In Verse, Part 2

The world you have...imagine it.

Imagine all its troubles and sins, bloody paths carved for decades, centuries, all the way back to strange apes learning to chase down food and beat them with rocks. All the reasons we have to disagree with each other, to do bad things to each other...its so vast, isn't it? So ingrained, inescapable. Some would say we were set onto a path to doom long before we were born, each generation another step until the last.

Wouldn't it be better if it was all swept away?

But...think of all we've learned from our dark deeds. Think of the systems of checks and balances we've forged, that endure at their base level. Think of how much it takes to do more that spread small patches of misery, how to end the world requires hundreds, thousands of hands, nearly all of which want anything but. Think of all we've created, all we could yet learn. Is the world truly so bad that the only way to go forward is to wipe the slate clean?

Now...imagine a Changed world. A world reworked by a god. Imagine a world where countless people got their dreams, and how dark dreams can go. Imagine so many of our lessons blighted away, replaced by stories that ring false on a deep, subconscious level. A world where the right man with his hand in the right place can annihilate a country through nothing but his own will. Where a woman can create unthinkable horrors with the power of thought and spread a plague that, with one step that cannot be taken back, will not stop until it has consumed everything. Imagine a world covered with broken fragments of malignant power, that can no longer be what they once were, and can only exist to remake and unmake everything there is.

Imagine a world where the wrong person could spin the planet off its axis, the only thing stopping them being the right man, at the right time...a man who cannot be everywhere at once, know every crime, every desire, who could simply...not be there. A redone world, so many old sins and failings gone, replaced by brand new ones, so many lessons scrubbed away and perhaps no time to relearn them, with so many new options for old and new sins to take everything away for good.

Would the old world not be...better? Safer?

....would it not be your responsibility to pull the world back to what it was once, what it would have never become save for one internecine will?

....A world where you are no one?

...Is the greater sin that of the remaker...or the one that could not, would not, when it was in his hands...change what was remade?

-----

The Remnants.

Ash had no idea how many there were, how many were already found, and just how they affected the world when they were lost. Were people drawn to them, or did they whisper for people to find them? Maybe there was no difference...the initial information suggested they might not even be innately evil. They just served as amplication tools. Good became great...

...and bad became worse.

Thus is the duty of the boy who wanted to touch the stars...is today the day I fall?

Let's find out.

Let's burn.

Incael was the one to leap this time, but his jump was nothing like Ash's, an arcing, almost lazy pounce compared to Ash's lancing bullet-like strike. The end result was the same though: a hand clutching a sword that was more than a blade, a blade that Incael brought right down onto Ash's, the blonde warrior bracing for impact...

He was expecting a strong hit; a Remnant combined with a Stream user potent enough to summon it through butchery was not to be underestimated. He was not expecting the blade to literally SHRIEK when it made impact with his own.

And even that was secondary to the power behind the voice. Ash had tried to brace himself and it still didn't work; half a second after impact his legs felt like they were exploding under him, a spiderweb of cracks shooting outward from his stone ground underneath his feet, hissing waves of re-directed power exploding off his armor in waves that rattled the statues and pillars around him. The pain blazed through him, the fire in his nerves reflecting the mad fire in Incael's eyes, his grin as sharp as the blade he'd brought down onto Ash...

With one hand. The other hand swung in and slammed Ash across the jaw, Ash feeling the joints in his mouth wrench as he went flying again, clipping a stone pillar before he landed in one of the small streams cut into the rock floor, water spraying up from around his body.

"They speak of what your blade has done...I'm not impressed." Incael said, approaching Ash with the steady tread of the assured, of a beast that knew its prey was bled out and only required the final bit of life to be ripped from it.

When the sword flew upward from Ash's body, Incael stopped, thrusting up his own, expecting an attack. It wasn't; the sword had been tossed straight up. Instead, Ash flipped up to his feet, water splashing up from his boots as he landed, one hand rising up and grabbing his sword as it came down.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." Ash said, and ran at Incael. Incael laughed again, spittle flying from his mouth.

"It knows your moves before you make them, boy!" Incael said, and feinted to the left before slashing outward with both hands on the blade, the black edge slamming against Ash's sword, tearing the blade from his hands.

Too easily. Incael realized he'd been overbalanced right before Ash's fist smashed into his face, Ash using his now free hand to follow it up with another punch that knocked Incael backwards, blood erupting from his lip.

"There's something NEW." Ash said, and ran for it, Vyrepul carving deep into the stone floor as Incael missed his next swing. Ash ran to where his sword was impaled, yanking it free from the statue it had struck like drawing a knife from butter, before fleeing behind the stone effigy.

"This is not a game of cat and mouse, Marsello. If you think you're-" Incael said, advancing towards the statue. It put him directly in range of Ash's own leaping slash, the blonde man having scrambled on top of the carving, leaping off and crashing blades together, the scream of the weapon echoing off Ash's ears and through the depths.

"I don't think!" Ash said, drawing back and blocking another slash, Incael's terrible strength still shooting through him, but he took it, he had to take it. Sparks flew from the clash of swords, Incael advancing with vicious, brutal cuts aimed at the arms and neck, Ash blocking them all, one after another.

"So it's true. You survive with the stance of a coward!" Incael said.

"Yeah, that's it." Ash said, dodging backwards from Incael's cleaving roundhouse swing.

"No wonder you so easily-"

Incael didn't finish his insult, instead swerving and slashing his blade across the statue Ash had leapt off moments before, the stone exploding into a spray of rocky shards that pelted Ash, making him recoil a moment. He got his eyes back on Incael in time to see the golden light bloom in his outward palm.

"Burn." Incael said, the blast erupting and engulfing Ash, a spreading discharge strike rather than a concentrated blow. Ash was driven backwards, his feet sliding across the rock like it had become ice, finally stopping two dozen feet from where he had been standing, his body smoking, his face seared with angry burns, the statues on either side of him erupting into flame. Ash stood there a moment, trying to breath.

The Warp-bolt slammed into his sword as he snapped it up, and then Ash ducked beneath Incael as he blurred in, Vyrepul cleaving through one of the flaming statues like it wasn't there. Ash ducked low to the ground, sweeping a leg out, only for Incael to jump over the kick and thrust his leg down, pinning Ash by the ankle and sweeping his sword down. Dust sprayed out from beneath the boy's body as he managed to block it, every muscle in his arm screaming as he did so, the force shockwave so intense it blew the flaming statues out. Ash felt numbness begin to slip into his finger; if Incael swung again...

He didn't.

Instead he reached down, grabbed Ash by the throat, and hurled him into the nearest stone pillar. Face first.

"Weak!"

Spots flashed behind Ash's eyes, his legs briefly turning to jelly as he slumped against the pillar. Blood began to run down his face, inarking it in the red agonies that drove through his body.

For once, he did not end up on his knees, Ash bracing himself against the stone pillar to keep from fully falling down, blinking blood from his vision, staring at the face of the mermaid carving that looked back at him.

Then he ducked, Incael obliterating the carving and cleaving right through the pillar in another spray of dust and stone. Ash shoved himself backwards, elbowing Incael in the stomach and then swinging backwards with his own sword, Incael barely dodging out of the way. Ash brought his sword back in front of him, and with a snarling growl Incael slashed at him again, blades slamming together, even while the pillar collapsing behind Ash and engulfed the two in dust, Their clashing forms were consumed by the grey murk for a few seconds before it exploded away, the stone cracking beneath the pair's feet as their weapons warred for dominance. Ash blinked dust from his eyes, and then the tear that began streaking down his dirty face literally got blown off his features when Incael brought his sword around in another titantic blow that Ash, again, barely endured.

"So nice of you to fight the battles for everyone out there. Leave it all behind you so you can die down here." Incael said. "What, no reply? Of course not. You're too busy sucking wind to make wind."

Ash spat bloody saliva as a reply. Incael jerked his head to the side, the defiance falling short.

"My turn." Incael said, and with a gurgling gasp yellow fumes exploded from his mouth. Gold damp. Ash recoiled, fear shooting through his body.

His back slammed into the statue Ash wasn't even aware was there. He'd been lured into a corner. A moment later, Incael had closed in.

"Fool."

The knee drove the wind from Ash, doubling him over. Before he could recover, Incael seized Ash by the head and yanked him backwards, slamming the back of his head against the stone, and then as Ash staggered forward in a daze Incael spun and brought the hilt of his sword down between Ash's shoulders, sending him sprawling out onto the ground with an agonized gasp. Incael stepped back, blade at the ready, and when Ash didn't immediately get back up, he snickered, resting his sword on his shoulder again.

"This is it?" Incael said. "This is the Bloody Fire? Who my men fled in terror from, who I had to threaten to get them to face you to begin with? THIS? I expected a liar, but not a COMEDY!" Incael said, and lunged forward, his leg swinging out and taking Ash in the ribs in a vicious toe-first kick as he tried to get up, flinging Ash backwards until he bounced off the same statue he'd been trapped against, crashing back down to the ground. "This is the man who cut down the Widowmaker? Antiwan? Spinne?"

Ash had no reply; he could only try and get up, blood dripping from his face, running down his arms and chest where daggers of stone had cut. Incael's fingers were as cold as the metal he draped himself with as he reached down, seizing Ash by the throat and hoisting him up.

"THIS is the GODSLAYER?" Incael said, and hurled Ash back against the statue, and Ash struck it with a bone-jarring thud, Incael turned around, walking away from Ash as golden energy erupted on his sword.

"THIS is who wants MY power?" Incael said, turning around as he swung his arms up. "YOU'RE A DISGRACE!"

The golden eruption of power consumed Ash and the statue, the carved stone shattering into a thousand pieces as Ash flew through it, bouncing across the ground several time before he crashed through a small bridge, coming to a rest in an ankle deep pool of water, nearly making it all the way to the center of the forty-foot tarn.

"...I can see what you are now. Truly. You're like me in every way." Incael said, approaching the fallen Ash through the battered chamber. "You saw a chance to seize it and you took it. Waited for them to all die and then stepped in and declared yourself victor. And the world believed you, because they will always believe what those who seize them tell them! Ah, Marsello...you should have stayed away. For I desire it more and deeper than you. You are nothing compared to me, GODSLAYER. For your foolishness, you will in turn be slain by this world's new god."

Incael splashed down into the water, bringing his sword to bear. Ash had managed to get up, but only to his knees, his head bowed. Broken. Like his brothers. Like all the other liars.

"There is only room for one to feast." Incael said, and with one final burst of speed, he charged and swung. Why speak the curse of his blade when he could so easily do it the natural way? A fine way to finish it...

Right until his sword stopped cold.

Ash was back on his feet. Still hunched over, water and blood running down his body...but in one arm, he held his own sword. All the abuse, and he still held the sword. Straight out, like he was using it to point at Incael.

The tip of his own sword had met the edge of Incael's, and stopped the decapitating blow like it was a wall of bedrock. When Incael tried to yank his blade back, he found it stuck, like the two swords had fused together.

Ash wasn't looking at him, bloody and wet blonde hair draped his face. And for all the weakness in his stance, for once there was no weakness in his voice.

"I...HATE...that name."

Force erupted off Ash's sword as it broke broke away from Incael's, the king staggering back as Ash knelt down again, plunging a hand into the water, and within a second every bit of liquid in the pond ceased to exist, going from murky liquid to obfuscating mist, the cloud of water vapor and steam engulfing Incael and Ash, the fair-haired boy vanishing from Incael's sight.

"Do you know who I really am, Incael? You're close...and yet...so far."

"What are you talking about?"

"...I guess we'll see."

"...Rrrgh. Parlor tricks." Incael said, slashing his sword out, his rage growing when it failed to disperse the steam. "The stance of a coward!"

"I am a coward." Ash's voice drifted from the fog, Incael unable to pin down its precise direction. "Hundreds of us went to the Blacklands. Champions. Generals. Great men, great women, heroes. And then there was me. The load, the liability, only allowed along because of his inexplicable friends. They never would have understood the truth of their rancor towards me...but they were right in me being lesser compared to them. They laid it all on the line, gave everything, their lives, their souls. Everything they could have offered. And when it was all over...when they'd made the way with their sacrifice...I slipped in and claimed the last inch. Miles carved by them, and all their glory granted to me. Lauded. Worshipped. The savior of the world. They were the savior. Even the living; the rest of the 44 are greater than me...because they survived too. Survived and went back to the world that ignored them so they could hoist me up and sing of their great, noble, golden hero. I could have done..,so much more...they deserved so much more. They didn't deserve to die because of me. All of them, on the Blacklands, against the Necromancer...at Mysar's Tomb. All the way back to my pathetic little entrance into this world. Their ghosts stand behind me, their eyes on my back, forever marching behind me, letting me know they're there."

"Get going kid, or get got..."

I'm so sorry, Deb...I will never stop, you would never stop, I will NEVER stop...

"...Heh. I always suspected the stories were too good to be true." Incael said.

"They always are."

The steam abruptly receded from around Incael, his vision becoming clear again...as it was called around Ash's blade, the boiling air roiling around his sword, red mist now surging from his body, gushing from his wounds in a framing cloud, the fire in his nerves now dancing in his eyes, a fire to match Incael's.

"You want to kill the world they died to protect. If you think I'm going to just stand by and be a coward again, YOU HAVE ANOTHER THING COMING." Ash said, hoisting his sword, red steam seething out from his mouth. "LET'S BURN."

"...so well done, saving all your words for the end. Meaningless. I WILL SNUFF YOU OUT LIKE A CANDLE YOU ARE." Incael said, and charged.

"YOU AND WHAT ARMY?"

The blade met in a cacophony of otherworldly energies, the steam exploding away from the pair and then the rock in the floor shattering in an expanding outward spray of force, not a trace of pain in Ash's eyes as he blocked the blow, the flame blazing within him, burning from his wounds, his sins, his will...

Then the crack appeared.

In Ash's blade. With a sound like mournful ice, the weapon broke in half, Incael's blade cutting through. And just like that, Ash looked as small as he'd ever been,

"...oh crap." Ash said, his voice a whimper.

"Exactly." Incael said, and swung to cleave Ash's skull in twain.