For a brief, beautiful moment, color floods my vision. Crimson blood blooms in the water like ink. The water mages blue hair fans out across the grey stones, vivid and bright. The world snaps into full spectrum reds, blues, browns all the colors I've been denied while I use my Fearmonger to this extent.
Then it fades.
The world bleeds back to greyscale.
The world bleeds back to greyscale.
Everything becomes shades of black and grey. The rain is silver needles. The burning buildings are charcoal smudges against an ash-colored sky. The corpses scattered around me are dark shapes on darker stone.
But the details.
Gods, the details.
I can see every crack in the cobblestones. Every droplet of rain suspended in the air. Every fiber in the dead woman's armor. My vision is faster, sharper, predatory. I take a deep breath feeling as if I could crush the world. This power is intoxicating
Beautiful, the voices whisper in my mind "You are so divine! One day our forces will scour the world. Nothing will escape us!
I ignore them. I've learned to silence the choir in my soul sea, to push them down into the depths where they can't control me. They're still there, singing their hymns of violence, but they're mine now. Not the other way around. Even though at this moment I don't dislike the thought.
I stand over the two Awakened and multiple markless soldiers I've just killed, their blood pooling around my boots, mixing with the rain and ash falling from Oakhaven's burning sky. My hands shake not from fear, but from the sheer mental exhaustion of maintaining the illusion that made them see each other as enemies. Watching the markless soldiers all tear into one another while I killed the two elites was deeply satisfying.
The Fear Monger ability still pulses at the edge of my consciousness, feeding me the residual terror that clung to them in their final moments.
Someone screams, but the voice is swallowed by another explosion a few blocks away. I smirk Rook is doing his job well and damn if it's not glorious. More screams and the city seemingly braces before another devastation wave of power crashes through the city kicking up dust and spreading fire. Helix is doing exactly what we were sent to do: draw every Federation eye east while our main army prepares to strike back into the north.
As I stand over the carnage I caused, chest heaving, rain plastering my hair to my skull I see Colonel Caldera.
The Lieutenant Colonel is a whirlwind of black chains and righteous fury. His weapons spin in deadly arcs, tearing through flesh and bone. But even in greyscale, I can see he's slowing. The hitch in his breathing. The way his left arm hangs wrong.
Two Elites press him among at least forty markless soldiers who seemingly had no qualms about dying brutal deaths. One of the elites has skin like granite
The other conjures flame that appears as white-hot brightness even in my monochrome world.
"Commander!" I shout, already moving.
Caldera's head snaps toward me. Blood runs down his face in dark rivulets. He grins actually grins even as the Stone Skin Elite slams a massive fist into his ribs.
The crack echoes across the square.
"Rip him from the jaws of death. Fate cannot stop you. Nothing can" the voices urge
I'm already sprinting, my boots splashing through puddles that look like liquid mercury in my greyscale sight. Everything is hyperfocused—I can see the individual raindrops, track their trajectories, predict where my feet will land three steps ahead.
I'm ten feet away when the world shatters.
Three impacts I don't see coming.
Something like a battering ram catches me in the chest. Something clips my temple. A third blow hammers into my kidney.
I go flying.
My body tumbles through the air. I crash through a market stall, through a building, and slam into stone hard enough to shatter it.
Pain explodes.
I can immediately feel Lucian's passive healing mark flood my injuries and slowly start to speed up my healing process as well as him attempting to reach me through our bond which I deny. The pain racks as my broken arm realigns itself snapping back into place with a brutal crunching sound. Sadly it still hurts like a bitch and throbs brutally even gripping the sword sends tremors up my arm as I stumble roll to my feet.
The rain becomes a slow-motion cascade of crystal drops. Three figures emerge from the dust around me .
Elites. In my predator vision, they're sharply defined against the grey backdrop. Every detail of their armor stands out. Every micro-expression on their faces is readable.
"Kill him" the center one says. A Woman's voice, cold.
I smile. It's not a nice smile.
The one on the left is massive twelve feet of a what appears to be muscle shaped as a man. I chalk that up to some type of Enhancement Mark. The one on the right is wiry with a cruel smile on his face.
The center one raises her hand, and the air begins to fold.
Space collapses inward, creating a dome of warped reality. The sounds of battle muffle. The burning city becomes distant and grey.
"Spatial lock engaged," she announces. "Sixty-meter radius. Nothing in. Nothing out."
I feel my healing stop and I frown in disbelief and I reach for the mental link with Lucain and find nothing.
She's cut me off. What a bitch.
Three-on-one. Injured. Exhausted.
I should be terrified.
Instead, I laugh.
"Three-on-one?" I say, my voice dripping with mockery " I do hope there is no confusion, I'm not the one in trouble here, there are only three of you, you'll need more than that"
The bruiser's face darkens I use Fearmonger and reach out, drinking in their terror. And what I taste is exquisite.
The big one fears inadequacy. Always the muscle, never the brain. Dead brother, smarter and faster. The grief is a dark stain in his psyche the fear of never being enough, of always living in his shadow. The wiry one with the cruel face is just a facade he fears his own power. Unstable, barely contained. They've killed allies before. The guilt eats at them.
The spatial manipulator fears failure. First major operation in command. Terrified of disappointing her superiors and she feels the failure as the city she was tasked with controlling burns around her.
The bruiser moves first.
He blurs forward in my greyscale vision, every muscle fiber visible as it contracts. But I can read the hesitation that will come, the moment where when he pulls back.
Predictable.
In that microsecond, I weave.
My Veilshaper fights me like it always does when i attempt to make my own illusions and not allow my bloodlust to pour into from fearmonger. Building illusions is agony like constructing a cathedral one brick at a time while running from an avalanche.
But I manage.
His dead brother appears beside me, translucent and grey. "Too slow, Marcus," the phantom whispers with borrowed memories. "You were always too slow."
The bruiser's fist freezes. His eyes go wide.
Then I use my battle art .
I flow inside his guard, formless and inevitable. My sword finds the gap in his armor.
Hot blood sprays.
And suddenly color.
Brilliant, beautiful red. It splashes across my face, across my vision, painting the greyscale world in vivid crimson. For one perfect heartbeat, I can see everything in full spectrum.
Then it fades back to grey.
Yes, the voices moan in ecstasy
The bruiser Marcus I suppose roars, stumbling back, clutching the wound. The illusion shatters.
Wiry guy doesn't wait.
Crystalline shards erupt in my vision white-grey against darker grey, moving fast. Too fast.
I dodge the first cluster but the second rakes across my shoulder, tearing through cloth and skin.
Immediate pain shoots down my arm.
I sprint toward them.
The crystals multiply, creating a forest of razor edges. But in my enhanced vision, I can see the pattern. I sense the next batch and I juke right.
The crystals erupt exactly where I predicted.
Perfect, the voices croon. You are perfect. A flawless predator. Our beautiful instrument of death. A REAPER!
I close the distance. My sword blurs not at the wory guys body, but at a crystal formation he just spawned in front of us.
I strike it at precisely the right angle and It shatters shrapnel erupts backward. I watch it happen in slow motion each fragment catching the crystal user across the face and arm.
Red blooms briefly in my vision as his blood sprays.
Color. Beautiful color.
Then grey again. He screams, stumbling and that's when reality breaks.
Gravity reverses. I float, weightless, disoriented.
Then it reverses again.
I plummet at twice normal speed.
The impact is catastrophic. My greyscale vision whites out for a moment, then snaps back sharper than before. I can see the cracks I've made in the cobblestones spreading like spiderwebs. How I stay conscious I'm not entirely sure. I roll to my feet, coughing blood. The spatial manipulator floats above me. In my vision, I can see every detail of her face. The micro-expressions of fear she's trying to hide.
"Obedience out of love for the person of the hierarch. Obedience out of loyalty to the office of the hierarch. You and apólytos will die, and the god will be free at last! You will not survive! She shouts at me her eyes reflecting burning hate."
I ignore her insane rambling and I laugh again. Blood dribbles down my chin in dark rivulets.
"You are insane" I sneer pointing at her with my sword
Her face hardens "Trash" she sneers
"And you're scared," I reply, letting Shadow Dance flow through me. "I can taste it. Tastes like... disappointment and daddy issues. Let me guess this is your big chance to prove yourself, right? First major op with that new shiny rank? Gotta show the brass you deserve the rank?"
Her eyes widen fractionally.
"Oh, so I'm right," I continue, smiling. "That's hilarious. You know what's going to happen? You're going to die here. And when they find your body, they're going to wonder why they ever promoted you in the first place."
"Shut up!" she screams.
The illusion I weave I think nearly kills me.
My brain screams at the amount of conceration and energy it takes to form and control. Blood vessels burst in my eyes I can feel them pop, see the dark fluid obscuring parts of my vision and my nose starts bleeding.
But it works.
The three enemy elites see what I make them see. Their Spatial Lock failing and the entirey of Helix crashing down upon them. Imara ripping up and stone and launching it Lopez cracking the ground and directing the sonic booms towards them. Sola, riding on wind. Vihaan, laughing as he twirls his knife, Lucian and Caldera following from behind.
The wiry guy cracks fist panic and fear stripping all rational thought.
Their power explodes. Crystals erupt everywhere. The bruiser charges at phantom-Lopez, crashes into rubble.
The spatial manipulator drops altitude to dodge Sola and Imara.
But they are not actually there so it's her first and last fatal mistake.
My sword finds the gap below her ribcage.
Her eyes go wide. Blood fountains.
And suddenly—color.
Brilliant, vivid red. Her blood is crimson against grey armor. The world bursts into full spectrum for one glorious moment.
"Rise so high in mud you lie!" I whisper. I twist the blade and this time the spatial lock really does brak and I can feel Lucains healing kick back in as well as our mental link reconnect.
However my illusion collapses. I no longer have the brain power to keep it going, and I feel like my head may explode at any second.
Wiry guy and the bruiser see their leader dying and they scream in pure rage. The crystal power goes wild. Crystals erupt like bombs. One catches my calf, cutting deep.
Dark grey blood runs down my leg.
The bruiser charges.
His fist catches me in the chest.
I fly.
I crash through rubble, through wood, slam into stone and for the second time in the last few minutes I feel multiple things break. I can't weave another complex illusion. My brain is bleeding—I can feel the warm trickle behind my eyes.
But I can do something simple.
I make myself flicker I make the big guy flicker and I make it seem like we traded spots. Wiry guy sees me just a few feet in front of him and he curses unleashing crystals.
And briefly; so briefly color floods my vision. Red. Everywhere red.
The shards tear through the bruiser marcus and he drops to the ground a look of shock and betrayal on his face.
Beautiful, the voices hiss.
The wiry guy realizes what he's done. Their worst nightmare has been made real.
The crystals turn inward, erupting from his own skin.
He screams as he takes his own life and I watch knowing I was the cause.
I watch in perfect detail as they tear themselves apart. Crystal shards bursting through flesh, through bone.
He collapses.
More color brief and violent and beautiful.
Then grey.
Always grey.
"Fear is the mind killer," I whisper as consciousness slips away. "It is the little death that brings total obliteration."