zg_shadows | One last battle (Reply)

They charged it, the great beast, eyes and tentacles and maws across its form, undulating, twisting, bending, the beast, the wyrm,
a thousand claws and tentacles lashed out and great swathes of them were gone, leaving only the few, and so they charged,

'i can make you perfect' the Archbishop had said and Nikolai agreed, wings unfurled, the bone sword at the ready Nikolai made war upon the beast of darkness itself, again and again the strikes, tearing and rending, a bird that was a fae calling forth bolts of the sun itself to rend it, fang and sword and claw and spell tore at the beast and he was perfect able to confront this beast on even footing watching as a dozen eyes turned to watch him and a dozen claws moved to strike, and well it should fear, for he was perfect, they were all perfect, and fall it would, the wyrm lashed out and one by one the sabbat of london took the hits to shield others, for the sabbat were strong and tough and even this dread beast could not rend them apart so easily, the beast staggered and quivered as it took the repeated blows enough to kill a man five times over, ten times over, twenty times over, gashes great enough to walk through began to form and in their perfection they fought,

Torvik arrived late to challenge the beast as did the strange Garou with his army of ancient warriors, but the beast fed upon them to heal its wounds but to no avail, it could not win, not today, not ever, the powers of night and rook were there and they granted the power to draw the life of those who were not perfect to strengthen the blows of Pints, king of garou, champion of the sabbat, and the beast quivered, on and on the battle raged the beasts once mighty and fast pace towards its goal now a mere crawl beneath the onslaught and then Fink the Archbishop stood forward and struck one fateful blow

no, perfection was not complete, his movements ached, his body weary and battered, pushed to the edge of endurance and suddenly he saw they could slay the beast but it would not win the war at all, infact all would loose, they could join it, return to the embrace of darkness
but Nikolai Ivanovich Konstantinov could no more do that than he could fly to the moon, not after all this time of discipline and fighting the beast within, or cleaving to the high path, no he would not surrender to the beast but what option could be left, how could the world endure,

and there in the sky a flash, a golden trill of song,
Nikolai looked into the sky and saw the pheonix for the first and last time, and he knew, he understood and with a nod he accepted the price and closed his eyes,

then there was only fire