Advent of the Nexus: The Only Way Home

"Sword aside why do you attack it and not me?"

The Tormentor stumbles from getting hit from the shield and barely recovers to deflect Garm;s attack, it slowly backs away still recovering from a daze. However before Garm could attack again Shade stepped in between them and summoned a katana.

"Ah that is unfortunate it would have been nice to see her again and a prison really isn't that bad of a thing. Not like I torture the souls or anything, I just store them for other things. And to answer your question no, once again I am Shade, not Night. I hold little as much hate towards you as you may think. I'd just rather be able to stab you a few times and maybe light you on fire."

Shade steps for ward quickly and brings up his blade until it reaches his chest at which he quickly pulls it towards him them even faster outwards towards Garm's chest.

"You say that, but some part of you must despise me. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so insulted by me taking the pawn's elimination as slightly more important than yours."
Garm deflects it to the side with the Omega Shield, bringing the hilt in to smash the side of Shade's head. He says nothing more, feeling that words would merely be a waste of time.


Pan continues to watch, his face devoid of any avid interest in the scene before him.
"You have no interest in joining, Mr. Z'Aay? I would have expected you to relish the chance to gain an insight into the way the gods fight."

Zada shrugged. "I still feel this as a grudge match as anything. Besides, Shades taken care of the learning part for me. I do not need to fight someone when I can examine them in battle against a skilled opponent. I say skilled because anyone of lesser talent would not give me the information I would need. If Shade truly needs my help I may step in."

He looked at Pan, a slight smile on his face, amused at his guides emotion, or lack of to what was going on. He turned back to continue watching, wondering how long this would go on. He wondered why Omega had brought up the hilt instead of the blade. It was still vicious and painful, high chance of cracking the skull, but not as elegant and devastating as the slash.

« Last edited by Craizen on Oct 23rd 2012 »

"If it was a pawn I would not have stepped in to save it so quickly. No it has another use that no one ever seemed to guess... Curse their bad image."

Shade sidesteps slightly to the left and summons a second katana out of darkness into his left hand and uses it to block Garm's attack while his right is pulled back again. After taking this stance behind him the Tormentor acts by throwing a bright orange fireball at Shade who lets it hit and engulf him.

"Support Tormentors are much more useful than there offensive relatives, though I guess it would help for their appearance to change a little to at least hint a difference."

Considering that Zada had not yet joined in Shade assumed he was not in the mood for a fight. One learning experience passed up but then again he would have other chances to learn Zada's fighting style and how best to work with him.

Garm smiles and breaths flames in Shade's face, using his wings to fling himself back to put a little distance between them.

"Support, huh? You know, it isn't fair that only you get to call on a god's subordinates. Mind if I call one too?"

Though he still had the same skill and precision as he once did, and the draconic spell active, Garm's power, his physical fighting strength, and his fierce will to survive were clearly gone. The battle thus far had revealed as much to Pan, who supposed his customer had noticed as well. Garm was a dead man with no hope left for his soul and only a short time left. He was doing this to make sure that he could entrust the continuation of existence in the hands of a former comrade.

Despite his dislike of Shade, it seems that this dead man walking does respect his strength, conviction, and determination. For an assassin to entrust something so important to one who was a forced ally at best, he must really have lost all hope of being able to do something about this himself. It does take an outsider to stop a god's madness I suppose...the acolytes cannot raise a hand against their god.

The flames caused Shaded little harm though whether it was because of the flames already engulfing him or something else one couldn't tell. however they did give Garm and good opportunity to put some distance between the two of them and he made no attempt to shorten the distance.

"A God's help huh? I don't really ask permission when summoning tormentors but I guess your right, it isn't fair that I have support while your stuck with being partially a dragon. I don't mind at all and it was good seeing you again Garm, hatred aside I wish our world hadn't taken the fate that it did."

"All things must, eventually, end. You know this, Shade. It was the same with out world as it was for Night."
And me...

Garm snapped his fingers and an empty suit of red armor flashed into existence from a bright red Omega symbol that appeared beside the dragon-like assassin. He then decides to reveal his reasoning, despite it not being something that would help him. Being overestimated made an enemy wary of him.

"And while you would normally be spot on with your sarcasm, I'm not exactly alive right now, so this is the only way to fight on the level with you I'm afraid."


"Thought as much."

Pan's voice cuts through the space like he was speaking into a microphone, but he says nothing more, merely observing the two and their summoned beings.

"Yeah I sorta figured out the not alive part out by myself. Speaking of all things your God thinking of retiring anytime soon mention to him that if he needs help doing so I'll help for free."

With a snap of his fingers a dozen more fireballs appear at his side and he lazily makes them revolve him.

"How nice of you to compliment me, I shall make your end quick then?"

Shade waves his hand and sends all 12 fireballs hurtling towards the glowing suit of armor while behind him his tormentor sheaths his sword and draws a bow, notching an arrow.

"Don't worry since you have so kindly shown me that nice glowing red armor I myself shall show you a few of my own new tricks."

"If you want him to retire, then just wait and he'll do so. Once everything else has ceased, that is."

The Omega Knight slashes the fireballs with surprising speed, it's blade making the flames extinguish due to Omega's power coursing through it.

"And though a swift end would be nice, my will is not my own."

"Waiting around is rather boring."

Shade made notice of the speed and creating smaller, more compact, and faster fireballs that looked more like balls of light. He took a short amount of time to think then fire half of them at the armor and the other half at Garm.

"Then make it your own, ever read a children's story. Gotta have willpower and magically you will be able to surpass and break through anything before you."

Shade created another batch of the compact fireballs with ease but lost his lazy composure replacing it with a calmer but more ready one. He pulled from one of his pockets a small silver dagger.

"So the Order still remain or did that meet it's end with our world?"

"Come now Shade, it isn't called the Order of Omega for nothing. It existed long before our world was created and still exists even now, led by my nephew, who hasn't yet died."

Garm blocks the fireballs with the Omega Shield, but the impacts push him back a bit. That should give a clue as to just how far he has fallen since death.

"And Shade...the dead don't have free will. They just have a talkative nature. You know how dead people are with telling tales. We love it."

((That's it I'm taking a color of my own.))
"Long before... well it would seem you truly are a lucky individual to have been seen as the most loyal. And oh yes the dead do like to talk, never shut up."

The remaining fireballs are launched at Garm and almost immediately afterwards Shade disappears in a flash of light, reappearing directly behind Garm to quickly bring up the dagger towards the center of his back. While in front of the Garm the remaining four fireballs separated to each strike a different spot, two were directed to each of his legs, one to his chest and the last at his shield arm.

« Last edited by nightmare2 on Nov 8th 2012 »

Garm suddenly had a tail that wrapped around Shade's arms, swinging him into the fireballs' trajectory. Garm then flew straight up into the nonexistent air and sent a burst of extremely fast moving white energy at Shade.

"The dead also like to show off how much they can do before falling to pieces."

The Omega Knight had moved across the distance between it and the Tormentor at blinding speeds, getting within five feet of it by the time Garm had flown up.

Shade didn't bother trying to dodge his own fire balls instead just righted himself on the ground and held his arms over his head to shield himself from Garm's attack. While behind him his tormentor quickly switched back to the two-handed sword and lit itself on fire to defend against the armor. After being hit by Garm's attack Shade created a wall of darkness between the two while he reoriented himself and summoned his trusty mount. His mount being a pheonix that looked like a Raven with a few purple flames coming out of it's wings, named Nightmare. By the time the wall of darkness had disappeared Nightmare had enlarged to a rideable size and Shade jumped on.

"You want an air battle? Well have fun showing off while I blast you into the ground."

Shade was confident that he was the faster one here so he decided to circle Garm while blasting redish black balls of dark energy at Garm.

« Last edited by nightmare2 on Nov 11th 2012 »

"Dear goodness Pan, how long has it been? I'm starting to get bored waiting for them to stop holding back."

Zada was laying on his back in the room of nothing now, staring up at the occasional attack that buzzed above him.

"You want me to stop holding back? Fine then, don't blame me for what happens...Inner Light."

An orb of pure energy, glowing bright white, even in the blank whiteness of this odd space, appeared in each of Garm's hands as he dropped his weapons. They formed into scythes. Omega symbols appeared to block Shade's first wave of attacks.

"Shade, remember the last time I used this? On that island with all the Tormentors? Or were you not awake by then? No matter. This ought to jog your memory."

The scythes spun through the air in his hands faster than humanly possible. Garm had truly stopped holding back. His trump card was now in play.

"Fine, I had been enjoying our casual fight but had to happen sometime, guess i will show you my Scythe."

Similar to how he pulled out his katana, a scythe appeared right in front of him from dark energy. Grabbing it with his right hand he casually swung it around a few times while in his left hand came blazing purple flames that consumed his entire left arm.

"I don't believe I was awake then but I doubt it was much a show. Now let me show you some of MY God's strength when given to someone competent."

On the blade of the scythe a symbol of Vladimir burn brightly in red. In reaction to him activating it, below him on the armor of the tormentor another symbol appeared which fortified it's speed and strength.

"Shall we end this once and for all?"

"This isn't a power Omega gave me. And the last time I used it, it created an explosion larger than that entire city we trashed fighting your god. What was it called again? It's been so long it escapes my memory."

The scythes begin to glow with red lightning, and about ten more orbs of light shoot out of Garm's arms.

"I suppose it's about time I just went ahead and showed you the move I prepared specifically for you several thousand years ago."

The ten orbs turn into ten glowing Inner Light versions of him, each a deadly and highly destructive explosive force equivalent to a nuke. For a man who's been stuck in a void for several thousand years, with nothing to do but train and figure out ways to kill his old friends, this isn't too out of the ordinary, really.

"Now, let's see you put me to rest Shade. My soul may be gone, but until my body dies I'm going to be a pain in your side till Omega does what he wants to. Or until someone with the 'right' to usurps and kills him."

The ten Inner Light clones rush Shade at blinding speeds, with the real Garm leisurely following behind, eager to see how the destruction god's follower will counter utter annihilation like that of the Inner Light technique.

Zada was watching rather lazily. Garm was quite fast, he would give him that. He had speed up his own eye movement in a molecular field and was watching as each clone arrived to strike down, or rather explode upon Shade. He was curious though, If Shade could contain the amount of energy each was said to contain, or how much farther the extent of his power went.

"I'd go South East then west at about ten degrees if I were you."

"So, you can actually keep up with that? I'm impressed. Though, it does seem a bit...weak. If only he were alive and freed of Omega, he could have been a great ally to you. But what's done is done. There is no path to that particular ending."

Pan is just idling chattering now, displaying one of his sporadic shifts in mood and behavior. He acts like there isn't even a fight to the death going on, considering the level of destruction that was potentially about to befall one of his clients. But Pan knew he had picked the correct path. The odds of failure here, should Shade be able to do all he says, are microscopic in Pan's opinion.