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"Stop."

A tendril of black struck Medea's barrier.

Immediately filaments of the same black spun out, stretching to encompass every part of Distortion and Insanity around Medea. Slowly, it pulled everything in, it pulled her in, even as she looked around confused-

- As behind stood a gaunt, tall figure in a simple black suit. There was something about him, even though the word 'him' seemed wrong to use on the figure, that made its presence known, a very reserved sort of order where they was only chaos rampant.

Time stopped and froze on Medea's form, the barrier broken.

And then as time started again, she was gone, completely and absolutely. A scar, a dark red crevice remained where she was, the red fragment she was carrying burned into the ground. Everything else was pitch black. It felt like those on the battlefield had missed a struggle entirely without ever knowing they did. Perhaps this was a power beyond the comprehension of power.

"It is over," the figure repeated, their presence immediately recognized without another word of exchange. This was Death in its purest and most absolute form. This was the Ancient of Death. He stepped over and picked up the red fragment in one gloved hand, staring at it with disdain. "I have waited too long for this to subside. This struggle is over. The Lost Clans will return, and we will speak of your uncertain future when it is time. As for the rest-"

- Crack.

The fragment split in his hand dissolved and at the same time the sky broke, like a mirror shattering from all angles reveal the true surface underneath. The facade had been broken, the sky still a chaotic red, holes appearing, long tendrils of red, red-grey hands reaching downwards.

"YOU ARE MINE."

The suppressed Insanity, the suppressed Distortion, wrapped around the Ancient of Death and squeezed. At first, whatever of the sky that touched Death began to fragment, scattering into black ash, decaying, but the Distortion regenerating was too fast, there was too much happening at once. It was revolting to watch, as the Ancient was consumed by a disarray of colour, by the nauseating feel of pure chaos and disarray, of deconstruction and matter without reason or substance. Power like this should have been impossible.

"Your are mine," the sky itself echos Medea's laughter in loud cracks, overpowering.

Slowly, but certainly, the Ancient began to unravel, pieces of him taken away by the Distortion, pieces consumed, pieces destroyed and deconstructed. Their form dwindled to nothing but a cloak, and then a skull -

- And then just a simple gold pocketwatch that fell onto the ground.

The red around them shrieked in laughter-

*


"The dessert," the voice repeats, at the table. He looks impatient, staring at his pocketwatch. It is not ticking. "Did you decide what you wanted for dessert?" His lips stretch to a thin smile. "I really wouldn't want to miss my favourite part of dinner."

*

The pocketwatch still remained, and Death's power still persisted. Immediately, Medea continued pouring all her destructive power into it, torrents of red raining from the sky, attempting to peel open the last memento of one of the oldest Ancients created.

It still persisted.

She continued to pry the seemingly immovable object. Every bit of effort drained her power, as one by one each of the portals shut closed and the sky bled back to its normal colour. At last, her form dwindled, the Insanity and Distortion consumed, the last flecks of her power still struggling to open the remnants of Death.

There was a snap.

A perfect, spherical black orb rolled out from the watch.

*

"It was a good meal, but the lack of dessert makes it lackluster." he smiles wryly. The waiter comes with his check, and he pays it in full by placing a broken golden watch on the table. "Some things take time, perfection unfortunately cannot be rushed. Please, do enjoy dessert for me. I hope our meal together has at least been entertaining. It has been a while since I've invited guests over, for the first and last time."

He is fading now, and his words become muffled. "---- remember----- and-------- will-----"

*

With a purely triumphant expression, Medea shattered the orb, entirely and completely into hundreds of fragments. Each fragment immediately dissolved thick black mist, scattering all directions, their noise pure silence.

It was over.

Medea won.

*

You sit at a table, staring at a dessert menu. There are two seats but you are the only person here. You cannot remember who the other person was.


*

Medea won. She hadn't just defeated ----- she had destroyed the Ancient of ----- itself. There was an earsplitting crack but it wasn't from her, it was from the tower platform finally giving away, crumbling.

Everything collapsed, pieces of building, the remnants of distortion and Fear falling. It goes dark.

This is Night / Noemi / Dakota / Aeron. I'll work on them one at a time okay /sobs

Noemi:

She hadn't moved from her spot on the ground, as water slowly and finally trickled away from her. She wasn't dead, but she sure did feel like it. It was easy for her to slip into the dream...the other state.

The only death she ever witnessed was animals. Be it a failed birthing of one of the colts...or a slow passing of a beloved pet.

But she had faced Stormy's death, and then followed after her cousin to the Island. Again she thought she saw death every day but...

What had she seen? What had she really seen?

huh.

She couldn't remember now. She reached over the table, reaching for something...but what?

And the table disappeared.

She sat there for a while longer before fading away, since she didn't remember being there in the first place.

Night:

Night hissed at the people attacking Amrita, wanting to swipe at them, kill them all.

That's what he wanted to do until the sky crackled black and red, turning his swipe into a sort of clinging state to the patchwork. He saw images of sitting with death, conversing. Something about desserts?

And then he was alone. He jumped on the top of the table, walking around it.

Death. He knew death. He had seen it many times, He had actually cause some of it. He killed humans once with Remi and Aymet. It had been fun! But nothing had been better then coming upon Amrita not once, but twice after their black kingdom events to almost killing humans.

He wondered if that pretty boy with the dyed red coat had died.

He licked at his paw, drawing it over him to wash. In that span of action, he had forgotten about Amrita's killing anybody, of himself killing anybody.

Of killing in general.

The room seemed so oddly empty. Where he sat on a table, now he sat on the ground. It didn't seem to bother him as much as he thought.

It went black, like the closing of curtains and Night woke someplace away.

Dakota:

Dakota was too late to getting to Molly, He hadn't even found the girl yet. Marcus and Lex were gone, ******** where was his friends? Where was anyone? Too much going on. The sky was breaking and he was having whiplash flashbacks of sitting with someone and Medea.

A table, two chairs. One dessert, a spoon. A pocketwatch on the table.

"No...You don't need to pay-" Then no one. And he couldn't remember why no one.

he couldn't remember a lot. A feeling, deep and cold sank in, but he didn't quite understand it.

Death didn't seem so much as scary now, in fact he didn't seem to remember most of the things related to it. He didn't remember watching Julie, a husk for the horseman using her weapon on them, still alive but really dead. He didn't remember watching Caelius take Clerise's head off, of Mimsy stabbing the already dead body with her weapon until there was nothing left.

Everything disappeared, and so, Those disappeared.

He tapped his fingers on the table, wondering how he had gotten here.

He tapped his fingers on his leg when the table disappeared.

He forgot most of the event...and he woke.

Aeron:

Aeron stared at the table.

Stared at the space across from him empty.

He didn't feel anything here, but he usually didn't feel much.

He was a guardian. He didn't belong here.

As the table disappeared, so did the guardian.

[Nergui]

She was sitting at a small table across from an empty chair, and she had no recollection of how she had gotten there. Or where there was, for that matter. That thought alone was enough to make the mare frown, and she sat up straighter, glancing around, before her gaze returned, compulsory, back to the chair across from her. It was important, some how, though she couldn't recall why, only that at one point in time she had known the answer. This was also troubling, and a crease formed between silvered brows.

She remembered. She remembered..

Her mother, and her father. She remembered them smiling at her, the pride on their faces as she left their shared home and headed for the tower library she had claimed for her own. Her mother had waved at her, beaming, and that was the last she had seen of them before...

Anya. Proud, frigid Anya. Once beloved, once adored, now resented. All that love turned to something twisted, dark and ugly. The music box shattered across the floor, and that had been the end. The last time Nergui had seen her tall sister face to face, but they had encountered each other in passing, periodically. Until...

The islands. Their beautiful homes.

No longer their homes.

She remembered her hut. The one she shared with Bastion, though it was more his than her's now that she had Soren again.

The Reserve...why were they living on a reserve?

She frowned, searching her memories for the bits and pieces that would fill in the gaps, and finding nothing. There was nothing there.

The priestess moved to stand, and her hands slid along the fur trim at her collar, the leather of her bodice. A mark of her clan. her clan.. What was her clan..

More questions without answers. It was distressing, and the mare shut her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands over the sockets. She couldn't remember. Or... Where their pieces missing? Her mind felt scattered, more so than usual when the Insanity was upon her. It was a helpless, frustrating feeling, and she despised it.

Where was Bastion? Where was Lushka? Where was her guardian?

Where was she?

--------------------------------------------

[Hadiyya]

Fork in hand, Yaya returned to herself, to the small round table and the empty plate that sat before her. To the chair across from her, half pulled from the table, napkin laying beside the cutlery, as if someone had sat there a moment before. It was empty now, and with a frown the djinn realized she hadn't a clue who had been with her.

Fire raged around her on an unknown beach. It closed around her, creeping closer as she screamed, helplessly, horrified, until...

Faces moved through her mind, names and places. They played like short films, each one ending abruptly, unfinished. As if the last of the film had been snipped away.

And she didn't know what it meant.

She wondered then where Marosa was, if he was back in the dorms, waiting for her. She felt, for a moment, as if she should be worried for him, but not why. It made her frown, and she looked down at her fork, turning the utensil in her hand, before setting it down and lifting the napkin from her lap.

Why was she here?

Where was here?

Yaya didn't have answers for those questions.

She wanted to go home. She wanted to return to the dorms so she could find her boilfriend, her friends. Classes, daily routine. So simple, so easy. She wanted that. How did she get back?

Two and a half sets of eyes turned towards the skies when it happened. One pair, a glowing gold surrounded by inky blackness set in the grey face of a massive lioness. Another dark red, a reflection of the color of destruction that streaked the sky. A third, a single eye, a cold brown gaze that was forever assessing, judging, weighing. All were watching when the events unfolded high above, each one witnessing what at first seemed to be Medea's fall, her failure. One felt relief, elation, while another felt confusion.

The third, if she could feel anything at all in that moment, would have gone hollow and cold with shock and disbelief.

Was this it? Was it over now?

Medea returned, she took on Death.

Success!

Defeat.

Broken.....

Emotions quickly changed amongst the three. Elation, fear, a mixed feeling of satisfaction and regret.

Everything went black.

-----

She sat at a table alone.

She couldn't remember why she was at the table, though there was a lingering feeling that she had not always sat here alone. There had been somebody, once, but she just could not place who.

And then, quite suddenly, she forgot a great deal other things as well. Her purpose, her cause. It had something to do with humans, with harvesting Fear but...how? Chaos, strife, disorder...the ways of War of course, but what was the point in the end? Just fighting, endless fighting with no end....

She stood above the humans body as it writhed and twitched on the floor, a grin spreading across her face, her blade wet with blood. This one was a teacher, a scholar of their kind, and she had broken into his office, to disembowel him and hang his body, his ---- body outside on a flag pole.....

But no, that wasn't right, anymore. Sure she could have hung his body, possibly to writhe in endless pain, but there was no real finality to the action anymore. Where was it that she once experienced that greatest surge of Fear? It was right before...something....

She blinked her eyes, feeling a bit dizzy. She heard screams. The screams of her student, the one she had been mentoring.

She was being pulled in, by the insanity, by the phoenix. Shaheen held on, fingers tight around the others fingers, but they were slipping, she was slipping away. She beat her wings mercilessly, fighting against the pull, extending another arm, grabbing her with her other hand, pulling.

They were both slipping, both about to be consumed.

Shaheen didn't want to ---.

What had she feared so much back then? Why had she not wanted to let go? It was confusing, and the more she thought about it, the colder she became.

Her parents faces, a faded memory. They had been gone, but gone where? She couldn't remember. They had come back, but she could not recall.

She could not recall.

She felt hollow, empty, cold. A shell of her former self. What was her purpose? Where did she gain her power?

With a shuddering sigh, she closed her eyes, even as the table began to vanish.

And then she awoke.

----------------

He sat at a table alone.

He was confused, because he was sure there had been somebody there a moment before, somebody he knew, somebody that he felt he had respected immensely.

But he could not remember who that was.

In fact, he could not remember much at all. Gaping holes in his memory. Who was he? Rathsvith. Rathsvith of the Four Clans. An ashen soldier...

But for who? For what clan? What was his purpose? What was his job?

He felt lost. His whole life's meaning had been swept away. He had been called a Reaper by many, but what did he Reap? Fear? He had spent many years in the human world, doing the will of....

Who? He'd had a leader once, but he could not recall who.

He could not recall.

A chill began to consume him, an aching, seeping chill that seemed to extend out from his very core before spreading out among his limbs. It was a frightening feeling, to have become so very lost.

The table began to fade, and he slowly drew his hands back.

And then, he awoke.

-----------

He sat at the table alone.

It was almost a relief, in a way, as though whoever had been sitting there before had been very unnerving. He let out a sigh between his teeth, his head tilting back, his forehead etched into a small frown as he struggled to recall who it had been, and why this eerie feeling lingered.

His memory seemed to fail him, however. Perhaps it was not so important to dwell on.

Except even then, he felt something in his mind wrench. He'd had his memories ******** with before, and he knew the feeling well. It was happening again, and he knew it. It was happening again and there was nothing he could do.....

It was pouring rain, and a body was lying on the ground. It didn't move. It didn't breathe. He had run over towards it, had taken over chest compression's , had administered mouth to mouth, over and over, repeat, repeat, repeat....

Why? Why had he bothered to do those things? It seemed silly, in hindsight. Completely pointless. There had been nothing to fear then. His fathers face had been slack, his eyes empty, but certainly that had only been a temporary affliction.

It was the last thing he recalled about him, however. He had left after that, perhaps, leaving him and his mother behind. He remembered pain. He remembered annoyance and anger, though those had both been directed at his own mother. He resented her...for some reason. But not his father, no. He had loved his father.....

He had never seen him again. Not to his knowledge. Not to his memory.

Why had he become a hunter?

That question sprang up next, and while he felt like he'd had a reason once, an answer to that question, now he simply felt...blank. Blank and cold. Icy cold. Detached. Empty. He fought to recall why he had been so angry, why he was always so empty and cold, even before now.

He could not recall.

The table began to fade, and Finn Connor looked down on it with an empty gaze.

And then he awoke.

((adding in the boss attack post here since thread is locked |D))

She wasn't sure what was going on any more. Medea had disappeared with the Death Hunter Lead - it was certainly not the first time she had seen Caelius face off with a ... significant figure. It was unknown who would come out of that battle alive, if any. The ghoul found herself torn between the wanting either of them eliminated. She'd be glad to see both of them gone ...

Fate didn't always work that way.

The priestess reappeared, even more terrifying than before. The shadow of insanity and protection let out a cry and launched another attack at her amidst the chaotic battlefield.

Why were they so many horsemen around? Where did all the hunters go?

She wasn't sure if she had seen correctly - there was a hunter or two that had been consumed by the power of the horsemen and turned into one themselves. ...What did they have to do now? What could they do now?

Time suddenly stopped and a figure in a black suit appeared. He seemed... familiar, even though she had never met him. Medea's barrier was destroyed, the priestess reduced to a single red crystal. Was the madness really over?

Her shadow stirred and remained still. Edel watched silently from within the mirror. Time seemed to pass so slowly...

There was a crack.
And another.

The sky tore apart and a thousand red hands poured down, reaching for the figure in black. The ghoul could only watch in horror as the figure was suppressed, constricted, squeezed until it finally broke.

* * *
Oh, she glanced back down at the menu, prompted to decide on a dessert. Hm.

From the corner of her eye, she could see the figure checking his pocket watch. She wondered who she was having dinner with.
* * *

Maniacal laughter. Edel could see the pocket watch that fell. It cracked and out popped a black orb. That too, was destroyed.

* * *
It's been a pleasure, she replied, not really knowing how else to follow the conversation. Edel watched the man place the broken pocket watch on the table for the bill.

Some things take time, she mused, nodding as she watched him leave.
* * *

It was over. Medea had won. The frost demon looked on, too numb to process the outcome of this all.

* * *
She sat alone at the table, staring blankly at the menu. She looked up at the chair opposite her, as if waiting for someone to come. No one came.
* * *

Another crack.
The tower gave way.

All she could see were the ruins of the battle, slowly fading to black.

If Lock cared about the battle going on above him, he didn't make a very large note of it. He was no longer Lock, he was a Black Knight for the regent Black Queen, Amrita.

As the sky cracked, so too did his armor. The shiny gloss faded to a dull stone, his armor falling to the ground in chunks of obsidian. The moment it hit the ground, the obsidian crumbled into dust and scattered to the wind.

Lock, at that point, went unconscious. He missed the entire thing.

Her goal was to get to Miss Amrita, one of the few that she could say she knew in the chaos of the battle - or at least the first one she spotted that she knew of, one of the few that had tried to make her feel better in all of this (perhaps she had been the one who brought that feeling of belonging). But her trek had come to a halt and Maple watched with horror what was going on around them all, the battle of Ancients new and old and the fall of one. It was terrible and powerful and in the end so one sided but what really worried her was what Medea's victory could mean for them all.

Besides a crumbling tower. Of course there was a crumbling tower.

Maple gripped her broom close and looked up -

- the other side of the table was empty. Really, the witch shouldn't have been so surprised, it usually was. Maybe every so often she would have some company during a meal so she wasn't sure why it felt like this should have been one of those rare occasions, that an invitation had actually been presented.

There was a second place setting after all.

But Maple turned away again, deciding to think nothing of it and settled to look at her menu again to decide on dessert before placing that too on the table. Her eyes closed and she shook her head, her concentration shot. Something just seemed... lost, her mind muddled.

A very big concept had slipped away from her without her realizing or able to recall what it had been; very few personal memories could surface for her to wonder. Though they still tried to bubble to the surface as she sat alone at the table, wondering why she hadn't brought a book with her. There had been one she had been reading, the middle of a series and the characters had been dealing with ... something, something had happened to one of the characters. She couldn't recall now, they had ... left... and the other characters we reaction, the whole state of the novel had been reacting to it. Repercussions. What had happened... she wondered...

More books came to mind, even a rule book for those of Halloween. They weren't allowed to ... Only to scare and frighten. Maple kept her eyes shut tightly.

The Kingdom of Shadows, she had watched it crumbled. She had fought for it, then she had.... but came back to be reunited with those of her kingdom. It had been a fragment of herself but still something yet still...

Maple's hands curled and tightened around the linens of the table. A concept seemed.... gone. But she didn't fight for it, didn't try to search for it again in her mind. It simply vanished as did parts of those memories, changed and altered. The witch eased back into her seat, not worried at all anymore. Simply forgotten what she had forgotten and slowly opened her eyes to nothing.

The table was gone. She worried for a moment before she too vanished.