The Seething Angel and the Necro-Lavamancer

The blood-spattered angel silently flew through the ruined streets of Elgaud, sharp eyes watching for her foes.  The Eldrazi had thoroughly infiltrated the sewer system, gurgling up every few minutes to slaughter or consume whatever is unlucky enough to be near.  Serena’s piercing gaze caught sight of a magenta tentacle slithering its way out of a drainpipe, and the probing tendril was immediately roasted by a bolt of angelic power.(1)  Curling her lip in disgust, she continued her patrol.  The next few hours were without major incident, but the acrid smell of burning flesh caused her to whirl around in surprise, seeing an approaching line of sulfurous smoke descending upon the eastern edge of the city.  Touching down, she immediately drew her Goldnight Blade, eyes widening at the oncoming horde.

Dozens, perhaps even a hundred shambling corpses staggered forward towards, dripping what appeared to be seething magma.  Every hundred steps or so, a few would burst or simply melt away, their magnetic insides soaking back into the heat-blighted earth.  However, soon after, another body would be yanked from the Blessed Sleep and the earth, their empty sockets glowing and dripping with the same magma.  Interspersed within this army, a few large, intimidating demons(2, 3, 4) stalked forward, leering as they gazed upon the angel standing between them and the town.  Leading them was a tall, imposing man in a ragged Cathar’s uniform, downcast eyes glowing orange as he trudged forward silently.  In his hand, an immaculate moonsilver spear(5) shines against the warm glow of the unholy host.

“Halt, you blasphemous cur!” Serena bellowed, pointing her sword at the man.  Her body practically trembled with rage.  This putrid, if strange necromancer befouled the memory of Avacyn by holding blessed silver, and she would allow it no longer.  “Drop the spear and say a prayer to whatever dark thing you worship.  The Eldrazi haven’t taken all angels, and this one will defend Elgaud to her last breath!”

“Oh, save it, you self-righteous-“ The necromancer looked up, and Serena could see his derisive expression melt into shock and… relief?  The glow in his eyes faded, orange melting away to a warm brown.  “-…G-Gisela?”  Serena reared back in surprise.  She certainly wasn’t expecting THAT expression out of a heretic in need of smiting.  The confusion and shock were accompanied by a heady wave of vertigo as she felt Emrakul’s influence try and worm its way into her mind.  The pressure was unbearable… it would be so easy to just be’raku-NO!  Serena shook her head, banishing the Eldrazi’s influence from her mind.  Her brow furrowed as she held her sword out at the necromancer, who had gently crept closer as she was convalescing, arms up and visible.  “Stay back, and drop the spear!”  The man reared back slightly.

“…No, you’re not her… Not that she would have remembered me.  You’re Goldnight, then?”  He straightened, curiously becoming more relaxed, even as Serena became more combative.  “I apologize for mistaking you.   Let me pass, our goals are aligned.  I seek only the Eldrazi.”  His calm, diplomatic tone was met by a vicious swipe he barely dodged, the orange returning to his eyes.  “What the hell?!” he hisses, grip tightening on the spear.  The strange zombies immediately turn towards the angel, though they don’t move any more than that just yet.  The demons, meanwhile, chuckle darkly between themselves.

“I care not your intention, abberration.  You profane a holy weapon by leading the enemies of mankind with it, even if they are being put to use against greater villains.  Relinquish the weapon, and repent with your life!”  Serena charged forward, and the necromancer was forced to roll into a dodge, flicking his wrist and sending a number of the zombies at her.  She easily cut through a large swath of them with a single stroke, but this wassquickly proven to be a mistake as the rapid depressurization of being cut apart caused them to detonate, spraying lava onto her alabaster flesh and burning her.  She let out a bellow of rage and continued cutting, even as rock began to coat her arms and wings, forcing her to the ground.

“I don’t want to fight you!” the necromancer bellowed, even as the zombies tackled her and detonated, further entombing her.  She could feel her feathers and skin being pulled at as she struggled, blasting holes in her stony prison.  One went “wild” and burned the necromancer’s cheek, causing him to rear back in pain and lose control over the remaining zombies, causing them to immediately go up in smoke, melting into molten blobs.  Serena grinned viciously.  A show of weakness on the master’s part meant…  She didn’t even need to turn and look, the necromancer cursing loudly as the 3 demons chuckled and took off.

“Your army has either abandoned you or gone up in smoke, necromancer.  submit now, or you shall join your thralls in the ash pile.”  The man straightened, the glow in his eyes intensifying and leaving trails, steam starting to rise off his body as rain started falling from a late-night storm.  He raised the spear to the sky as a familiar scent wafted into Serena’s nostrils.  It was not the sort of smell one could perceive with their nose, and it was not one that most living beings in the multiverse could claim to know- it was the stench of the Blind Eternities.  The angel grit her teeth as she quickly comprehended the situation, backing up as a tear in space widened like the mouth of a Soul Swallower(6), giving her a glimpse of a grotesque landscape that appeared to be composed of skin and bones.  With a belch of rotting stink, the portal spat out a long-decomposed skeleton of some titanic beast.  Serena raised an eyebrow- the other corpses had at least held enough flesh to contain the magma that animated them- this did not.  The rolling sound of thunder punctuated the scene- the angel, the necromancer, and the pile of bones between them.  “Your last desperate struggle is this?  I am… disappointed, heret-“  Serena does not get to finish her sentence, as a bolt of lightning tore the ground apart between them, striking the bone pile.  Immediately, the skeleton stirred violently, jumping up with a roar like a peal of lightning(7).  Serena gaped, a deep, unnatural fear overtaking her- this was not the Eldrazi’s pressure, this was something else.  The necromancer would call it “thanatosis,” a reflexive inability to move felt by prey in the presence of a predator, a sort of forced “playing possum.”  Her paralysis was abruptly replaced by a rag doll sensation as she felt the zombie beast’s teeth sink into her nubile flesh, and then renewed stiffness as thousands of volts of electricity entered her body and caused her to begin spasming uncontrollably.

“Submit,” he said, heaviness in his voice.  The orange in his eyes had faded again- in fact, he looks more tired and beaten down than she did, and she was in the jaws of a gigantic, zombified baloth.  Her wings spasmed as more electricity coursed through her, and she smashed at its skull with the pommel of her sword.  Strike after strike, she fought against the numbness that the lightning-powered creature was killing her with.  Her body began to heat up with rage, the necromancer groaning as he recognized the white mana wafting off her body, mingling with red.  With a scream that could shatter glass, burning light, like sunlight without an atmosphere to hold it back(8), burst forth, immolating the bony beast to ash and tearing a hole through the cloud cover above them.  It seemed that even a creature animated with magic needed a head to function, and the beast slumped and fell to the ground, without so much as a twitch.  Clutching a bloody, albeit cauterized wound in her belly, she stood, pointing her sword at Igan with a trembling arm.

“Submit,” she parroted in a half-slur.  The necromancer groaned, sweat mingling with the drizzle.  He began to drag himself towards Serena, not a hint of light in his eyes.  He was burnt out, but so was she.  The angel didn’t have enough mana to phase in and out(9) of this plane, but if he got too close, she’d sink her blade as deep as it would go…  That’s when she saw the motes of black mana in the air, falling around her.  A single one fell against her armor, and-

Bodies.  Lives.  Weight.  She saw all the lives snuffed out, the souls lost to Emrakul… every one of her sisters… Bruna… Gisela… She couldn’t save them she couldn’t help them shelostthemshefailedthemshebetrayedthem(10)

——-

Igan watched with a mournful sigh as the angel fell over, catatonic.  That spell disgusted him, but in this plane, at this time, there were few things more powerful than regret.  He walked over to the angel, gently lifting her up.  She was different from Gisela, aesthetically, but the power in her gaze, the ferocity she had fought with… there was so much of her within this angel.  Silently, he walked, carrying her bridal-style, into Elgaud.  Any Eldrazi tendrils that rose to meet them were immolated without so much as a gaze in their directions.  He continued walking until he found the barracks he had trained in, where he had first gazed upon the angel that had inspired him and stole his heart in the same moment.  He kept walking, burning the bodies of varying levels of humanity as he kept going- she didn’t deserve to see this when she woke.  Eventually, he came to the door of the room he had stayed with for those months before Avacyn returned.  The interior was mostly unchanged- he had came with nothing, and cathars were discouraged from keeping non-religious personal effects anyway.  The sheets of the bed were stained with something… unpleasant, certainly.  He yanked the sheets off and flipped the mattress, finding the spare bedding in the bottom drawer of the roughly hewn dresser.  He did his best to make the bed one-handedly- he had never been good at making his bed, even with 2 hands- and he slowly laid the angel on her side, tucking her in.  He sighed, caressing her hair gently.

“I never wanted this.  I’m sorry.”

——-

Serena woke up hours later, the sun having finally broken through the clouds and shining on her face.  It made it hard to remember that the world was ending around her.  She winced in pain as she stirred, wings spasming with pins and needles.  Other than general numbness and pain, she was mostly recovered- a spell, or her natural angelic healing?  Perhaps she had simply been unconscious that long.  Either way, her body had healed without leaving a single blemish.  Slowly, she dragged herself out of the bed, an unwieldy proposition- she hadn’t needed one since her days as a human.  As she pressed her feet against the cool stone, a glimmer in the corner caught her eye.  Sitting there was the moonsilver spear, shining without a drop of blood staining its beautiful facade.

(1) Cleansing Bolt
(2)Reaper of the Abyss
(3)Bloodgift Demon
(4)Desecration Demon
(5)Moonsilver Spear
(6)Soul Swallower
(7)Lightning Reaver
(8)Aurelia’s Fury
(9)Cloudshift
(10)Bitter Ordeal