Jack let out a sly chuckle, removing his black funnel-neck coat with a subtle tug and toss.
The light of the grand room before him was brimming with life... Everything he could ever want... Just behind this final stretch of the hall.
"Should we have left Chase and Justin behind?" Rayan asked, his eyes narrowing down the hall.
"What do you mean?" Jack shrugged.
"I don't know, wouldn't it have been nice to have their help in a fight like this?" He asked with a shrug of his own.
"No, it's a three versus two. We can easily win this." Jack grit his teeth.
Rayan shook his head.
"Natalia hasn't even agreed to help us, she only said that she would not involve herself..." Rayan recalled, but Jack only shook his head in dismissal stretching his arms as he let the light of the Grand Rotunda's dome ceiling bathe him in his much awaited arrival.
Callahan frowned, slowly standing up from his lavish couch at the center of the room.
"Would you look at that?" Oren smiled with a short nod, as if he had anticipated this from the start...
Which is exactly what Jack had wanted.
Callahan outstretched his arms and boomed with welcoming laughter.
"You've gone great lengths, my fellow Factio Dux... All for what?" His welcoming voice quickly turned into vile hatred as his almost metallic crimson eyes flashed with bloodlust.
"A crack at the man ahead of your time?"
Jack's face twisted into a disgusting snarl.
"That's the look I like..." Callahan scoffed, at the same time Natalia had begun to tremble in fear at the possibility of what could happen in these chambers.
Rayan readied his sword, gently adjusting his tight silver helm... Vines of a terrible violet had made their appearance, crawling out of the helmet like roots...
"You might as well take it off now..." Jack sighed, pulling two long black dueling daggers from his waist sheathes...
Rayan shook his head in reluctance, but sure enough... His off-hand slowly rose above his head, palming the crown and gently removing it from his head...
Callahan's face twisted, obviously disturbed by the sight. Natalia and Oren had very similar reactions, and even Jack who had seen it before, had not expected it to get this bad in such a short amount of time...
Rayan's face was rotted with corruption, purple patches of glowing skin covered his extremely pale face, just as gruesome roots of purple energy were ripped straight from the flesh of his face, swaying freely as his eyes violet eyes singed with immense energy.
"How unfortunate..." Callahan shook away his stun, turning to see the reactions of his soldiers... Who were struck with order by the gaze of Callahan.
"Enough of this bullshit..." Jack growled, closing his eyes as flames began to singe along his body, these flames unlike Chase's were of a much darker variety of orange... Meaning that they were the closest living remanence of the first god of fire's powerful affinity...
Suddenly... A look appeared on Callahan's face... A look of pure brilliance in that twisted mind of his...
"I hope you are prepared to lie with the flies that eat at the corpses of your Dear Mother and Father... Natalia's eyes widened in fear, her affinity instantly going off as a barrier formed around her.
Oren did much of the same, escaping into the shadows below as if not even bothering to aid Callahan in this fight.
And Jack...
A rain of flames had begun to descend upon the spot where Callahan stood...
Then the flooring of the room began to twist and mangle itself at the command of Callahan's will...
The metal in the floor curved and morphed into a giant wall that rocketed upwards towards the ceiling.
The flames hit like a dragon... Demolishing the metal wall and raining explosions the size of buildings on the likes of Callahan and Natalia...
...
Chase fell to the ground with frantic panting... His arms tensed on the ground as he pressed his forehead into them.
He was a single movement away from throwing up everything he had eaten earlier that day... His eyes flashing in tune with his breathing...
"You alright?" Justin knelt down beside him, offering him a canteen.
"What is it?" Chase hesitantly smelled the open cap, backing away that instant with the widening of his eyes.
"Drink." He said, his eyes fixated on the room that Chase had been dreading...
"What- Is- Can you see...?" Chase asked between heavy breaths and quick gulps of whatever liquor Justin had given him.
"Can you tell?" Justin asked, standing up and unsheathing his blade.
"The shadows... They're alive..." Chase nodded, forcing himself to stand up and ready Apocalypse at his side.
Suddenly the darkness of the large room before grew twice as dark... Shredding space itself with the impossibility of their potency.
"This was stupid... Especially for someone who considers themself an heir..." The dark emotionless voice of Oren of House Durangor echoed through the darkness...
Only then did a pair of crimson eyes light in the abyss of darkness before them...
"Chase!" Justin yelled.
"I KN-" Before he knew what happened, Chase was soaring straight through the hall of cells with terrifying speed.
A gaping slash was torn across his chest... Blood splattered along the floor of the prison block like rain...
CRASH!
Chase hit the bars of a cell with a boom, the pain rocketing through his nervous system like poison.
Gasp...
Gasp...
Blood spilled from the coughs that couldn't help but escape from his lips.
His knees gave out, causing him to fall forward onto the cold stone floor.
"Son of a-" A loud explosion rang from where Chase had come from, but the ringing in his ears was far too much to even think.
...
Justin growled, forming a wall of blood between him and Seh Jenah's Knight of Darkness.
"You want to take me on?" He scoffed, slashing at Oren with his blade, and narrowly side-stepping the black blade.
"Not really, you invaded our business..." Oren shrugged, letting the shadows block Justin's blade with ease.
"A "Business" is that what you call this!? You are nothing but filth!" Justin yelled, biting his own fingers and shooting a spear of blood from each of them.
Oren vanished, disappearing into the shadows and appearing again behind Justin, but this time bringing forth something else with the long-ranged capabilities of his almost alien affinity.
Justin's shoulders slumped as Chase's limp bloodied figure was brought up from the shadows, completely incapacitated and out of order.
"A little honor at least...? Come on man..." The despair in Justin's voice was nearly defeat instilling.
However, as Oren simply let out a soft chuckle, and his shadowy blade shot towards Chase's throat with immense speed.
The silhouette of a Half-Jackal Half-Human appeared in the air above the three of them.
His arms outstretched as violent gruesome claws shimmered in indigo blue...
"Remember what I said I'd do to you for that..." Jackal growled as he met the blade head on, slamming it aside with immense power and using it too launch himself straight at Oren's hovering form, shrouded in his ethereal and inevitable shadows...