“You never could contend with my strength,” she snarled. “Why do you think that has changed?” And she hurled up a hand, and with it, her black fog boiled up to wash over the ten Imperators.
Six of which dropped their golden spheres, raised their spears, and called down bolts of gold upon the other four.
Scorio could only gape. The attacks failed to pierce the remaining four’s shields, but when Scorio was hauled away again by Imogen, the sound of her laughter accompanied their drop.
They emerged now atop a magisterial palace which immediately began to warp and grow cancerous offshoots, wild fountains spewing ink erupting from the ground, endless balconies snaking across the gardens, bridges rising to challenge the sky, rooftops sliding down like scabs to smother windows and doors.
“Bastion will be mine!” cried out Imogen, and her voice echoed down the length of the city, seeming to emanate from the great billows of black cloud that wafted about the sun-wire, that drowned entire Wards in darkness. “Learn, Sol, what I can do!”
And from where he stood Scorio saw the entirety of the city began to change. Everywhere the fog touched the architecture grew cancerous, though the mutations were greatly slowed, as if the enormity of the task required greater effort than when she simply attacked her immediate environs.
At the same time, hundreds of bolts of black energy flew from the banks of fog to attack the flying Sols.
Many of them blinked out of existence, but a solid core resisted the attacks. Though their numbers were diminished, these Sols did not seem dismayed; they set to calling their golden lightning down upon the fog, and wherever their bolts fell the black clouds were banished.
Burning lances rained down from the sky like a deluge; the sky was rent again and again by the peals of thunder, and it was as if dusk had fallen early, the sky gloomy, except that the rain was the dance of a thousand lightning bolts.
Imogen snarled, her halo fluctuating erratically. She raised her scepter, about to unleash another attack when a Sol rose into view from the edge of the building, hovering before them.
Not a Sol. Something told Scorio that this was the original. Something in his eyes, that pain, that loss, that grief.
“End this,” he said, voice grave and commanding.
“I shall,” she whispered, her words somehow carrying over the constant dull booms, and raised her scepter to point it at Sol’s heart. “I claim preeminence.”
He raised his golden spear, and a stream of burning light flew forth from each to impact in the center where they burst in a profusion of black and golden light.
Scorio stared, petrified. A terrible wind was gusting out in all directions from the point of impact, causing Sol’s hair to whip around and his robes to snap against his frame, while Imogen narrowed her eyes, her dress plastered back against her body as she leaned into the conflict.
The energies being released were cataclysmic. There wasn’t enough mana in all of Bastion to power this confrontation for even a second.
Yet on and on it went, the beams of light shattering against each other, both Imperators straining, Sol lowering his chin, jaw clenched, while Imogen grinned wildly, baring all her teeth.
And to his horror, he saw that she was winning. Inch by inch her beam of black energy was consuming Sol’s, driving back the gold. A duplicate flew down to join him, then a second and third. Each added their spear blasts to his attack, but they failed to slow down her dark magic’s advance.
More Sols appeared, a dozen, twenty, thirty. Soon a veritable legion floated before them, their beams coming together at a point, so brilliant that Scorio had to narrow his eyes. More Sols flew down, but Scorio saw that they were fading away now, collapsing back into the original, until they were all gone. Leaving just the one man to grimace as he struggled against Imogen’s attack, her progress slowing, slowing, but never quite stopping.
Imogen let out a wild laugh again, her hair whipping about her face. “You cannot stop me, my love! You never could! And now…I… shall have…” She took a step forward, then a second, dragging each word out as if it cost her more than Scorio could ever understand. “…Dominion!”
Time seemed to slow. Her black beam surged forward, consuming almost all of Sol’s power, and in that moment, Scorio sensed that her attention was completely and absolutely fixated on her foe. He drew forth the palm-sized bottle from his robes, thumbed the cork out, and willed the syrup within to fly into his mouth as he threw himself forward.
In his mind, a calm voice worked out the math. Six half-filtered doses at forty volts each is two hundred and forty volts which is a full Silver dose—
Mid-stride, he summoned his Heart. The obsidian stone was near shredded by the vortex that swirled around them, as if it were made of the softest pumice and he was holding it up in a cyclone of metallic shards. Its very substance began to leach away into the air the second it sprang into existence, but Scorio didn’t pause.
The syrup filled him with so much power that he nearly blacked out. Compared to the might the Imperators were wielding, it was beyond insignificant, but to him, it felt as if he’d attempted to swallow the sun-wire whole.
His mind reeling, his thoughts falling apart, he drew his fist back as he willed the terrible mana that was melting his spirit to pour into his Heart. Sheer desperation added strength to his will, and he pulled at it with all his Heart’s remaining power. Pulled and pushed so that the whole, turgid mess of raging Coal mana sank into the pitted and crumbling facets of his Heart.
This won’t work, this will never work, he screamed at himself, but the words sparked a wave of fury within his soul. His Heart ignited as the rage filled him, and he swung his fist and slammed it with everything he had into Imogen’s black scepter.
The scepter didn’t budge. Didn’t even a quiver. Horror drenched Scorio like a massive bucket of frigid water. His gaze darted to Imogen, whose own narrowed glare flickered for just a second to meet his own.
And in that moment, that briefest of contact, he saw shock, disappointment, and confusion. The barest flicker, so transient he might have missed it.
But the distraction was enough. Her attention, which had been absolute but a moment before, had wavered.
Sol roared as he thrust his spear forward, its golden light devouring the black fire, consuming it, and racing toward Imogen’s scepter.
Scorio staggered back, delirious from the power that raged within him, his Heart cracking under the strain. He felt feverish, his body bursting, his skin splitting. His whole body was drenched in profuse amounts of sweat, and a distant voice shouted at him from the depths of his mind to burn it off, burn off the mana, to vent it before he died.
Imogen’s lips writhed back from her teeth as she focused on the onslaught, but Scorio couldn’t forget the betrayal in her eyes. The almost naive shock and pain he’d seen flash through her. He thrust the thought away, focused on breathing. He felt as if his skin were burning off in patches, and lights danced in his eyes. Every breath stoked the flame that raged within him like a wind howling into a furnace. He wanted to laugh, to scream. His muscles spasmed, he ached to break something, to race, to run.
But instead, he forced himself to stand there as Sol rose above Imogen, his chin raised, his gaze brutally cold, his manner imperious. The gold devoured the black fire almost to Imogen’s scepter, and she was forced down to one knee, resisting all the while.
“No,” rasped Sol, the word reverberating with power, his halo expanding to an extraordinary size. “It is I that have preeminence, Imogen. Yield.”
And her black fire died, utterly quenched. With a cry, she threw her scepter aside, and the golden fire blinked out of existence a fraction of a second before consuming her. In its place, Scorio felt an explosive wave of power rush out from Sol, a ring of majesty and might that smoothed out the air, quelled the mana, and robbed Imogen of her own aura of power.