Jace vs. Vraska

Jace frowned, but stepped closer. "I'm not armed. I don't want anyone else harmed. I just want to talk. But I don't think that's what you want. Do you mind if I read you?"

Jace focused his mind, preparing the spell to reach into the thoughts of the woman before him. But before he could peer into her mind, the woman stiffened. A cry made it halfway out of her throat before stone spread over her and enveloped her form. She became a stone statue before his eyes, a lifeless object.

"Have you already read me, Jace Beleren?" came a different woman's voice from behind him.

Jace spun around to look, and then he immediately averted his eyes. Before him was a gorgon. Her mane of snakelike tendrils undulated around her head. Her eye sockets glowed like lanterns in the gloom, but they did not seem to be aimed at him. He found he could still move and breathe.

"Vraska," he said. "No, I haven't."

"But you've heard of me."

"I didn't know you were a Planeswalker. But I'd heard your name."

"I have Jace Beleren at an informational disadvantage, then. How does that feel?" she asked, strolling about the square around him. "Have you deduced why you're here?"

"I suspect you brought me here because you want to show me something," said Jace, blinking downward, trying to resist the urge to follow her with his eyes. "I just hope it's not that gaze of yours."

"No, no, no. I want you to show me, Beleren. I arranged this visit because I want you to prove to us what's inside you. Show us whether you'll be our ally. An ally of Ravnica."

"Murdering Ravnicans is a strange way to be Ravnica's ally," Jace said to the cobblestones.

"So is stealing control of the Guildpact!" Vraska snapped. Her tendrils snaked and knotted frantically, then slowly calmed down again. "This not your plane. And yet you take such a strong interest in it."

"I am only trying to keep the guilds from killing each other. This responsibility has fallen to me, and I take it seriously. I assume that you haven't brought us here to offer your help."

"So what do I want?"

Jace considered this. "To destroy me."

"Why would I want that?"

"To... take my place." He didn't know if anyone else could become the Living Guildpact after him. But he knew that if there weren't one, it would certainly open doors for an ambitious gorgon. "No. You want to rule Ravnica."

"You being dead would conveniently free my hands. You and your colossal cheat have imposed artificial limits on me. So, yes," she said casually. "I'm ready to kill you now."

Vraska snapped around and looked Jace full in the face. Her tendrils swam in the air and her eyes flashed, illuminating Jace's form and lighting the plaza around him.

Instead of turning to stone, Jace melted away into nothingness. Or at least the image of him did.

"Can we dispense with the illusions, then?" said Vraska loudly to the air around her.

Jace appeared from behind a column. "As long as you actually send Milada, Kobrev, Zdenya, and Dibor away."

Vraska smirked.

"Four assassins, plus the one you killed yourself," Jace said. "I appreciate the compliment. But I think you're fully able to kill me on your own."

Vraska gestured a signal toward the corners of the plaza. Shadows shifted near the walls as hiding figures moved away. Jace felt their minds grow distant.

"Thank you. Are you going to kill me now?" asked Jace, now truly averting his gaze.

Vraska shook her head reprovingly. "Think, now. That's not my ideal scenario, is it?"

"Probably not. Magical enforcement of the Guildpact can be used to your advantage. Especially if that Guildpact happens to be a person."

"Correct."

"So you want to leave me in the office of the Guildpact, and manipulate me. Swing my decisions in your favor. I presume you have something on me? Some form of leverage?"

Vraska's tendrils rippled around her face. Jace caught sight of a fangy smile. "Tell me, do you know the names of all the assassins who currently surround the home of Emmara Tandris?"

Jace's face darkened. "The person who seems to live in Emmara's home is one of my illusions," he said carefully. "Emmara has gone into deep cover. Her entire house is an elaborate trap. Your assassins will be arrested as soon as they strike."

"Probably a bluff," said Vraska. She strolled in a semicircle, observing Jace, until she was standing behind him. "But a sufficient one. It doesn't matter anyway. What's really going to happen is that I'm going to threaten many, many things you care about. And then you are going to agree to work for me."

"That is not going to happen."

"Oh, but I can make things very uncomfortable for you. Just imagine the headlines. 'The Living Guildpact Unable to Prevent Petrification Murders!' 'Ten More Statues Left on Doorstep of Chamber of the Guildpact!' Not to mention the angry, angry guild representatives I'll have storming your chambers."

"Drop this now. Go back underground. If you make yourself unobtrusive, I can handle quieting down this case. And Lavinia."

"Become my assistant, and you won't have to deal with her again. Every person who crosses me will meet their deserved fate."

"I've told you no. Ravnica is under my protection."

Vraska hissed, suddenly close behind him, and Jace felt a tendril touch his ear. "How fortunate for Ravnica," she snarled. "Are you going to protect it the way you protected Kallist? Or Kavin?" She had certainly dug deeply into his past. He wondered what else she had found out about his life, and what her sources could be. "And what about Garruk Wildspeaker?"

"I've made mistakes, yes. But I choose to use my position to atone for—wait, what about Garruk?"

Vraska snorted. "You don't know what's become of him, do you?"

"Why? What's happened?"

"Never mind. I'm sure you've already failed him as well. You're a plague, Beleren. A scourge to all those you claim to protect. Declaring your loyalty to me will be your first favor to this world."

A tendril wrapped around Jace's neck. Jace grabbed at it and tried to peel it back, but Vraska was strong, and her hair engulfed his face. He felt his throat clamp shut as the tendrils slithered tighter and tighter.

Jace struck into her mind, and immediately wished he hadn't. Her thoughts swirled with hundreds of ways of killing him or making him suffer. He saw himself choked to death. Tossed from a bridge in a sack. Pulled down into the muck of the undercity tunnels by grimy, clawed hands. Paralyzed and forced to watch snakes crawl into his clothes, while feeling their needle-like fangs sink into him. Her creativity was boundless.

He needed to push deeper, but he also needed to breathe. He conjured a spell.

Vraska was not impressed by the first illusion of another Jace lunging at her. She batted it away and it dissipated instantly. But the next Jace rushed toward her quickly enough to slash at her cheek with hands that were sharp as daggers. She hissed and clawed the image away. But the next one came even faster, and the next bolted toward her from the opposite direction.

Jace felt the gorgon's grip loosen as he sent image after image of himself at her. As the Jaces attacked, they changed. Their hands became claws. Their hair became snakes. Their eyes glowed with sinister light. They hissed as they emerged from the shadows from all directions, surrounding Vraska in a nightmarish horde.

Vraska couldn't fight them all. She began blasting them with her gaze. They came at her, turning to stone one by one as she lashed them with petrification.

As the stone statues multiplied, they became a cage. She was penned in by a dozen effigies of Jace. He hoped they were real enough to her to make her feel trapped, at least for the moment.

Vraska held the real Jace by her claws. She squeezed his neck again. "Send them away," Vraska whispered, and his breath was cut off.

And then the statues' lips began to move.

"You win," they said in unison, in Jace's voice.

"Back them off." She said it like a snarl, but there was a flicker of hesitation in her voice.

The statues retreated slightly, but she was still caged by their stone forms. "Jace will help you," they said. "But he has to know the plan first."

"You'll do what I tell you, when I tell you, Beleren."

"Kill him, and he can't influence the guilds for you," the statues intoned. "He has to know whether you'll be a worthy partner. Whether you're smart enough. Tell us. How do you intend to take over this city?"

Vraska squeezed for a moment, pressing all the blood out of Jace's head. But her grip relaxed again. "With your help, I will neuter all the guildmages. Disempower them by having you redraw territory borders, rupturing their mana bonds. Defang the guilds by taking their spellcasters. Then, one by one, I will assassinate the guild leaders."

"You, Vraska, will assassinate every guildmaster?"

"I was born to kill," she said. "And many in the shadows answer to me."

"Thank you," said the statues. Then they all tilted their heads. "Did you get all that?" they chanted.

Vraska looked around at all of them. "What?"

For a moment, the statues' eyes flashed, bathing Vraska in a blinding strobe. She put a hand up to her face to shield herself from the glare.

"There is a summit of many guild leaders going on at Sunhome tonight," droned the Jace statues. "Your statements have been broadcast to all those who've attended."

Vraska snarled. "Deal's over, Beleren," she said. "Now you die." She grasped the neck that she held in her claws, and crushed it.

It broke into rocky pieces.

She looked down, and instead of seeing a dead Jace, she saw that she had been holding the petrified form of her own assassin—the woman she had killed earlier. He had switched places with her at some point.

Vraska howled in fury. She spun and slashed at the cage of Jaces. Instead of breaking into pieces or dissipating into the air, they closed in on her. They sprouted ever more snakes from their heads, their eyes, their fingers, and constricted in around her. They grabbed her wrists. They intertwined with her tendrils.

With a shriek, she blasted them all back. Then she took a breath, closed her eyes, and planeswalked away.