Nomont: Extermination

[18:59] Division 1.

10 men. Asura had known them for the longest. His most trusted allies. Devout to the cause until the end. Thomas. Parks. Reynolds. Pip. August. Justine. Zeku. Joan. Keith. Alex.

Asura is helpless but to watch Ky tear them to shreds. They give their lives for this man. They die without hesitation. Without parting words. Without a last hurrah, a farewell, without a smile on their face. They die because, in their hearts, they believe it to be the right thing to do -- and they believe so much so -- they believe so much in the future Asura has promised them -- that even these pitiful, sad deaths; they face without complaint. None of them curse this sad fate.

Asura sees a beam of light, brighter than the sun, headed towards him.

'SIR!' -- One of the defense force tackles Asura to the ground. The ray wizzes overhead, crashes into a wall and explodes. The caverns shake. 'Sir-- you've got to get out of here! I won't...! I won't see you die tonight!'

--- The next thing Asura would feel is the cold embrace of water; as his own soldier tosses the man into the sewers. He's pulled into the current, and disappears. All he can do is watch from afar in pitiful helplessness as the members of Division 2, 3, and 4 meet their end as well. Jinx is in the center of it all, shouting orders-- and though the troops morale is shattered - they understand the importance of their task. Their hearts aflame, they give their all in trying to support her.

Ky. Ky is. He doesn't know. This is the first time he's killed a man -- and he isn't stopping at one. The slaughter is senseless even to him, his heart numbing itself to the madness. But for whatever reason, despite knowing the cruelty of his movements, his body is acting on instinct to preserve it's own survival. He had gotten himself into this mess; and he would get himself out of it, body-count be damned.

He truly was crazier than Jinx.

In the end; only the two masked fighters remain standing. Jinx's enhanced armor having endured all it could, starting to fall to pieces. There isn't another soul left alive. Corpses strewn about, the earpiece in her mask dead silent. "I..." Ky. Ky can't think of a thing to say. He's afraid.

Even through the blackened glass of his face-mask, Jinx can see the fear in the young mans eyes.

". . . I'm sorry."

He holds a hand up, palm facing out towards Jinx. The mana begins to condense. She can feel it - the certainty of her own demise - and it would be delivered the moment Ky released that blast. Did she have any last words?
(Anarchy)
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[18:59] The AMAF-Gear was rendered in a useless state quickly. For all it's technological innovations, the playing field between Magi and Non-Magi was still not level. As the mana condenses before her, she finds her own voice crying out, without even her trying to speak.

"Stop!"

The gear breaks apart, falling to the ground. It reveals Alice, within, a child beaten and battered. She barely manages to remove the gas mask from her face. Her left arm hangs limply, and her right eye is bruised. Her nose is bleeding. Her lip is split. Her legs tremble. She can barely stand.

"You've won. Jinx is dead. I give up."

The gas mask is tossed behind her, landing in the depths of the water behind them. To be carried off to the unknown.

"I'll leave, and have nothing to do with Asura ever again. Please."

A sob, and tears started to fall. The girl was obviously broken - Beneath the mask, that's all she'd ever been after all. "You've proven your point. I'll never be able to make a change. I'm sorry!"

"Please! Don't kill me! I don't want to die! I'll go and run, and hide, and never be seen again! I can't build anything without Asura's help, so you don't have to worry! Please!"

It was, after all that Ky had wanted. Her away from Asura. Without her gear, she was but a normal Non-Magi girl.

"You don't have to do this! You don't have to be this! I can see it in your eyes! You're not... You're not like this, Ky! This isn't you!"
(Jinx)
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[18:59] They tried... But the longer it dragged on, the further away the sounds of their struggles played from Asura's ears -- so distant and replaced with the constant ringing of tinnitus. The explosions of magical discharge sending men and women toiled about. The azure blaze of Asura's jet boots zigging him through the battlefield to close in on a titan of power leagues beyond him, wrought embers of shining blue by his visage, soon transcending his image to naught but a blur to deliver a fist that'd meet no surface.

The flicker of gold light was soon after followed by the rush of smoke and dust -- his body ragdolling over solid earth and stone in a violent aerial dance, until his boots would slam into the soil, grinding his withered and torn body to a halt.

Fate, was supposed to smile upon them... Wasn't it? Even when they were pushed to their darkest hour, to their dimmest moments deprived of hope? They made it work -- that was what they madein this subterranean underscape: A second chance, from what was considered synonymous with drainage and rubbish.
...and here they were, fighting for their lives for something considered so lowly and pathetic.

The faces of men and women flickered past Asura's visage in collage format, forcing him to clench his teeth. They were dying... And here he was, dashing back into the fray to avenge them.

... To avenge them against a power he was hopeless to stop.
The fuel in his jet boots was depleted, forcing him to run on his own two feet, tyrium arm reared back for a punch.
"Leave them alo--"
In that moment... He saw it... A flash of light, just as one of the MDF soldiers took their dive to drop him.

An explosion... Light... Darkness...
Then, a stench... The horrid stench of the sewer waters, that coupled the chilling feeling it delivered past his armor. The world split upon itself, twirling and swiveling on itself.

"This... Can't be it..." He mustered past his lips in breathy fashion, exhausted and agonized.
"...Not... Like this..." He was drifting away, consciousness fading to and from, blurring the darkness of his own concussion from the darkness around him. He struggled to raise an arm out for the others that continued fighting...
For the men and women still living and breathing...
For Jinx...
For Ky -- The one before the corruption...

But it was all in vain, and as he did...
As he always had...
As this cruel world had demanded of...

He, had fallen... With the opaque black to take him whole, a defeat unlike any other prior had left the once-proud banker...
Once defiant MDF commander...
Once happy adoptive father...

A man, deprived of -everything- he held dear, with nothing left to lose.

Nothing, slowly sinking beneath the surface of the waters, and vanishing as destiny demanded of him.

(Asura Nomont)
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[18:59] . . .

His hand is trembling. He. He can't. Can he?

The broken girl is begging for her life. Even Ky, with his moral compass already shattered and twisted by life has a magi, understands that this is wrong. Underneath the mask, she can see him falter.

'This isn't you!'

… "No." He whispers. ". . . This. This has been me all along. And now that you've seen it. . ." Ky's perception comes from the idea that everyone is a lying, cheating, murderous snake such as him. And if Ky were in Alice's shoes? He would surely beg for his life, he would surely try and appeal to morals, and he would surely reveal the truth to the world. He would surely do everything in his power to get revenge - no matter how long it took.

"A plan. . . for every contingency. Leaves. . . no room for you."

Asura can hear the silence broken by a final explosion that rocks the sewers.

There's no doubt in his heart what it means.
(Anarchy)
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