[Khaelanna falls]
Apophan yells: SHSSSSRRRARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Apophan yells: Drathnor, take the Inquisitor from here.
Drathnor yells: As you wish.
Marìus yells: Sigil! Sound off!
Mayrù yells: Lio isn't in good shape! Over here!
Drathnor yells: YOU LUCKY FOOLS! Saved by the soveriegn. You will die!
Odynae yells: Tuse, Mayru, Dyna over here.
Drathnor yells: All of you shall fall before my axe! Stupid sons of bitches....
Apophan yells: You have desecrated thiss ... SACRED GROUND
Apophan yells: You have tresspassed where none who have can be allowed to live.
Marìus yells: And you have taken what is not yours to take. Gods are false, Apophan. Nice to see you again.
Apophan yells: You...
Apophan yells: I will do to you what I should have done in Shattrath or Falconwing Square!
Apophan begins to descende the stairs, lightning whips and lashes around him against the steps. The bolts lash against the walls leaving black trails. As he takes each step, his robes burn and melt away, revealing cracked, flame-covered metal beneath.
Llew remains there, halfway up the stairs, watching the creature.
Apophan looks at Llew, then the other groups.
Llew stares; rage boiling in his eyes. Bloodlust.
Marius' eyes level on Apophan. He's big. Bigger than he remembers, even-- and the energies that crackle 'round his body are not lost on the priest. Marius isn't a stupid man: This is not a fight he'll win on his strength alone.
Liotuse coughs, some blood coming out with it as he cocks the hammer for his rifle, staring up at the sky before getting up onto an elbow to at least look forward.
Apophan doesn't even register the death knight, only the one who leads the Sigil. The one who brought an army to his gates, who's people destroyed his silithid hive.
Dyna stands her ground, expression quite empty. She blinks down at Wilhiem, and offers a noncommital shrug. "- I thought I'd try." She returns her attention to Liotuse, and moves to crouch beside him.
One hoofbeat could break Marius' *spine*. But many are injured-- and the alternatives aren't pretty. What's worse is that the ley he'd prepared to contain him-- to try to contain him-- is gone. It'd fractured beneath the weight of its own design, re-directed in a last-ditch attempt to protect his Sigil back at the Hold. So.
Apophan takes his scythe and slams it into the ground, embedding it as rocks jut around it. Flame and metal course over his hands and elongate.
They've come this far. What now. Marius wets his lips. He feels very, very ordinary and very, very mortal right now.
Wil winces, takes out another adrenaline-shot bug. The stinger goes into his neck, out. Eyes wide and darting, diluted, he does the one thing logical in this situation - he pulls out a notebook and proceeds to take notes.
Liotuse's head cants to the side, gazing at the monster before them. All he can to is wheeze to Dyna, trying for a last attempt at humour. "...He doesn't look so big."
The Sovereign flexes his claws and hunches over, his Saronite tail emerges from behind his robes and snaps open and closed, either a five plated blade, or a spear point. A gift from Salarous.
Marius remarks, "--Sometimes I really do wonder, Apophan, if you were ever a son a mother once loved."
Apophan responds, "My mother iss the one who raissed me to be the bull I've become. She would be proud of my accomplisshmentsss...Not all adhere to your pathetic notions of what is right or wrong..."
Dyna nods to Liotuse. "Break him. Bind him. We're getting Strahm back." She moves to rest a hand on Liotuse's shoulder, and bows her head to murmur a prayer, holy energy trickling sluggishly from her palm.
Marius scoffs, "Really. Pathetic notions. Notions like 'love' at all, then. Things she, who you believe would be proud of you, perhaps believed in."
The monstrocity snaps with his molten claws, looking more like a bipedal giant scorpion than a tauren.
Marius continues, "She raised a monster. I suppose if she was proud of you-- she was a monster herself."
"That we are. Ooh-fuckin'-rah." It's grumbled to her as the stock of Liotuse's gun is braced against his shoulder and the end of the barrel pointed towards Apophan. Finger on the trigger but not firing. Yet.
The Sovereign gives a sickening chuckle, "Wrong." His hooves dig in, "Sshe wass worsse." And he bolts for the priest, fiery claw outstretched to flay and fry.
Wilhiem cocks an eyebrow and turns his notebook to the side, sketching madly. Hey, you don't see this every day.
He pulls either glove. There's something soft and resolute in Marius' eyes-- the strange understanding a man of his age comes to accept when he realizes he may die. With that reality ahead of him, there's no use in pretending he can resort to lesser measures. As Apophan speaks-- Marius has already ripped open his wrists. As Apophan charges-- Marius' blood is spilling against the earth. And he -DIVES- beneath the legs of this colossus, attempting to spirit himself between plate-clad battlements and behind the beast.
Apophan's fist slams into the dirt, sparks and glass from the heat fly in all directions.
The gust of power and earth slams against his retreating back. Marius is flung-- rag-doll-- across the sand. He rolls, falling against the stairs with a snap, and hunches at either knee.
Smoke rises from the Sovereign's back as he tears his claw from the ground and turns, snapping his claws and roars, his voice echoing off the ruins, rattling them.
He kneels...
... to the north.
The priest lets out a soft and shuddering breath. It hurts-- but most things worth doing certainly will. Marius' opened wrists continue to bleed the ink of his prospects against indifferent sand. And so he daubs his fingers into and against it. Slashes the grains beneath him. Places symbols against forearms, neck and either cheek. It's methodical ritualism, perhaps the only thing he'd hold in minor common with Apophan's ilk. It has a purpose.
An unearthly chant murmurs throughout the pillars, a distant buzzing sound gets louder and louder as a pale light falls upon him
Apophan rises, his claws flash with lightning and flame as he turns and charges towards Marius in a beastly rage, "WHY DO YOU PERSISST IN LIVING?! YOUR KIND HAVE NO PLACE IN THISS WORLD ANYMORE!" He rears back and vomits a torrent of liquid flame at the priest.
When Marius finally stands, he's a mess of personal gore. Not a second later he's on his knees *again*. And really-- you can't even *see* him if for the torrential waves of -fire- abruptly bathing his person. But those runes-- those strange little runes-- burn brightly against his flesh. When the dust settles, he's still there. And a barely-held barrier cracks audibly against Apophan's onslaught. Golden eyes steel his gaze.
Apophan brings his up claw to deliver the final blow.
There is a buzzing in the distance... the Swarms are begining to return...
Marius' outstretched right hand clocks in place. "... Ximiras."
The Sovereign pauses just long enough to hear the spoken word...
And there's a crack. Something sharp and curious, making the air heavy and pregnant and abruptly -solid-. Concussive force propels itself-- full blast-- at Apophan's massive person. There's death behind it.
Marìus yells: Get everyone and get -OUT OF HERE-. MOVE, Sigil!
The Sovereign had only paused long enough to hear the word but his claw continued down, right into the path of the force. His right, elemental, powerful arm collects the full force.
Apophan's arm... cracks.
Apophan's eyes widen as realizations sets in, the red cracks on his arm become white and glow, not burn.
Apophus's arm explodes in a massive torrent of lightning and flame. Up to the shoulder it is a ruined stump.
Apophan yells: HSRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
"BRYAGH!" The massive drake roars in the distance and lands behind the fire-bleeding Apophan.
There's a brief moment where he's certain he's blacked out. His world is red and black and white all at once, and his knees- barely holding his weight-- abruptly give out beneath him.
The drake snatches his master and takes him to the floating platform above the terrace.
Apophan bellows, "MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS! TONIGHT WE WILL DINE ON THE ASHES OF THE WHITE SIGIL!"
There is a humming noise as the central pylon of the defensive matrix glows a bright white.
Khaelanna yells: DESTRUCTION TAKE YOU ALL!
The yell is what brings Marius out of it. That -stupor-, making him useless. With his hands pressed against the earth, he can almost *feel* doom on his shoulders. Realization sets it.
The entire obelisk network, disabled after Bryagh's defeat... becomes active. Lightning flashes over the entirety of the city.
Marìus yells: ... Come to me. All of you. Now. -Please-.
Apophan yells: DO NOT LET THEM LEAVE. KILL THEM ALL. DRIVE THEM TO EXTINCTION!
Marius is writing against the sand. And the stone. And his -skin-. Faster, priest. Do this faster. Do this *faster*.
Dyna falls to a crouch beside Marius, reaching out to gingerly touch the Kaldorei with a very faintly glowing hand.
The buzzing intensifies as the entire Swarm appears overheard in a holding pattern over the crystal.
Khaelanna: *Maniacal laughter* "IT IS TOO LATE FOR YOU ALL!!"
Marius: "--Touch the runes. Touch the RUNES."
Dyna blinks at the words, and moves to touch the runes as directed.
Apophan's laughter echoes through the ruins.
Llew rushes quickly, barely able to see anything at all. One hand pressed to his head, he shuffles through the sand.
Mayru moves to touch as well, shadows trailing down her arm.
Khaelanna: *laughter continues as she swings into the saddle of the waiting drake*
Chuckling - then cackling, loudly, spitting blood and god-knows-what-else, Wil reaches for the runes.
It won't feel good, but it will work. There's a moment where the lot of them might damned well feel like they've been turned inside -OUT-. But it's done-- some great warble of energy rocks the land beneath their feet, and a runegate-- a portal-- swallows his fellows up with one destination: Home. The Quel'talan. Their -family-.
The crystal makes a screeching noise, similar to the dead Hivemother... The ENTIRE Swarm dives, stinger first for the invaders...
The Insects find only sand. "NO!" Apophan howls....
Appearing in a crack of electricity, the mangled and Elementium-plated Strahm stands on the stairwell, glaring down at the circle of Sigil and friends, blades drawn.
Dyna looks up just in time to catch sight of Strahm... and then is pulled away with a faint screech.
Liotuse more or less -collapses- as he's ripped from Ahn'qiraj and thrown down into the magical gate.
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