Melchiah.
Author's note: my first fic. Critics, please be constructive.i don't own eidos, etc.
Melchiah stirred. Hearing the drill being operated, he sighed. Raziel had taken two whole weeks to shift into the spectral realm, even with that dead Dumahim as a clue. Now he was finally approaching, to destroy his brother, in line with his rage and Kain's plan. As if he had been summoned by the thought, Kain appeared in the room, directly under the huge meat grinder. Instantly misting, he drifted forward, rematerializing in front of Melchiah's dais. No longer able to kneel, Melchiah bowed his head.
"Melchiah."
"Master."
"Raziel is angry. He will be brutal, having recently passed through the ruins of his clan territories. I can take you away. One of my brood must be spared, for I may be destroyed by William's tomb."
"And you choose me, the weakest of your brood? Have the others refused?"
"You are the most perceptive. Only you have gleaned my plan."
"You wish to test your free will..." Melchiah's features no longer allowed him to smile, but Kain sensed his amusement anyway. Lord Kain was not one to meekly accept fate. "No…let him come. He shall release me from this form."
The last gate between Melchiah and Raziel opened. Kain stepped back and vanished, but Melchiah sensed him still there, watching. He would be masked from Raziel, of course. Melchiah retreated into the shadows of his dais and waited.
Soon, Raziel entered, looking around nervously as though expecting the reaver to fall from the sky. Melchiah telekinetically lowered the gate behind him, some last minute drama to amuse him. Raziel still hadn't seen him, so he decided an ominous moan was appropriate. Startled, Raziel exclaimed, "Show yourself, creature!" as though he couldn't sense his brother. Starting forward slowly, Melchiah said dryly "Do you not recognize me brother? Am I so changed?" Of course he was changed, any idiot could see that. Even Raziel. Proving it with his next statement of "Melchiah?" in tones of utter disbelief. No, I'm Dumah, you idiot.who do you expect in the heart of melchahim territory,William the just? Melchiah detached from conversation, answering automatically, barely catching himself from revealing Kain's entire plan.
Suddenly he realized Raziel had attacked him. Glancing up at the meat grinder, he thought I'm not making it that easy for you, destined to kill me as you are. Then Raziel caught him on the face, and he reflexively lashed out. Raziel was knocked backwards and Melchiah followed up instinctively. Staggering, Raziel vanished. Shifting to spectral, Melchiah struck at him before he could get over the surprise of ,Melchiah his brother being able to shift. Raziel vanished again. Returning to material, he moved to one side of the entrance and waited, marveling that Raziel had become such a poor fighter.
A few minutes later, Raziel returned. This time he was cautious and hid in the side chambers. Blithely walking towards him as though he had no idea what he was up to, Melchiah felt pain for the first time in three centuries. Telekinetically loosening the controls for the meat grinder, making sure it caught Raziel's eye, Melchiah 'followed' Raziel under the drill. He managed to knock him into the spectral realm twice before Raziel could get to the controls quick enough. Amused at his brother's incompetence, Melchiah thrust himself into the center of the room to give him no margin for error in pulling the lever.
"Where is Kain?"
He's in this room, staring at you. But for your purposes he's in the obvious place, you passed it on your way here .Hmmm…Maybe I'll let him figure it out, or say something like, gone fishing on the lake of the dead. Perhaps swimming. But then, if Raziels brain has been damaged by the lake…
He said something ominous, for the feel of the thing. Hinting at things enough to make his brother angry and release the lever. As a salve to any conscience Raziel might have he said "I am released" as he felt the metal teeth in his back and dissolved in a cloud of blood and dust.
The world shifted…
Melchiah felt something tugging at his soul and relinquished the part of it that was Kains. He was extremely satisfied to hear Raziel's fast fading voice "Am I reduced to this? A ghou-". The voice faded, but another, a powerful one spoke next, fast fading also, but so much louder than the other. "Elevated, Raziel, not reduc-". Four tentacles sprang into being around the room as the voice said, no longer fading, "You are still conscious. How interesting. A powerful, useful soul you can be, but first you must be claimed." The nearest tentacles lunged. Melchiah lashed out, one powerful claw creating deep gauges along the surface of the skin/scales. The tentacle reeled, and, like the vampire that he was, Melchiah absorbed the essences, converting them into a blast of energy he fired at the second tentacle, knocking it back. There was definite pain in the voice when it said "Impressive. But I am a patron of this plane of existence far longer than you, and I know how to manipulate my surroundings. This is neither spectral or material realms, and Raziel has absorbed the fragment of your soul animating the body you lived in. Your soul is strong, but your vessel is weak. You are no match for me."
"No match for you, perhaps, but easily a match for those few appendages you devote to me. And if you could summon more, you would have done. I am not without abilities of my own."
"Perceptive of you. Your soul, powerful enough to dent reality, attracts no more than 'these few appendages'. They are enough. I shall have to devote more to your brothers. Especially Raziel. Yet your vessel grows weaker as we speak."
An unfortunate statement, that. You could have kept me talking another while.
The tentacles, somehow noticing him moving, moved to touch the meat grinder above his head. It crackled with blue lightning and began to descend. Melchiah thrust up a giant claw, and pushed. The blades began to cut through his claw, but he didn't dare thrust up the other one. Slowly lurching to the edge of the blade, he found he could not pass through. The voice chuckled. "Having bestowed your phasing ability onto Raziel, you can no longer pass through. You are doomed. Give in to me. Spare yourself pain."
An entire talon, sheared off by the blades, landed in front of him. Swallowing it, he used the burst of energy he received to shove the blade behind. It shredded most of Melchiah's arm and tail, plus some of the cage and one of the tentacles. Swallowing the shredded parts of himself, he used the burst of energy to propel himself across the room and out of the cage when the voice raised the blade again to re-drop it. Snatching up a fallen bar in the cage, he thrust it through a tentacle and converted it, firing the energy at the one remaining tentacle, which tried to dive into the ground. Catching it, Melchiah yanked it from the earth and absorbed it, depositing the energy in the center of the meat grinder, where it would eventually starve.
Limping to his dais, Melchiah stared sadly at his ruined arm. Moving would be even more awkward than it had been. Suddenly his skin split along his spine, peeling off like the skin of a potato. Laughing softly, Melchiah said aloud, "That was embarrassing." Hadn't he wished to be free of this form to Kain earlier? Wondering where he was, evidently neither spectral or material realms, as the voice had called them, he lamented having to spend time in this form even after death. Wondering whether Raziel was still in the room, he glanced over at the cage to notice it was fully restored. Interesting. Thought. He had so much time for thought, locked in this mysterious place. Why waste it all at once? Suddenly he found himself reminiscing about the glory of the empire before he had devolved. How beautiful everything had been then, even the humans. Even Melchiah. Suddenly he morphed into himself in his prime. Startled, he examined his new body. Finding it satisfactory, even wonderful, he double somersaulted onto the protruding top of a pillar. Limbo was going to be more fun than he had expected.
If anyone reads this:
Do you think I made melchiah too vain?
Next up Kain in the sanctuary.Enjoy