken leg. Caleb flew to the opposite side of the Fenien building, where he was momentarily obscured from Ea.

"Chaos what the hell man!?" Caleb said both an amused and irritated expression tugging at his face.

"One moment while I try to rectify it," Chaos reassured Caleb.

Caleb felt Chaos's presence leave him for a moment, replaced by a bit of elevator music. Caleb idly bobbed his head in time with the rythem, and patted his human thigh like a bongo.

"Sorry for the delay, try clicking your fingers," Chaos said.

Caleb clicked, and his leg suddenly morphed into a horses leg, "yeaaa- No."

Caleb clicked again; penguin flipper. Again; Mooses head. Once more; Human leg. Brilliant.

"Sorry for the delay," Chaos apologised again.

Caleb needed no consolations or sorries, as he rounded the building once more, and launched a furious storm of energy balls, the same as the one before, all of them directed at Ea. In a confusing erratic pattern Caleb shot through the air towards the God. Upon reaching him he bellowed, "FOR JOY!"

He struck at Ea.

"FOR WOE!"

Another tremendous blow.

"FOR ANGER!"

Energy blast.

"FOR CALM!"

Second energy blast.

"FOR LUST!"

Caleb swiftly flanked Ea, and swiped at his exposed back.

"FOR LOVE!"

Caleb attempted to throw his arms around Ea's throat, but his limbs were to puny.

"FOR INCREDIBLY INEXPENSIVE CONVENIENT TRIOPICAL HOLIDAYS!"

Caleb drove his palm at Ea like a spearhead, intent on piercing the God's divine flesh.

"FOR LIFE!"

Caleb/Chaos then jetted skywards, and screaming, blasted a continuos stream of energy, at the earthbound Ea.

 

Addison was concentrating on the fight. Each slash, punch, kick, and hit came from somewhere within her mind. From behind, one of the soldiers attempted to climb up the back of the robot to reach it's head unnnoticed. However the picture Addison saw inside of her head was not the same picture one wold see out of the robots eyes. Under her direction, one of the robots hands reached up behind it's head and plucked the soldiers from it's back, throwing him ten yards away were he landed with a muffled thud.

Immediately she put her focus back into fighting the rest of the soldiers. Some newcomers came from out of the building to join the fight. Addi didn't give them much attention however, she was too focused on the men directly around her. Throwing her arm out hard, she attempted to hit the man next to her. But something was off, the reassuring weight of the robots arm was gone, instead she felt a painful burning sensation and the feeling that ten pounds had been shaved away. Zooming out, she took stock of the scene around her. The soldiers neasest the robot were screaming in agony, falling to the ground, writhing around and looking almost as if they were melting. Then she realized the arm of her robot was burned through, hit by whatever was hitting the soldiers.

Spinning her view around, Addi suddenly saw her. Susanna. Delight rose up inside of her her that was almost instantly quelched as she saw the long cut up her arm. Susanna was flinging the blood from it at the soldiers around and each one that got hit instantly fell down in agony.

"Looks like we've found out Susanna's power."

From where she stood Susanna turned and looked at Addi's robot, seeming to asses it. Her expression was hard, but it was edged with pain and slight hysteria. That wasn't the expression of the sweet vet Addison knew, and in that instant she understood that whatever her goal was, Susanna wasn't trying to help her. With her mind she thrust the robot forward towards Susanna, the burning feeling still lingering slightly in her arm. The robot dodged a few bullets, then flung itself into the air landing behind Susanna. Reaching out it grabbed Susanna's arm with the wound and twisted it behind the girl.

Addi tried to be careful and not hurt Susanna, she still saw her as a part of the team, but she couldn't be sure of how much strength the robot was using. A smear of blood touched the robot's finger and immediately she felt a burnding sensation in her finger as well, as she reached the robot's other arm around Susanna and gripped her other arm, pinning it to her side.

 

"Don't worry about them sealing us off. This is an office building, not a military base. They don't have steel fire doors or anything of the sort. We just need to work our way to the top. If they do find a way to seal us off, we bust through or Sam can draw a way out for us. That's why I brought him."

The top? They were going all the way to the top floor of the building? And on foot? Through all these corridors and stairwells? With a troop of guards every other floor? This is going to take forever! There's got to be an easier way!

He flipped through his sketchbook. Well, there were those, but that couldn't possibly work. They were far too large to pull out and besides, he couldn't pull living creatures. Then again, five minutes ago he wouldn't have thought he could have something like that mouth-gun working in the real world. It was worth a shot, at least.

He reached into his sketchbook and pulled. Soon, a strange creature was standing before him. It's basic physiology resembled a cave cricket - a massive cave cricket the size of a horse - but instead of chitinous plates it was covered with a thick scaly hide. It's four lanky legs terminated in thick and tough, yet human-like, hands. It turned to Sam, blinking it's massive single eye. Sam pointed at an external wall. "Open us a passage out." As it made short work of the steel and sheetrock Sam explained, "All these stairs, guards, and corridors are going to take far too long. If we're going all the way up, then we had best take the express route."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam held tightly to the grinning foot-creature which sprinted up the wall in sheer defiance of the law of gravity. This was such a bad idea. Sure, they were on the far side of the building from most of the battle, and were high enough already to avoid being spotted - probably. But that height worked against him as much as in his favor.

He snuck a quick look down at his companions - one riding the horse-cricket, which dug it's dug it's four sets of human-like fingers easily into the cracks and fissures of the skyscraper and (when those were unavailable) through the windows and other fragile surfaces to whatever might be solid and stable on the other side; the other atop a legless, sack-looking thing that dragged itself upward with the adhesive properties of it's five long prehensile tongues - but he quickly shut his eyes. He couldn't look down at them without seeing the pavement far below; and he couldn't look at that without seeing himself as a gory squelch upon it.

 

As Cole sat on the rather repulsive blob-tongue monster he could hear and feel the building shaking explosions from the battles nearby. Again he whispered a silent prayer for his friends.

Above him a strange figure zipped through the air and paused behind the building. It was Caleb! Only he now seemed to be brimming with energy. He was too far away to see what was he was doing, but after a brief pause Caleb zoomed back around the building hurling balls of chaotic energy at something out of Cole's sight.

Suddenly, the wall beneath Sam's disembodied-foot erupted sending Sam plummeting down toward Cole. Cole caught Sam by the hand as Candice made quick work of the assailants in the building.

"Hang on bud, I've got ya," Cole smiled at Sam as he held him dangling by an arm.

 

Disgusting. Disgusting. Oh god this thing is disgusting.

I had been perfectly fine with wading up the tower through legions of soldiers. More target practice, though I may have needed to pick up a couple extra weapons on the way, really, did I have to ride this disgusting thing? Sam's creation looked something like a giant with only arms and several long tongues that it used to pull itself up the side of the skyscraper.

Down below, the cries of death and bloodlust rocked the night. How I wished I was down there. Instead I amused myself. The giant was terribly slow, but as I sat on it's shoulders, I had the opportunity to glance through the glass windows of the floors we passed. Mostly I projected a black ink between Sam's giant grasshopper with hands and my "stead" so that the soldiers inside couldn't see us. But that got boring after a few floors. So instead, I decided to have some fun.

A stampede of mutant, bionic bulls came seemingly bursting through the stairwell door of one floor, the soldiers there screaming with fright as their attacks and guns did nothing to stop the beasts. Many of them ran for their lives, down corridors as the bulls chased them. However, not all of the corridors were real corridors.

I laughed manically as dozens of witless soldiers ran straight through the window next to me and into the void of the night. I casually plucked weapons from their outstretched arms, shotguns, assault rifles, all manner of man's ingenuity for death and destruction.

As I repeated this process, I quickly had something like thirty pounds of weapons slung across my shoulders and chest, even more I slung on the shoulders of my giant, belts of ammunition hanging from his neck like great brass chains of death, a pair of machine guns secured to his shoulders for whenever we got horizontal again.

I laughed and yelled into the night as I lit a cigarette, "We're going to have a party tonight!" The screams of soldiers falling to the ground and the dim staccato of gunfire from the raging battle providing a grim soundtrack.

 

Ea​

The wretch. The mortal dared to attack a god! To injure a god! The child wouldn't be allowed to continue, no matter what powers he held. This fight was going to end now. The child would die, and the experiment could continue.

But the child had a force of nature residing within him. Of course, the child wasn't the only one.

Before, Vincent Elric had been an astronomer and a historian. He studied the astronomy of ancient peoples, including their cosmology and myths. It seemed only natural that he become part of Anu. Vincent had problems, though. Deep seated psychological problems. Gifts from an abusive family, a bad neighborhood, poor friends and poorer parents. Vincent pushed through his troubled life, blazed his own path. But humanity still would not shine on him. His peers shunned him, his friends laughed behind his back, even his wife strayed from him, even his own children. Could they truly be blamed though? There was nothing wrong with the man himself. It was what lay underneath that pushed them away. Unexplainable mood swings, random violence, drunken fits one day and loving care the next. The man's mind had remained in tact, but his soul had been damaged. He couldn't function as a person, only as a human.

Vincent's story was truly a sad one. He had passion and love for his work, but it seemed that the world wanted nothing to do with him. He was split between two worlds. Split between the fantasy of gods and stars, and the real world of tragedy and anguish.

He was too be blessed with the power of Anu, it was who he truly was, a lover of the world, the stars. A loving god to his people. But his hate had seeped into his soul through the years. He wanted to love the world, but it hated him too much. It seemed to him that every attempt of love was meet with hate for his damaged soul. When Anu came, when he became part of Anu, he was finally truly rejected by his world. He had become a monster, a vicious beast of black magics, capable of transforming into ancient pagan gods and beasts from times long past.

He fled.

And met Alex.

And The Planet.

The Planet sympathized. It cared not what the state of his soul was. Neither was Alex.

They never judged him, never asked anything of him, never betrayed him, never ridiculed him. He was treated with love and respect. All they wanted was for him to be happy and to fulfill his dream, whatever it be.


This was not true of course. The Planet manipulated Vincent, twisting his soul even farther, corroding away the divinity, scraping away the hope and the love. He left only hate. That was all it needed.

And so The Doctor was born, with only a single goal in his mind. To test out a hypothesis. If all of human life was destroyed, all of the hate, all of the anguish, all of the despair, then would life be happier?



Where once Ea had stood, now stood Anu. Albeit, quite a twisted view of him.

He stood much taller than Ea, though he wore similar armor. His beard was long and braided, his face old and worn, and yet, chiseled from hard granite. A crown rested upon his head, giant bulls horns sprouting from it. The msot spectacular part of him though, was the light. Being god of the heavens, light radiated out from him, transforming him into a living star of sorts. But just as Ea's rivers were dark and rancid, this light was corrupted. It was light, but it didn't brighten the world, rather, it seemed as if he was only covered in light because he was stealing light from the world, rather than giving it. Pale and gray, this ghastly halo painted an aura of despair around his form. No longer was Anu a god of the heavens.


He raised his hand and an ancient symbol formed in front of him, a command for the stars to come, and to abide by his will. Around the symbol assembled the 18 constellations of Babylon. Each shining in ghostly glory. They shifted forms, once again resembling the soldiers that they had once been, used to destroy evil from the world. Now though, they were rotted and tainted. Whether for good or evil, they were no longer the noble soldiers they had once been. They lined themselves up across the symbol, and melded together to create Anu's weapon. A giant curved sword shining with all the light of a starless sky.

Anu said nothing as he silently rose from the ground to meet Caleb. He wanted to yell and scream. To curse the world and all its people. But he could not. Somewhere deep inside, he could not curse the world. The world had given him a gift. He had life, he had power. Instead, he cursed humanity. love despair hate emotion hope tragedy comedy all that was good in the world, and all that was bad. For the world it seemed, had abandoned him.

"Don't you see!" He yelled, his voice rebounding against the city. "You abandoned me! I tried to love and was meet only with hate! I was never meet with love!" He wasn't yelling at Caleb. He didn't even look at the child, only through him. He was yelling at the world. He couldn't bring himself to curse it, only to scream in despair and hate. For although he hated the world with all his soul, at heart, he still loved it.

"You humans. You never loved me. Never even tried. So where you meet me with hate, I will return hate. And when all the hate has been used. When all of you are gone. Then only love can remain." Anu directed his last words towards Caleb as he raised his sword.

Anu lowered his sword, not even fast enough to kill an ant. He never even touched Caleb. And yet, Caleb had bent rent in two from the force. Ea wasn't a god, he had only been a constellation, Anu was the god that resided within Vincent Elric. And Caleb, even with the forces of Chaos within him, stood no chance against all the heavens.

Anu brought Caleb to the ground with him. Caleb had yet to die yet, although, nearly rent completely in two from shoulder to hip, organs missing, blood gone, chunks blown away, he had little time to live.

Anu left the child to die, not finishing him with another attack. The child was too live until the very end. He fought for the world with everything he had, and so, just as Vincent would do, he would watch the world die. He would learn what it meant for the world to abandon him. And at the end, he would see the conclusion of the grand experiment. He would see how only love remained.

 

Caleb vaguely noted his bloody organs sprawled out from his severed torso. Chaos sustained him, but barely. Shadows flickered at the edges of Calebs view, inching ever closer to complete darkness.

"I- I've never... bee- gah! been sliced in half... heh... before its-" Caleb searched for the right word, "Unpleasent."

"Child. There is one option," Chaos began.

Caleb coughed up black blood, which sloshed down his chin, "By- GAH! means lay- lay- lay it on me."

"I run through people, places, earth, space," Chaos paused for a second, "And time. Erratic as my powers are, perhaps I could arrange for you to be taken back to a point in time, where you intestines were in the correct place. At the correct angle. And not sliced up like german sausages. Or minced. One minute please."

Once again the elevator music kicked in, although Caleb's agonized state prevented him from enjoying the full customer service experience provided by Chaos Corp. A few precious moments later Chaos reappeared.

"All right Caleb step right up for a chance to be transported back in time before you were on deathrow!" Chaos said loudly imitating a game show hosts voice.

Suddenly Caleb was standing whole in a lavish tv set. An audience composed entirely of spires rattled enthusiastically. Startlingly bright stage lights flooded the floor around Caleb, giving it an unnaturely clean sheen. Caleb recoiled from the noise and light, but soon recovered his senses and saw Chaos sweeping his arms about enthusiastically, egging the crowd on. Eventually he turned to Caleb.

"Congratulations! You have one the chance to cheat death once more, and travel back in time!"

The cheering spires made an almighty ruckus at Chaos's words. At Chaos's behest, large curtains at the back of the stage were drawn, revealing a huge wheel. In the spokes of the wheel in the place of prizes, were instead memories. Caleb identified what looked like his birth, his first kiss, playing soccer with mates, and more recently being rent in half by Ea.

Caleb moved towards the wheel, but was stopped by the garishly dressed Chaos, "Uh, uh! Not so fast Caleb my man, first you must answer this question."

"Chaos, can you by any chance **** off and let me go back?" Caleb queried politely.

Both the crowd and Chaos guffawed, "Ah! If only, lights!" The lights dimmed on cue, and a drum roll bounded throughout the room.

"For a chance to travel back in time, Caleb Davidson, here is your question," Chaos said without a trace of irony.

"Who is the love of your life?"

Caleb raised an eyebrow, "Piss easy much? Well I wouldn't know Addi I suppose, so far anyway. Wait," Caleb advanced on Chaos, "You do realise if you let me die, you have no body to inhabit."

Still grinning forcefully Chaos tossed the question cards behind him and nodded towards the wheel, "Lets roll."

Caleb spun the wheel, before grabbing one of the protruding handles, and gently easing the desired memory to rest in front of the arrow, much to the horror of the crowd. Derogatory jeers and boos reached Calebs ears, but he was already delving into the past.

"You humans. You never loved me. Never even tried. So where you meet me with hate, I will return hate. And when all the hate has been used. When all of you are gone. Then only love can remain."

Back and angry Caleb laughed, "Dating lesson 101 asshole, first way to become loved, is to not turn into a babylonian god and slice people in half and wipe out the human race!"

Summoning all of his newfound strength Caleb zoomed straight at Ea, plunging into his great forehead. He saw demented thoughts of hate being eliminated along with the human race, but he remained unassuaged. He settled down in Ea's ethereal subconcious.

Energy rippled up and down his pulsing form, crackling at his fingestipes, then it expanded outwards, consuming Ea's thoughts and mind. Just to be sure, Caleb dropped a timed energy bomb, before bursting out from within Ea's head into the sun. He glared back at the wounded God.

"And one other thing if there is no humans, there is no hate, but theres no love," Caleb slid on his aviators, "Cya in hell you pretentious ****wit!"

Then his bomb detonated.

 

"We're going to have a party tonight!"

'Man that guy is creepy.' Cole thought to himself as he hoisted Sam onto his wall climbing steed. Normally such a task would be difficult but Cole had developed gecko grip hands in addition to increased strength. Thus, Cole took little notice of the danger Sam certainly felt himself in and quickly returned his attention to the assailants pouring from the building and plummeting to their deaths.

The jumpers seemed have something to do with the cigarette smoking Victor as he seemed to be able to predict each point at which each villain would burst from a window and plummet to his demise. He was using whatever power he had not only to defeat the foes within the building but also to collect quite an arsenal of weaponry.

The strange disembodied foot came sprinting back up the building allowing Sam to return his steed.

"How do we know where to go back in?" Cole hollered over the chorus of screaming Order minions falling from windows.

 

Aestuo​

Shouting, screaming, the petty guards were being slaughtered. Except... it would seem that their screams were coming from outside. Interesting. Aestuo walked to the window to see the intruders. Very interesting. Giant feet, tongue creatures and mutant grass hoppers.

Well someone had an imagination.

Not that it imagined. After all, Aestuo had an imagination himself. He couldn't be where he was now without it.

As the group approached, Aestuo's view was blocked by a blot of black ink. Now that couldn't be allowed. They didn't think they could escape like that did they? Not that it mattered.

Aestuo, in his finely tailored suit, was a strange sight as he raised a shotgun to the window. What was even stranger, was the shot that he fired. Normally, shotguns fire either shot, small led pellets, or slug, single large rounds. This though, fired an array of small red glowing objects. These didn't spread like shot though. Clearly, numerous lights could be seen, but they stayed together like a slug until the very last moment. Immediately after piercing the ink and the window, they exploded outward at the group outside the window. Literally exploded. Just like a frag grenade, the pieces flew outwards, accompanied by a blast of flame.

The shards managed to miss the intruders, but they damaged the steeds all the same. Thankfully, they needed not jump through the window from which they had just been shot at. That would be suicide. Instead, they were able to jump through the window directly below. A lucky streak indeed.

Or not.

One way or another, Aestuo had out thought the group. Waiting on the floor below was Aestuo and three troops. A thin woman with blades running along her arms and legs, a muscular man who had a large wolf head replacing his right arm, an elderly man with a straight-razor. Surprisingly, none attacked. Aestuo merely watched the group for a moment. No one moved, for the first sign of movement spelled the first attack.

The raising of Aestuo's weapon signaled attack.

 

Victor

I cackled in glee as a revolver style grenade launcher found it's way to me. But now I profoundly sad, I had had one of everything so far. The paralells were beautiful to me, two revolvers, two automatic shotguns, pairs of M4 and Styre assault rifles, two machine guns strapped to my ugly friend's back. I even had two identical highclass bolt action rifles, for what I'd need them for I didn't know. We were going into a building.

But still, the pairs were oddly beautiful. And this genade launcher would be the creme on the cake, if it had a twin.

"How do we know where to go back in?"

I frowned up at the guy who had spoken, annoyed at the stupid question inturrpting my thoughts. "When we get to the top stupid. Where else would the fat cat b-"

I was cut off by an explosion of glass just between us. "****! Inside! They know we're here!" My illusion must have faltered, the stupid idiot up there distracted me. I blew i the window directly to my left with a spare shotgun on ugly's back, grabbing my giant by it's sparse hair and steering him towards the openning.

Inside, four people waited for us. A pair of some of the most ugly thugs I'd seen in the order, one with a wolf head for an arm, the other a woman with silver blades running up and down her body. "Heh," I chuckled to myself, "She must not get too many offers for massages." The two others were men in suits. I never trusted suits.

The mafia always wore suits. One of them held a simple razor, the other a seemingly plain shotgun. I eyed them, they would be the most dangerous than the freaks over there. I immediately set to projecting an illusion, making them think that we were spreading out, circling them. Instead, the others clambered through the broken window and clustered near me, where the illusion of a blank space protected us.

The ruse worked. Through the fog of my illusion, I saw their eyes followed the phantom images around the room, as mine approximated down the barrels of my machine guns. When the man with the shotgun raised his gun, I opened fire.

 

Aestuo​

What a fool. To think that something as simple as a machine gun could take him out. A regular gun? Against the Volcano Shotgun? What idiocy.

As soon as Victor had began shooting, Aestuo followed suit. Now, a normal shotgun could in no way block a rain of bullets. And Aestuo had a normal shotgun.

Of course, his ammo couldn't really be called "Normal"

A rain of what looked like burning embers flew from the barrel, and actually oriented themselves to intercept the incoming bullets. Each time one of the embers was hit, it would cause a small explosion, stopping even more bullets. As the embers quickly depleted, Aestuo simply renewed them with a new shot.

The troops were about to attack when the man with a wolf head for an arm, smelt something. Or rather, his arm smelt something.

"An illusion. They're still at the back." The bladed woman rushed forward, followed by the other two while Aestuo continued to block the machine gun fire. He could keep this up forever. He was limited by something as foolish as ammo. He had all the ammo he could ever need in this building. And it was always available.

Aestuo said nothing as his troops rushed forward. The wolfman howling from his arm, the old man cackling like a maniac, the bladed woman in stoic silence while Aestuo merely grinned his smile. His signature smile. Filled with all the charm of a grand prince and the malice of prince of demons.

Susanna​

What was she trying to do? Why were they stopping her? Didn't they know that they had to be healed? Why didn't they want to be healed? None of it made any sense. This was good for them. Yet they didn't want it. It was a paradox to her. It just didn't work.

The robot's arms were strong. No matter how she tried, Susanna could not wiggle free from its grasp. She yelled, screamed, cried. It was strange though, watching such a beautiful young woman struggling as if for her life, while screaming and crying only words of hope and love. She never cursed. Never was even the slightest bit rude.

"Let me go! I'm trying to help you! Trying to heal you!"

Now matter how she yelled though, the robot would not detach itself.


Meanwhile, Will had his hands full. Whenever he attacked the lightning man, big arm countered, when he attacked big arm, lightning countered. He couldn't get a hit in at either of them. He couldn't keep this up for long. He had used up too much energy with the distraction, he use another mass of it to take these two out quickly. That was his biggest disadvantage. When Candiec or Chalybs ran out of energy, they just stopped. When he did... He finished dying.

Addison needed to get rid of that girl now.


Vincent Elric

It was all disappearing. All the hate. All the love. All the despair. All the hope. It was all gone.

And it was wonderful. The hypothesis was wrong, but this was a wonderful result. When everything disappeared, only the end was left. There was nothing to it, it was just the end. Just 0. But it was beautiful. No one had ever told him how beautiful it would be. The end.


Vincent Elric's body slowly melted back into it's original form. No longer was he Ea or Anu. Just Vincent Elric, a regular, plain looking astronomer in a lab coat. And for the first time that he could remember, he smiled, truly smiled, and cried a small tear of joy as his mind wandered farther into the end. And just before his mind faded away, he whispered a silent thank you. A silent thank you to the man that had killed in in hate and violence, but was the only person who had ever brought him happiness.

 

Caleb landed, and watched as the smiling man died. When his body was still Caleb looked at his lab coat, a stained badge was pinned to his chest. It read 'Vincent Elric.' Suddenly Caleb was overwhelmed by guilt. He took a step backwards, and tripped on a body sprawling in the dust. These were people he was killing. Until this point he had thought of them as inhuman monsters, his thoughts clouded by vengeance, and Rocky's punishment. With his revenge complete, however, he felt empty. He didn't want to kill any more.

"Thats it. Im done," Caleb whispered softly as he stood.

"Not quite yet child," Chaos corrected.

Caleb rolled his eyes, but his face hardened as he found he no longer had control over his limbs.

"Uh Chaos, whats going on?" Caleb asked in a panicked voice.

Chaos didn't reply, he simply laughed, and laughed, and laughed. When his mirth was reduced to a sputter he spoke, "Ah Child! Your stupidity granted me much amusement! You knew I desired control yet you still used me! Now this worlds future will be painted by ME! CHAOS WILL REIGN! THERE WILL BE NO ORDER, THERE WILL BE ANARCHY!"

"Oh buggernuggets," Caleb mumbled, "We're still on for poker tonight though?"

"Yes, of course," Chaos replied.

Chaos then once again took to the skies, where his awesome power scorched the field, making no distinction between Resistance or Order. Chaos's manic laughter was impossibly loud resounding for miles. Chaos then flew down to survey the damage he had caused. There weren't many combatants left. Chaos brutally put down any survivor who raised their heads. Then Caleb groaned.

"Oh no. GUYS PLEASE! CHAOS TOOK CONTROL! YOU HAVE TO STOP ME!"

Because Chaos was heading towards Elsie, Chalybs and Sarah.

 

Without warning, the wall up which Sam's foot-beast ran exploded, sending him hurling to the ground below. Before he had fallen far however, he felt someone arrest his fall by grabbing his arm.

"Hang on bud, I've got ya."

Sam muttered thanks while looking frantically around. As he was thrown back, he had felt his sketchbook slip from his fingers. Now he was hoping it had landed on something. It hadn't. When he saw it it was stories below, flapping as it plummeted like a wounded bird. He pulled the mouth-gun from his belt and fired, hoping that it would grab the book and pull it in like it had the guard. It's snaking tongue managed to barely reach one page and ripped it and only it, crumpled and torn, from the spine.

Sam pried the page from the gun's mouth and smoothed it out. Worthless. It was a pair of larger drawings, not any useful specific objects. One side was the blood fountain-river, the other was the vaudeville matches and knives. Neither one showed any potential. Of all the pages in that thing, I grabbed the only one without anything good on it. He sighed and stuffed it into his pocket. May as well keep it around, just in case.

Looking up, Sam noticed that the explosion that knocked him off was one of many. Apparently, the guards were hurling themselves through the windows in an attempt to get away from...something inside. He had no idea what, other than that it probably had something to do with the new guy (Vincent? Vilbert? Vance?) who was removing various guns from the guards' hands with the casual nature of a man picking fruit. A half-insane, evilly laughing man picking fruit.

But there was nothing wrong with a little insanity. Sam knew that more than anyone. So, his steed having regained it's footing and having caught up with the rest of the group, Sam paid what's-his-name no more mind and and proceeded to (cautiously, carefully) attempt to reposition himself on the foot-beast.

Another explosion. Yelling. Gunfire. It was all going too fast for Sam. Why couldn't chaotic things just happen at a leisurely pace? The others steered their creatures into a hole in the wall, and he followed. Inside was no safety, only more gunfire. Panicking, Sam flipped a desk over and ducked behind it, trying to sort things out.

Well, the enemies weren't shooting directly at them for the moment. What's-his-name seemed to be distracting them with some sort of illusion. He couldn't see Candice or Cole, but what looked like the perforated remains of their creatures were crumbled by the hole in the wall. They had made it in, probably.

Okay, what were they up against? There was a woman covered in blades, a man with two heads (one of them a wolf's) and one arm, an old guy armed with only a straight razor (he looked too unassuming. If he's here, he must have one heck of an ace up his sleeve), and a man with a cinder-firing shotgun and an air of superiority (he's probably the leader). Well, new-guy still has all those guns. Perhaps...

"An illusion. They're still at the back."

Perhaps nothing. We're royally screwed.

 

"Elsie!"

Yes, it was Sara!

Licking her lips, Elsie burst forward, ripping more heads off as she went, but having no clue that she was. It was like she had to get rid of any extra energy or else she'd explode. Okay, she would explode, no question about it. It especially did NOT help when the dang scorpion like metal head kept changing - each change more powerful than the last.

Meant more energy.

Elsie stumbled at the force of the true Ea. She turned to witness the power and energy used to store the world in order. But it was too much. That plus Calebs Chaos? It was way too much. Elsie started sprinting toward Sara again. At least it wasn't all completely negative. At least there was some sort of balance...

But now she couldn't exactly sit still, and it was driving her mad. It was like something wanted to break free, and it was pounding against her head, chest and limbs to do just that.

"Sara..." just a few feet away from her now, Elsie spotted a clumped group of stunned soldiers just west of her. Her eyes brightened as she decided to use this window of opportunity and blow them to smithereens with some of the excess energy. "...thats better -"

Her senses hightened and her body felt like it just took a whiff of some hot delicious food after days of starvation. But at the same time, it felt like something was robbing her off her life. Elsie turned and immediately flinched back, flying up her hands to shield her from a blasting light. Ea had changed again... to someone who was radiating light.

No... who was surrounded by the worlds light. He was gathering up their life force. But Elsie saw it; the ring of despair coloured a pale grey. It was threaded through the powerful light. And now Elsie was feeling the stolen radiance, and no longer was she hungry for blood and kills. Something was wrong...

"Don't you see!" He yelled, his voice rebounding against the city. "You abandoned me! I tried to love and was meet only with hate! I was never meet with love!"

"What the hell is going on..." Elsie asked allowed to Sara, the battle momentarily paused to listen.

"You humans. You never loved me. Never even tried. So where you meet me with hate, I will return hate. And when all the hate has been used. When all of you are gone. Then only love can remain."

Elsie couldn't help but think; one cannot exist without the other. She turned to her friend to see how she reacted to such words. Then Elsie turned back to Caleb...

Who now supported a fatal wound. She gaped in horror. She didn't see the raised sword, she didn't even see the swing of it, but judging from the space they had between eachother, she knew he could not have physically touched Caleb. What had just happened? It was just way too sudden...

And so was the darkness that began to growing. It was wrapping around Caleb - well, not just surrounding him. And it wouldn't stop. She could practically feel the energy pulling him.

Once it was all over, Elsie was back to her breathy state.

"He can patch himself up?!" Elsie raised her eyebrows, distracting herself from the temptation to absorb any of that black energy. Then, while squinting (because it was hard to get the details from such a distance), she saw Caleb rush at the God again, which answered her question. She watched as the ball of Chaotic energy that surrounded Caleb's body, drop something over the god, over what she still presumed as Ea.

Then it exploded.

Elsie caught her breath and held it, only realising she hadn't exhaled it until detonation had ended. "Oh jesus... that... was... fantastic!" she said grinning, feeling the almighty energy slip away. Her throbbing head gradually became less painful.

"C'mon Sara!" and she began sprinting toward the wreckage. By then she knew Ea was gone; no longer could she feel that luminous yet diabolical presence.

But that wasn't what halt in her tracks. It was the other godly source. Caleb.

"Oh s***" and then, of course when she thought everything was going to be okay on their end, Elsie found herself in the wake of an even more demonic force.

Already in the air once more, Caleb seemed to have realised the doom on them all as well...

"Oh no. GUYS PLEASE! CHAOS TOOK CONTROL! YOU HAVE TO STOP ME!" Elsie watched as this 'Chaos' that thrived in him took control of Calebs body and flew right at them.

Without delay Elsie threw up a barrier of her own stolen energy before lunging out of the way, knowing the barrier would only hold out for a mere second. This would give her time to progress what had just happened and what will happen if they don't think of something fast.

She scanned the area briefly, spotting Chalybs and Sara. Elsie, whilst dodging any attacks that came her way (bringing sweat to brow instantly), an idea was forming, but realised afterward of the disaster that lay behind it. What she realised was that for herself to finally absorb Caleb's energy would, at present, lead to her own destruction; on the off chance that it wouldn't kill her, it would make her go insane and murder everything - leading to her own death by the hands of the ressistance (she assumed at least). So, either way, it concluded in her death.

But better than chaos ruling or the thought of killing Caleb, right?

Still, she kept her idea to herself for now, awaiting for what Chalybs or Sara's motion would be to such a terrible turn of luck.

 

"Let me go! I'm trying to help you! Trying to heal you!"

The girl in the robot's arms cried and squirmed, but the robot's grip proved infallible. Addi smiled internally, pleased with her creation. She had the robot do a quick scan around the area to check on things, that's when she saw Will. He looked exhuasted, pale and sweaty as he fought one of Susanna's companions. He was looking at the robot as if waiting for it to do somethng. Looking down at Susanna's struggling form she realized she had to get rid of the girl.

An unpleasant senation fell into the pit of Addison's stomach. You have to. To save everyone. Anyways, she's not right in the head anymore, it's obvious. She's not making a distinction between good and bad. Addi tried valiantly to come up with a the courage to do what she had to. Just snap her neck, quick and clean. No pain or suffering, quick and easy. You can do it, everyone else has, Caleb has, Will has, Candice has, Chalybs has. Quick, easy.

Addi directed one of the robots large hands towards Susanna's throat, whilst turning the girl slightly inward so that both arms still remained pinned to her sides. The hand caught her throat however, it didn't tighten, it just sat there waiting for Addi's instruction. But nothing was coming.

C'mon Addi! You can do it! Just one clean break!

Right as she was about to tighten the hand though, a memory flashed in her head. A succession of memories actually. People, times and faces. Her mother, Gage, Caleb, Cole, Sarah, Nathan, Sam, everyone she knew and loved. Then pictures of the city skyline, destroyed and broken filled her mind the dead bodies covering the ground. Flames came up, engulfing Gage in them, then a hand ripped through Caleb almost killing him. Tears burned her eyes which remained shut tight and still the robot didn't move. Her hand twitched at her side and she felt it brush the corner of the family picture stuffed in her pocket, even through her subconcious. The hand at Susanna's throat suddenly moved back and let go.

I can't. I can't.

However, in a flash the robot had snapped back to life. It grabbed Susanna's arm again, and lifted her off the ground then carried her, still struggling, around the side of the building and away from the fight. The sounds of the fight became muffled in the robot's "ears" and Addi had the robot gently set Susanna down. Concentrating hard she started to speak in her subconcious, and just as she had hoped the words came out of the robot. Though the were fuzzy and indestinct, as if they were coming from a broken radio.

"What are you doing, Susanna? Why are you hurting people on both sides? You're supposed to heal and help people. We've come all this way to get you back and help the resistance, let me help you. Something's happened to you...let me try to help you fix it."

 

"An illusion. They're still at the back."

****! So much for that. I abruptly wiped the illusion away, while the man with the shotgun continued to confound me. Somehow he was blocking my machinegun fire with blasts from his own gun, projectiles flying through the air, intercepting the lead I was throwing his way.

Irritated, I abandoned my stead and drew two of the automatic shotguns from a makeshift holster on my giant's back and crouched behind a cubicle wall. I heard the thump of feet approaching and swung around the corner, immediately faced with the wolfman's maw inches from me. ****!

I rolled onto my back and caught the wolfhead between my thighs, its teeth nashing dangerously close to my jewels. I bashed it in the face in response and started crushing it's neck. The man tried to shake his wolf... arm free, but not before seeing me raise my shotguns to his face.

I grinned, "Goodbye luv." The head made a great big splatter on the ceiling just behind him, skull fragments flying everywhere.

 

What a strange and frigtenign group faced them inside the building.

The foursome seemed momentarily distracted before the strange beast mutant called out, "An illusion. They're still at the back."

Victor immediately opened fire with his machine gun. Cole began to realize that Victor's power must have something to do with creating illusions. Too bad it didn't work this time.

The smug sinister looking man at the back of the group returned Victor's bullets with a blast of flaming embers that caused a burst of explosions lighting up the room with red hot flashes and deafening cracks.

Sam took cover as the villains rushed at them. Just them one of the burning embers struck Cole in the shoulder. It left a scorching searing pain as it continued to burn into his skin.

Cole cried out. Leaping up he used moth of his and Slurpy's scythes to tear one of the large recessed light fixtures out of the ceiling. The large rectangular apparatus of metal and fluorescent tubes swung down by electric wires and collided with the bladed woman and crazy old guy.

A shotgun blast and a spatter of blood told Cole that the wolf-man had been dispatched by Victor. But the clean suit in the back was the biggest threat, and the apparent leader, he had to be taken care of first.

Despite the burn in his shoulder Cole jumped again. This time over the desk behind which Sam was hiding to vault off of the wall. He had to get behind that flaming shot-gun if he was going to get a swipe at the boss.

With an acrobatic spin, Coles feet collided with the man knocking him to his side. Cole quickly grabbed the barrel of the gun and held it out away so that his free hand could pummel his face mercilessly.

 

Aestuo & Company​

Aestuo wasn't the kind who got his hands dirty very often. He liked his hands clean and free of blood toil and sweat. Of course, that's not to say isn't perfectly capable of getting them dirty. It's just that he'd much rather command and attack from a distance. Unfortunately, he wasn't going to be able to do that. There were four on each side. He was going to have to actually participate. Hopefully, he would have to dirty his hands to do it.


Wolfman, meanwhile, had just had his head blown off. Of course, that didn't mean the odds had just gotten worse. Even as blood was gushing out of his head, the wolf's head on his arm was still moving. Still attacking. And it was controlling the rest of the body.

Like a zombie werewolf, it was still fighting.

With it's human arm, wolfman jabbed the man hard in the thigh, getting enough leverage to release his arm and swipe the guns out of his victims hands. By now, blood was gushing down his neck and out over his shirt.

There was no telling when he would die. But apparently, blood loss and decapitation didn't work.

Seems the phrase "Cut off a wolf's head and it still has the power to bite" holds true.


Unfortunately, Aestuo wasn't able to avoid confrontation. Some savage was beating at his face. Held his gun away and was punching him.

Him.

Hitting Him.

Punching him.

Punching his face.

But the savage had missed something. He didn't need to aim that shotgun. Or even hold it.

Aestuo's shotgun, rather than shooting shot or slug, shot a custom ammunition. Aestuo was able to actually crystallize fire. Lower the speed of the atoms that made up the plasma that fire is made of to the point that the fire lowered from the plasma state of matter to a solid. Not only could he crystallize fire though, he could control it in it's crystalline state.

Amidst the rain of blows, Aestuo couldn't get a good idea where his gun was pointed, or where his assailant was, but he could still take a shot. He rapidly increased the atomic movement of an ember inside the powder of his next shot, firing the round. Then, steered the fired bullets in the direction of his assailant.


After escaping from the florescent light, the bladed woman attacked Candice. Unfortunately, she chose the wrong opponent. Although they matched each other blow for blow, due to the similarity in fighting styles, she couldn't last. Candice's flames were mobile and fluid, while her blades stiff and solid. Candice could both move less of a distance to block an attack and could use the extra mobility to make her attacks more complex, and harder to counter. It was only a matter of time.


Meanwhile, the old man was hopping across cubicles looking for the last rebel. His moves were erratic, crazed. He seemed to have no sense of self, jumping from place to place, leaving slashes in the air here and there, cutting a cubicle down every now and then. Each slash though, remained where it was made. The very fabric of space and time had been altered there. It wasn't so much as he had cut time-space, as he had left the impression of a cut being made in the space over a period of time. That meant that anything touching the stormy gray lines would be sliced just as if they had been cut by his razor.

 

Sarah

Elsie had almost made it to Sarah when the scene took on a new and terrifying direction. Empowered by dark chaotic energy Caleb had defeated Ea, even in his most frightening and powerful god-like form.

"C'mon Sara!" Elsie called as she started toward Caleb.

As the brilliant aura of Ea’s power diminished something in the boy champion changed. Elsie sensed it before Sarah, "Oh s***"

Laughing maniacally Caleb sped over the battle field obliterating everything in his path.

"Oh no. GUYS PLEASE! CHAOS TOOK CONTROL! YOU HAVE TO STOP ME!" he cried as his possessed body sped towards them. His voice sounded desperate and fearful. Elsie created a barrier of dark energy and leapt out of the way.

‘This is not good,’ Sarah thought to herself. ‘Why do all of the powerful people have to be out of their freaking minds!’

Chaos collided with Elsie’s barrier, forcefully breaking through it. Sarah took the opportunity to do her best while he was distracted and hurled the massive fuel tank at him. At this point she couldn’t worry about Caleb so much as the others who’s lives were at stake. She doubted that such an explosion would do much to a powerful entity such as this ‘Chaos’ that had taken over Caleb anyway, but it might slow him down a little.

The tank still full of fuel detonated in a fury of flame and shrapnel. It was a little more than Sarah had anticipated and the force of it threw her and some of the others away from the blast.

As the massive dark plume of smoke rose from the explosion she peered from where she lay to see what had become of Caleb and the one he called Chaos.

Cole Harper

The suited man took the beating with surprisingly little struggle, but would not go down. Cole suddenly paused as he felt a hot flash course through the gun barrel in his hand and saw the spray of glowing bullets stream out.

‘How did he do that? His hand wasn’t even on the trigger.’

The blast didn’t more right and immediately caught Cole’s eye. Instead of streaming toward the ceiling the burning embers slowed and were coming back at him. Quickly Cole grabbed the suited man by the shoulders and rolled him on top of him, between himself and the embers. At the same moment Cole became aware of an increasingly foul taste in his mouth.

 

I breathed easy for a moment and the beastman's blood dripped onto my pants. Only a moment. Then, the torso suddenly animated itself like it was changing gears, and punched at my thigh. I yelled in pain as the blow hit a nerve bundle.

The beast's head freed itself from my legs and reared to strike, while it's arm swept my shotgun from my spasming grasp. As the jaws came down, I rolled myself to the right, barely missing having my face bitten off, the clack of the beast's teeth like a clap next to my ear.

I leaped to my feet and gazed at the sight before me. The bloody stump of a head made the body seem more of a wolf's as the head bobbed and weaved like a fencer's sword. I quickly drew both of my revolvers, but then the beast went on the attack, making me leap and back away from his teeth.

My fingers were covered in blood, mine or it's I wasn't sure, but it was nearly impossible to get a grip on the hammers with the slippery fluid on my hands. D**nit, d**nit, d**nit!

I tripped over something, looking to the side I realized it was the corpse of the leg-less giant, it's chest perforated by hundreds of small seared holes. The growl of the wolf brought my attention back to it as it leaped into the air.

I finally thumbed down the hammer of on of my revolvers, and lifting up my feet, caught the beast in the chest and lifted it's body over me, while plugging two shots into it's chest. My legs buckled under the weight, but the forward motion of the manbeast sent it rolling towards the shattered window we had entered.

 

Chalybs​

Too Late.

It was too late to change anything.

Maybe if there was more time, things would be different.

Too Late.


Chalybs was already beginning to change. His blood was boiling, his body burning, his muscles and bones hardening, his organs burnt up and replaced. He was going to change in Chalybs again. The real Chalybs. Chalybs Bellum. War Iron. The Human Forge. The incarnation of war-craft, and weapon-smithing.

He couldn't keep Chalybs contained any longer.


Chalybs turned to face Caleb after cutting yet another enemy down. Caleb was being possessed, and Chalybs got the feeling that the gas tank may not be quite enough. But he couldn't allow Caleb to run rampant. So if Chalybs was going to change, he'd best use the transformation for a good purpose, focusing on Caleb.

Chalybs could feel his body changing. Even through the pain, he stood tall. The Chalybs would take over him, but he wasn't going to go down without a fight. If there was even a chance of fighting it back and using it, he would.

The pain though, truly was unbearable. His blood was boiling and thickening into a liquid metal, his organs were being charred by the heat of his blood, his muscles and bones were being replaced with metal. What truly hurt though, was his heart. It was changing into metal, an iron copy of his heart, but it was also blowing out blasts of flame with every beat.

And yet, he stood standing. Chalybs's will was as strong as the metal invading his body. He wasn't going to let The Chalybs control him. He was going to use it. Use it to stop Caleb, preferably without killing Caleb or himself.

The Chalybs was strong. It was praying on the pain, the hate, the blood lust. It would use that to kill and massacre, slaughter and murder. But Chalybs was stronger. He attacked The Chalybs head first with his own will to use hate of fire and steel to carve into the same hate from which it came. To destroy hate with what he was given thanks to hate.

Chalybs's appearance was beginning to change. His features grew darker, his hair thicker and curlier, his skin tougher, covered in more scars and burns. Weapons and armor materialized onto him. A steel cuirass with leather on both sides, steel graves and arm guards; three knives, two shamshir, a large hammer, a bow made of steel complete with full steel arrows. A massive war horse, larger than even today's Clydesdale trotted next to him from thin air; golden in coat and covered in armor.

Chalybs mounted the horse, preparing for his fight.

War against Chaos

With a plume of flame bursting out from his arm, Chalybs melded his swords and hammer together into full metal jousting spear, and charged.

 

The fuel tank set Chaos on fire. He was covered in a burning inferno that licked the ground and spread unnaturally. The fire was sent blazing towards Chalybs charge. Chaos then laughed, and leapt back into the air. When eh reached his desired altitude he casually licked his thumb, then pressed it to his skin. The flames on him were extinguished in a flash. The fire in front of Chalybs was now growing, and surrounding the mounted man.

"Nice move," Caleb grudgingly admitted.

"Needs more oomph," Chaos chuckled.

The flames below flared upwards at Chaos's behest, before morphing into stalactites of ice that exploded, sending deadly shards hurtling at Sarah, Elsie and Chalybs.

"How are they going to reach me all the way up here?" Chaos wondered aloud as anarchy reigned below.

 

Well, maybe they weren't going to die after all. The others seemed to have the situation mostly under control. "Under control" meaning "keeping the baddies occupied for the moment, but not necessarily making notable progress towards their defeat;" and "Mostly" meaning "there was still one enemy left unoccupied." It was the old man and, as Sam had previously guessed, he was proving to be more dangerous than he first looked. When he first showed up he seemed slow and frail, but now he was dashing around with great speed and nimbleness, leaping upon cubicles, slashing at everything in sight. As his blade sliced through the air it left behind stormy gray lines which hovered, unwavering, as if the very air had been cut. Sam wasn't sure what the lines were, but he knew they couldn't be good. And to make things worse, the old man seemed to be looking for someone. Someone to fight.

Sam quickly re-reviewed his options. No pencil, no sketchbook. Not that he'd have time to draw much anyway. A crude gun would likely misfire, and he didn't have the skill to effectively wield a sword. He did have that torrent of blood on the page; perhaps that could be used offensively. No, the old man moved far too quick to be hit by it. The same could probably be said for any other weapon he could muster. Sniping this guy would be impossible, and outright combat would be suicide.

Sam pulled one of the vaudeville knives from the page. It wasn't much, but it was the only weapon immediately available. At the very least, he could get off a slice or two in self defense before he was killed. Of course, the most desirable outcome would be to avoid detection entire...

"How do you stop a bull from charging? Kill him in his sleep!"

Sam quickly put his hand over the knife's mouth, wincing at the sharpness of its blade. "Shut up!" he hissed. "Do you want to get me killed?"

"What can I say? I'm a real lady killer!"

"I'm a guy."

"Meh, I'm double edged. I go both ways."

"Just stop talking! You're going to bring him right at me!" Sam paused as an idea occurred to him. It was suicidal, but it was his best chance. "On second thought, keep talking. In fact..." he began pulling the rest of the knives and matches from the page, "Go ahead and do your act. All of it, as loud as possible. Try to get that old razor guy to laugh."

As the tasteless dead baby jokes and vague threats to the audience commenced ("What's the best way to bring down the house in a crowded theater? Arson!") Sam took a deep breath. This had better work, or he was definitely going to die. Violently.

 

A burst of flame to her side caught Sarah’s attention. Chalyb’s stood facing the flames of the exploded fuel tank. He burned with palpable rage and his body began to burn and change is form.

Sarah gasped. She had heard rumors of the fullness of Chalyb’s power, but had never witnessed it. As the embodiment of ‘The Chalybs’ he was a frightening persona, shrouded in flame and metal his armor materialized and his steed appeared at his side.

She saw a glimpse of Caleb through the smoke and flames as Chalybs mounted his steed and charged. Chaos sent a blast of flames about him towards his opponent and soared back into the skies.

The flames persisted on their own unnatural fuel as they surrounded Chalybs. Suddenly they flared and took on a new nature as they burst outwards in every direction. The shards of ice scraped across Sarah’s steel exterior causing only minor damage.

Leaping to her feet Sarah searched thanked her lucky stars that she happened to be made of steel at the moment.

"How are they going to reach me all the way up here?" Chaos dared through Caleb’s distorted voice.

‘How indeed,’ Sarah thought as she scanned the area. She had only attempted a flying golem on one previous occasion and with limited success. Spotting a length of cable from the destroyed bridge she had an idea.

‘If we can’t get to him, we’ll have to bring him to us!’

Racing to the cable she picked it up. Almost instantly her form changed as the rope like bridge cables slid together from all around. Woven together they formed a serpentine medusa of steel that slithered quickly toward Caleb.

Once within range she hurled a great length of the metal rope towards the flying demon, catching him in her snare. Catching him off guard, she jerked him quickly to the ground and towards the place where Chalybs last stood.

The long curling frayed wires of her hair writhed and her tail flicked with anticipation as she watched and prepared to further secure the boy who was fallen in more ways than one.

 

Caleb groaned as Sarah hurled a length of metal cable like a lasso around Chaos, and jerked. Chaos laughed whimsically and almost casually sent electricity streaking down the line towards Sarah.

"You really couldn't see that one coming?" Chaos jeered.

Chaos seemed to be bored with toying with the heros, so he swooped down like an eagle, dropping several energy bombs as he did. Caleb sighed.

"Come on dudes! Pick up your act!" he cried.