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Orientalis

There's blood bubbling at his lips just before he spits it out. The floor is cold and welcoming and tilting beneath him somehow. (Or maybe that's just him tilting, or maybe he's physically making the world turn around him—)

"Is that it?" a vaguely familiar voice asks.

A red runic dagger lifts his chin up, forces him to meet the smug and bloody look he could make in a mirror.

It's been a short and impossible mission. Find an artifact, bring it back, ******** it up hard somewhere in the middle because Deus never really prepares you for all the s**t you can encounter. Finn's gone, he knows a lost cause when he sees one, as does Ripley. Ian's made his choice the way Jack always knew he would if it ever came down to the mission, his fiancé, and his friend. (Bias.) Abbi isn't there because he refused to take her. Chel is dead because she couldn't just join the ******** rest of them that left, she had to go back and find him, and now she's a fresh corpse whose blood stains the red dagger and trickles down his skin.

He watches his own face contort with cold and patronizing smile. "I was hoping for something more exciting."

"They're all the same," the voice says again, flat and factual. "We need him, though. Just for a little longer."

The smile broadens. "Heard that?" the clone asks as he slides the dagger up (point still pressed to his skin) and prods his cheek. Blood continues to fall, he's already in a pool of it, warm and sticky and ever flowing. "Don't go dying on us, pretty boy."

But if it's a choice between going with them and living and duing, he knows where he stands. It isn't about survival anymore, it's about ******** over these stupid ******** things once and for all. Being left behind to die is just not the way he cares to be remembered is all. (Maybe he shouldn't be remembered at all, but these clones will make sure his name will always be associated with horsemen, and that's a true insult.)

It's been years now. He's had enough. He's done nothing of substance and cannot abide being their tool, Deus or horseman, anymore. And when Jack makes a decision, he must take things into his own hands.

He uses the last of his strength to grab the clone's wrist, twist it up, and slice his jugular with the dagger. It's more painful than he pictured, but he knows in seconds the job has been done correctly. Owain's rumbling softly now in acceptance (I will be here until the end), and he can hear the wind through the trees drown out all else as darkness falls.

Graverobbers

Chel's fine (she's always fine) and she pushes her a** off the ground because there's nothing else she can do every time she falls over. There's a strange cool sensation in the ground, and she remembers her bathroom floor ...

But she also remembered Jack, the clearing, the hunters, the ghosts and the very real disaster unfolding before them.

Wren's bizarre plea for peace goes unnoticed, she is a bug under the foot of a mighty giant. Serah's head hangs limp, her limbs are jelly and she only contorts to attention when the spirit speaks. Chiyoo is here in full force now, and soldiers are rushing the field. They yell a battle cry and rush, but it was as if they were fighting an enemy long gone. Perhaps due to Chiyoo's presence, they still are.

Three, two, one.

It seems like the field is already overwhelmed, and yet another immense figure fills the sky. A golden dragon. It's pale and ghostly and every bit dead, made only moreso real by the bits of flesh hanging off it's frame. Chel looks quickly at Jack, alarmed even now that something like this might send him over the edge.

The dragon's grandiose display is not lost as it curls around the clearing, revealing bolders and trees fastened to its back, growing off the golden decaying flesh. Scales move like tectonic plates and it shatters the earth as it lands. Instead of broken ground, there's only green light flaring up from whatever pit of hell this combination was refused entry from.

"Portals," Chel screamed. Impulsive and physical maybe, but Chel is not entirely stupid. Her mind is already two steps ahead to her promotion- turn off the portals and turn off the abnormalities. Chel of course had no idea if this was what was going to work, but it's the best plan they had at the moment.

Her scream alerted the dragon and it rumbles it's enormous head in her direction. The only though Chel could have was fire as she rolled to the side, hoping it was enough to stay out of the flame.

Aly's frozen; this is only her third mission off the island.

Jordan's going for Chiyoo; this was supposed to be a routine mission.

Emil's facing the ghost soldiers. He wants to thin the crowd for the real heroes, but leave himself an escape if necessary.

Serah still hangs limp, puppeted in green light.

Jerome and Talia are wondering what has gone so wrong that the very sky itself is lit up with with dazzling green and yellow light, and Talia is moving to pack her bag. She's going to leave Jerome's unconscious a**, she doesn't give a s**t and she wants to live.

Chel has disappeared into a trance.

Three of Swords

The battlefield is overrun. Emil escapes, and the army comes forth. The clash of swords rings the air, and Chel can feel herself running for the portal, dragon's fire following her back.

It's so beautiful. Green, yellow, fiery orange and red- the entire battlefield is alight with fire, fire. She hears it ringing in her mind- not the literal fire- fire.

Wren is moving forward with Jordan, though her face is set in a strange frown. Aly is rooted to the spot in shock. Emil is fighting near the fringe. "********." Portals.

"Aly!" Jack shouts, cutting his path towards Chel as she's running for the portal. "Find yourself a spot and give me some god damn cover fire! Emil, get your a** down here so we can regroup!"

That's it Jack, she thinks with warm affection. Emil goes down to her left and Chel is stalled for a moment out of surprise. Maybe sadness, but mostly surprised because she's never seen someone felled so close to her.

And that's when she finds a sword sticking through her stomach. Chiyoo is fast for a man in armor, and he strikes hard, through Chel's flesh. She coughs blood and she only has a moment. She uses it to look at Jack. He has a dark look on his face and she knows her death has come to soon, too fast.

No darlin', don't lose yerself now. She hears the whisper of a conversation she had with Jack long ago. I can make it through this- I can do it. I'm still here don't look at me like that. Jack's running now. His back is turned and he's on the defensive. He's fighting his way out of the clearing. He's abandoned the project and he's living on survival.

That's it Jack.

Graverobbers

Oh good, that didn't last long. "Ignore the dragon, just like that," he sighed even though he was in agreement, keeping one arm extended and hovering in case she fell over. When that didn't seem likely, he let it drop and spoke quickly.

"Aly didn't look good after one; keep her shooting, it's something to occupy her mind. Emil could help me, he looks fast on his feet." Jack's already assumed he's on dagger duty while Chel takes the emperor with the other hunters. "Think maybe burning the tree might stop him? Looks like a major haunt to me." Not one guarantee among the ideas, but maybe attempting them all would give them some success.

Graverobbers

He wants to argue that a corpse dragon coated in the very earth around them, a Chinese army of ancient tribal ghosts, and a ******** legend in a tree sound like pretty good examples of haunts to him, but with a nod she's gone. There's a split second of uneasiness, but then it's back to work.

"Come on," he says to Emil in the same clipped tones as he moves forward.

Retrieving the daggers sounds easier than it ends up being. The dragon continually rumbles and tears the land apart, and with each action there's a chance the daggers will be displaced. There's also of course the endless puppet army with their endless ******** soldiers, and he once again participates in the draining but satisfying practice of horse slaying and beheading when he isn't being skewered and sliced himself. But the daggers firmly remain where they had been planted, and he breathes a small sigh of relief as he grabs two of them in a lull between groups of ghosts, hands oiled with blood.

"You remember the words, kid?"

Wren is tight-lipped as Chel joins them and maintains precision with her strikes, though she's wearing down fast from Chiyoo's sword alone. The pendant gets heavier around her neck

Graverobbers

There's a sharp nod of acknowledgment towards Chel, but Wren doesn't have the mettle to deal with the morally gray area of possessed teammates. Her pursuits are mostly confined to the excitement of a controlled lab or library, her capacity for murder is nonexistent, and her ties to the group shallow. She falters where they find their resolve and steps back, her weapon growing slack in her hands in spite of the surrounding danger.

"Maybe I can fix it," she says cryptically. "Maybe it'll disrupt his control." It could be a legitimate idea or an excuse to back out.

---

The site of Chiyoo's grave never felt so far away. The ghosts are annoying as it is, substantial enough to impede them through existence or use of force—but then the dragon had to take notice of them as well. Yinglong, he distantly recollects, faithful servant of the Yellow Emperor. And now it's blasting fire their way. This is going to be a problem.

He lifts his blade to try and deflect some of it away, but the hear and stench of it makes him stumble, the flash of light hurts his eyes. Jack can only hope Emil is keeping up. Then as they approach he sees the ghost is gone and Serah has a deathly pallor to her skin and there's a glint in her hands.

This is going to be a big problem.

The closer they get, the more Jack realizes that ignoring the dragon might not be the best course of action. Chiyoo is the mastermind, but this bodyguard can't be circumvented so easily. s**t. A soldier slams into him with a pole-arm and he growls and stabs him viciously in the neck in retaliation, wincing. s**t. He hates working with people he can't fully trust the ability of so much because it makes him feel even more obligated to do things himself. (He doesn't fully trust them, but he wishes Talia and Jerome had joined the fray. By now they're either gone or hiding out, he figures.)

Jack takes cover behind a clump of earth the dragon's hellish side effects has displaced. "New plan. Aly, I need you to back Emil up," he calls out as he passes Emil the other daggers. "Look, portals are shitty to do, but getting burnt to a crisp while you're vulnerable to it is far shittier. You handle them, I'll get Smaug over there off your a**."

Graverobbers

"I don't know if it will," she says helplessly, though Wren still eyes daggers at Chel for ever assuming she'd half a** anything. "Just...watch yourselves."

With a toss of her hair, she turns, tightens her grip and makes for her machine. Shards of ice spray from a swing of her spear, freezing and shattering the mob coming for them. The machine looks barely salvageable now, but she's in Life: steady hands when under pressure are a must. She talks to herself as she yanks a panel off and begins to work.

"Which wire do you cut again, Wren? Hah...Damn it..."