13404/Order Borne of Darkness - The Blackest Maw

Order Borne of Darkness - The Blackest Maw
Date of Scene:	21 November 2022
Location:	Astral Plane - Atlantic Ocean
Synopsis:	Magik and Ariah clash with Ebony Maw along the astral plane.
Cast of Characters:	Emma Frost, Illyana Rasputina, Ariah Olivie

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Emma Frost has posed:
The Astral Plane. A nexus formed of willpower, imagination, and the collective consciousness of all that thought. In the voids above existence, there was the web of energy that linked everything together. All minds connected. The land of telepaths, magicians, and those of strong will, power, and fate.
    For whatever reason on this day, there would be a disruption within it. A sudden -pluck- of strings as all the discordance would suddenly go still. Eternally chaotic, an unnatural force of raw -Order- would be forced onto a region of it. All matter, all thought brought to an immediate halt. For anyone's consciousness flitting about, they might get drawn into it. For anyone monitoring it, it would be like flares going up. That much energy being poured into the realm above consciousness clearly would have some attention drawn to it.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Emergencies don't wait until a convenient moment, like the midway point of a ritual channelling the delicate balance of arcane energies out of the Manhattan leyline and something best described as solidified time. Illyana, standing within an impressive triple ring system rotating around her, feels the concussive pulse in the Astral Realm from within the well warded Sanctum Sanctorum. But it's a good couple minutes before she can reach a stopping point in her chant, handing off control of the spell to the Sorcerer Supreme's assistant Wong.

Seconds then to haul an energy bar out from a dish by the door, stuff it in her mouth, and raise her hands. Most sorcerers take the psychic path into the Astral Plane. They go cross-legged and meditate to cast their minds out to wander the liminal road.

Not her. She bins the wrapper and then tells two snakes fascinated by a tiny floating violin, "Tell him I've gone hunting in the aether, da?"

Only a blink of an eye for her to disappear, swandiving backwards through a portal that opens in a ring of eldritch fire rimmed in sapphire crackles. The other side of the portal steps sideways and there she emerges in black armour is overlaid by the distinctive blue. And to anything psychically sensitive, another soul signature embedded within her own shattered one.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    There's a magic circle carved in stone. A place of power at the conflux of several ley lines. A place where a diminutive woman sits at the center of the runic symbols, body bathed in the light of candles and the heat of the flames in the small chamber. Here, she's not present. Here, she's beyond the veil and replenishing her energies and getting rested and centered. The sensation of the energy's flow and the connection of the collective unconsicous woven through it. And then the disturbance hits.

    Ariah's mismatched eyes blink open and she stares around herself in the room, reaching out again, mentally tracing those paths, the strange silence and the strange presence flaring. Her neutral expression shifts into one of a frown and she exhales, letting her consciousness be swallowed up by the aether. While her form remains as still as the dead, her energy in the astral forms a shape very similar to her own. Short. Strong. Clad in a flowing uniform of silver and blue light.

    She casts her focus into the sea and moves herself forward, blazing simulacrum of a spear in one hand, a hint of the shape of wings coming off of her like some strange sort of valkyrie. Her energy signature, though, is blinding. The girl's astral form like a beacon unto itself.

Emma Frost has posed:
For the women appearing into the astral aether, there is a figure there waiting for them. A grey'ish looking humanoid figure with short stalks of what might be grey hair over his head carefully combed back. Wearing weathered looking black and grey robes hanging in tatters over his body like rags. He would hold two hands, each with three fingers in front of him as the two enchanthresses would apparate.
    "I do rather dislike this place. Chaotic. Anarchic. So many thoughts with no control. That is so disruptive. I find silence far more suitable."
    The being that through sheer force of will or power had just made an area of the astral plane totally isolated and locked out all thoughts to make it like the void would casually note as if saying what his favorite tea blend was. He would glow and radiate with a calm, unnatural power and presence to him.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Illyana's physical form in the Astral carries its uncanny overlay. Certain markers divide her from the norm, even among redheaded women with firebird wings and quintuple psychic signatures duplicated off a blonde template. Her cosmic shadow exists in constant flux between an assortment of shapes and features, some horrific. Poisoned fire emanating from the margins, evaporating into pale tendrils. Her barbed crown in lightless black severely angles back as she turns her head to examine the man holding up his hand in a classic position of measurement or stop. Which is it to be?

"Wrong turn?" The treble threaded over Illyana's reply mingles with her Russian accent, but given the greatest psychic of his generation implanted his full command of English in her head as a child, it comes out crisp and clear.

White-blue eyes shift in a frisson of a glow to the side, marking that she isn't alone. Another woman acknowledged briefly but a slight uplift of her chin. "Good to take another path." A mild suggestion in the same calibre as the grey figure before her.

She shifts, and in the dulled light of the locked-down Astral, her arms cross comfortably in front of her, the faintest traces of her scars etched in opalescence tinged the slightest blue. Another telling sign; a warning, to anyone who can read it.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    It's a glorious contrast, really. Illyana's resplendent form and poisoned fire. The barbs and black. The cosmic shadow. While Ariah, despite blazing like a sun of blue and white, has a form so pure it's almost painful to look at. She tilts her head at the words of the aged humanoid, and then looks to Illyana, nodding slowly. "We answered the same call, non?" comes her voice, even here it's thickly accented in French. Her spear is rested, the blunt end of it pressed down near her feet, equidistant from her toes which form a perfect equilateral triangle.

    It's the grey man she focuses on now, though, looking at him with curiosity. "It is the weight of the world, silence and calm come at a price. But how did you end up here? Silencing this place for too long can cause..." her form seems to purse its lips and she frowns. "...complications... not unlike a pipe freezing while pressure backs up behind it..."

Emma Frost has posed:
The entity stays still. His own form seemingly outshone by the saber-rich forge of Magik, and the pure form of Ariah next to her. He seems ever so faded. Ancient. Worn. Weary. why might one wish to display this form astrally when they were clearly going to intimidate?
    "In the end, it will all be this way. Peaceful. Quiet. Contemplative. A reminder of what can and will be. And should be." He would make a motion akin over to that of a casual smile without mirth.
    "And I come to this planet to bring a promise. A promise of a gift to come. I will help bring peace to this planet adn all others. Tranquility." Even while putting out the psionic force required to totally -deaden- ana rea of the astral zone.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Worn and wearisome in the Astral Realm is one thing, but Illyana has better options for concealment of the whole package than some given she walked in. Tension and paranoia, her usual standbys, accompany her into this motley crew same as every other situation in life. Starting with a smile and Jean Grey's brand of elegant, near maternal diplomacy is about as alien as a cactus to a deep-sea squid.

"Da, when the last photon stops moving and goes out with a pop." She snaps her fingers softly for emphasis. "Why not let it go at its own pace? Why rush?"

The tone indicates dull neutrality, no passion in the midst of all things, but then, she's unrushed in the same way Ariah is happy to pin down the world.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Ariah knows the gambit. Present yourself as the weakest when you are at your strongest. She isn't taking the appearance of the old being as anything face value. She, herself, cannot make herself 'dimmer', however, as a side effect of her own aetherial presence. Thankfully nothing here is trying to eat her. Yet. Bright form or no, though, she remains perfectly still herself aside from the slow movements of her head. She turns it to look to Illyana when she speaks, slowly nodding in agreement of her statement and the conclusion.

    "It will occur of its own accord... why push it?" she asks softly, voice cold and quiet. "Those who speak of bringing so-called 'Tranquility' are only promising death, and before its natural due course. If it is your selfish desire to find silence, then surely there are other worlds bereft of teeming life you can occupy instead?" A casual ask, icy and blunt. "Those who find home here wish for it to be that until the end of days--and not by the hands or promises of another."

Emma Frost has posed:
The man would give a 'hmph' over. "And why let several more billion years of anarchy go along? Why condemn the rest of existence to suffer the same way this one has? What has the rest of life to oblivion done to deserve the same suffering that we have already taken as our due?" He would stand up, hands going over the front of his robes to 'straighten' them, despite being over in the auspices of the mental realms.
    "But, I come here merely to bring the promise of a gift. That in time this planet shall have it's tranquility. And this peace.. Reassures me that all shall be well." Monologue exchange over.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"What came before existence?"

This could be a trick question. Given the obvious youth of the Hell-Lord involved, she may want the absolute truth out of Ebony Maw. Certainly positing the occasional inquiry isn't a hostile venture. Her eyebrows lift slightly. "All this?"

His manner probably should rub her the wrong way, but the luminous crackle of Ariah's offense to his suggestions will do splendidly. She might well be prone to response. "'We'. Very interesting, this. If others agreed with the way you think, how do they show this? Before the tranquility comes. Not to be lost before the support is clear."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    There is a crackle in Ariah's energy, kind of an unconscious sort of 'tch' that she doesn't vocalize. She doesn't make a move, though. Not yet. Her spear remains planted firmly in place, and her body remains still as she listens. And clearly finds she doesn't like the answer. She doesn't, however, echo anything further of Illyana's. Her own train of thought is a different one, and born of experience and past trials. It sits unwell with her. It lights a flame deep inside of her. Back in the space of reality, her fists have clenched, blood leaking between her fingertips.

    "Such are the words of a tyrant, or a tyrant in the making," she says, tone even yet even colder than before. "What right do you have to make this choice for billions of souls? You make this choice for them, for some grand design that is not even of your own make?" The small woman is as a lioness, firm and fierce but still stalking the edge, largely unsure of the stakes of the hunt just yet. The stillness around, though, she finds unsettling the longer this goes on.

Emma Frost has posed:
The man gives the mental equivalent of a sneer over to Illyana, "Because I know that at their core, they will thank me for it. Because the poor things do not know that which they could have. And they fear it alas. But they shall welcome it."
    The time for talking over as he would go on the attack. A talented telepath or magician can do almost anything astrally. The plane is reality controlled by the mind. A strong will can shape it. Can force physics and thier own perspective of reality upon it. It is made of willpower, focus, creativity.
    What Ebony Maw goes to do first and foremost is very, very different from what most other telepaths or mystics might do. He attempts to inflict -reality- upon it. Normalcy. He attempts to rend the astral plane and upon it force merely.. Normality. To yank away everything unnatural, disorienting, and idslocating out from it.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Therein the mistake.

Illyana repeats again, "Da, and -who- is we?"

Ebony Maw is a frightening being to even inflict that sort of presence around him. The Primarch in his midst isn't having it though: testing the waters of a tempestuous dance of memories and experiences. Clattering dishes and burning homework from an inadvertent shot. Two friends curled up reading through manga while another rests on her stomach, controllers in hand. The dazzling displays on the television, the daydreams of a wolf-girl looking out the window. Splashes of fire, ruby vision, flashing adamantium claws. Milkshakes, jazz picked out on a piano with hands over hers, and the sultry invocations of movement in a storm. She can pull up a lot of collective experience and splat it mentally like Mandelbrot. Demons in chorus, the insidious laughter of the deal, snowflakes on cold noses, smoky tea from a samovar, the hundred languages of New York shrilling at once.

The city that knows her. The city she knows in person, having argued extensively with Staten Island's incarnation a couple times.

While she's mostly quiet, maybe happy to smirk, the Hell-Lord throws a proverbial rock into the pond.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Without Ariah actually being physically there, she has to push harder to avoid being expelled. After all, her consciousness doesn't quite 'belong' there, not to this form or this degree. As the incursion of 'reality' threatens to send her over the edge, she slams the end of her spear into the 'ground' at her feet, sending ripples of energy around her like a more literal rock in the pond. "By. What. RIGHT?!" she growls, projecting her voice along with her magic. The concentric rings of blue combine and form a transparent shell of blue-white energy around herself. She trusts the other woman to be able to handle herself, and she doesn't want to disrupt Illyana's own method of defending herself.

    "We have earned the right to exist and persist, and you are not the first, nor the last tyrant to come," her own thoughts come in a torrent. But they aren't... pleasant ones. Peaceful ones. Screams. Gunfire. Explosions. Years of war and suffering. From the French countryside overrun to the desperate evacuation of Dunkirk to the pushing slog of battle to liberate not just home from the horrors of war, but the world from a maniac. Crying soldiers and widows and children, hopelessness and despair in trenches and foxholes, but the glimmer of hope too.

    "We have earned this right," she clutches her spear and stares down the Ebony Maw, her eyes mismatched in blazing silver and purple. "Your 'tranquility' is not our peace."

Emma Frost has posed:
Somewhere down on earth, a pudgy, short man wearing glasses and a badly fitting sweater is yelling about 'Serenity Now' in a discussion with a middle aged comedian over a latte in a chinese restaurant as the two would grouse about the holiday's and the comedian's ability to find fault with every single woman he had ever had a date with.
    Ebony Maw is for once caught by surprise as Illyana goes to force all of the city upon him. It forces him to shift from offense to defense, and then to aggravation. His attempted enforcement of control over upon the silence of the Astral Plane collapses, and the chaos of existence returns to it. New York is brought ot life around them. Barely avoiding being hit by a subway train, run over by a bicycle messenger. Avoiding falling off a skyscraper. All of the chaos, and the calamity of the city.
    And as Ariah goes to add her own thoughts, her solutions, her life, the condensed suffering and turmoil of humanity.. Ebony Maw goes to phase through a skyscraper seeming to turn into a subway car to smash through wear he was, and do a motion akin to straightening one's tie..
    "Fools. Children. I had been told that Earth's defenders were things of terror. That had held off Brainiac. Thrown off the Shi'Ar. I see little of that in front of me now. And I am here to help gift humanity among numerous other worthless races a gift that it does not deserve."
    He now has three sets of arms springing from him. Then there are three more of him, each iwth three arms. MOving in a chorus, they would go..

"I am Ebony Maw. I have silenced hive minds. I have broken consciousnesses the size of stars. I have rended the Brood a desert. You.." There's suddenly a massive draw away as Ebony Maw seems to vanish.
    ARE NOTHING.. The words are not even forming now. They just simply are... Existence goes still.
    TO ME.
    They are alone. Things are moving too fast to be kept up with despite hte total stillness of it. Shapes, colors, turning so dizzy and disorienting...
    No wait, that's a foot. A foot the size of a small moon on Ebony Maw that had just grown as large as Earth itself going ot try and stomp on hte two.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
New York lives and breathes in aging rails and delivery drivers, the threnody of excess and the grind of millions of people getting by beyond the steel skyscraper palaces of Lower Manhattan. It's $2 slice pizza and some really good biryani or the Dominican street parties, the Bronx vibe, and when she gets the thought, a hell of a big bridge crowded by rush hour traffic stamping down like something made from wires and stone.

A chorus of the Maws, met by the black-lipped smile of a sorceress who raises her palms. An enormous foot of a man, and there, one conceit made into a mistake.

Illyana may be young and prone to foolishness, which often enough happens. But even a very large foot can be hurt by a very small splinter applied in the right place. Especially when /she/ is a sorceress supreme in her own right, and the astral touches Limbo. Align the dots, and punch back. Or stab, as it is. She reaches into the aether of her own being and pulls out the pure soul so great the Elder Gods stole and broke her to earn the five pieces that would end reality (yet another way!). The Soulsword ignites the moment its black crossbar coalesces, and she points the dreaded relic up, channeling the weight of her sorcerous mantle through the glowing golden outline of a blade. That's no moon!

<<I'm never alone. Oshtur!>> Invoking the one most hellbent on keeping her from going full big bad gateway, she reaches mentally downward to ping the soul-shard woven around hers to keep her on the good side. A tug to pull the attention of their greater champion from his tea.

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    All of the suffering, sadness, and ultimately, hope and triump that Ariah is channeling to knock Ebony Maw's focus away isn't even that of the city or the collective unconscious. It's hers. Her own. From the little girl born in a winery in the 20's at the end of the Great War, to the young soldier, to the things and horrors she endured to be able to battle greater ones. Everything is etched in her soul like the runes inscribed in her bones. Back in reality, her form is trembling, her immortal body occasionally wracked with a shudder as her palms become sticky with her own blood.

    Here, though. Here, there is power. There is clarity. And the runes that run along her limbs shine brighter here. And then as that massive foot rises before them to bring them down, she focuses--on Yana.

    Ariah's spear vanishes in her hands as she spreads her arms, ribbons and threads of that blue-white energy unfurl from around her form, wings spreading, broad and bright. Those lengths of magic seek to enwrap Illyana, to infuse that blade even further with searing energy and a lance of pure power. In the end, she is but a conduit. A battery. All one needs to do is focus and drink deep. Drink deep of the power she offers. No contract. No price. Take it. Wield it. Wield her. Add her strength and bcome more than the sum of both parts.

Emma Frost has posed:
For Ebony Maw there is his power, his willpower, his rage, his loathing.. His focus. His willpower. It goes odwn over to that soul shard of Illyana's shoved up by her own sheer willpower up and over to that point underneath his toe as planet sized abomination goes to stand off with small girl that's soul was rended by the elder gods and demons of hell to prevent her from becoming all powerful.
    And the two -stalemate-. Raw power, raw will, neitehr giving nor budging a metaphorical inch as the two would wage mental and magical war upon one another as Illyana goes to stab up and Ebony Maw goes to stomp down. Two terrible rages..
    What upends it through all the primordial chaos is not the slices of New York life thrown up and into the cosmic tapestry and anarchy. Not the desperate consciousness that is strewn about from the normal life of the city. Of people, of life. Of capes, of crusaders. Of bad guys and girls. No. What unbalances everything is but the thoughts and focus of one woman that has seen the best and worst in humanity. That has been there herself.
    What one woman has felt through and her own life experiences is what gives Yana the ultimate edge in things. That is what sends that small shard..
    Up through the toe, the proverbial pslinter.
    And Ebony Maw staggers back, body flickering and apparating back down to normalcy.

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
Bloody night, she wants a slice of pizza. Cheap pizza slathered in melting cheese, the crust with enough crunch just the way New York does it. No pepperoni, that stuff is pure salt and oil. A proper mouthful of searing hot tomatoes, a sprinkling of crumbled sausage, crunchy pepper rings, and those abominable black olives littered all in a corner. The kind that pretty much every third restaurant sells, a hallmark of Italian origins. She wants to ride on the swaying 6 to nowhere, sliding past one neighbourhood to another in a patchwork of awnings, bright neon signs, and tired windows with crooked blinds that house the battered but bright American dream.

Illyana wants a lot of things, none of them unreasonable. A cessation to the pounding guns. The servos to stop whirling and the drone of Messherschmitts or Heinkels from strafing the seaside. Jackboot thumps to be replaced by whispering bicycle tires and the laughter of the schoolyard. Maybe old memories of war are encoded in her veins. Her grandfather was directly responsible, in his way, for the end of Tsarist Russia and the plummeting destiny that led to Ariah's war.

Ebony Maw might be inches away from being run through on the Soulsword and its crackling light, but the Hell-Lord holds it braced to strike without quite doing that. Too dangerous to move, splinters of possibility all around.

"You lie to yourself. You say it's all about bringing peace to unworthy races. Like a saviour." Her smile widens. "It isn't and you know that underneath. You bow and scrape to convince yourself how grand your cause is. You want a higher purpose to make your ugly self-deception seem worthwhile. Magnificent, because you know it is shit. You want to erase everything that you do not have because you hate yourself so much. Petty reason to cause so much hurt, not the noble strategy you present it as."

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    Eventually, it does abate. The war giving way to quiet. Sunlight streaming through a cottage window. Two bodies entwined, obscured by sheets, fingers laced together. The young soldier and the immortal woman who brought her home. Cherished memories. Peace and tranquility in the aftermath of such horror. But in them, there is an absence. And it's the absence of /nothing/. There is no oblivion. There are thoughts, sounds emotions. Heartbeats and murmurs. Sighs and smiles. It is far from empty, yet it is mostly silent. "Existence will always ebb and flow... and emptiness is not the answer..." the small woman's voice comes, still seething with emotion.

    Her energies stay tangled with Illyana, until the sorceress releases it. In case more needs to be done. In case further up-ending is required. Ariah's blazing form is there, eyes cast towards the staggering Ebony Maw, standing vigilant with wings outstretched. "These lives may be fleeting, monsieur, but when there is no longer hope or joy, passion or pain, suffering or succor... there is nothing left of worth. I will fight, and suffer, and survive, again and again, knowing what awaits me at the end. And you will find more like us here in this plane of existence."

Emma Frost has posed:
Ebony Maw would go to once more stand up, hands going to smooth down his completely straight robe as if one was brushing leaves out of hair. "It is about peace. An alien concept to your species which excells at killing, maiming, and slaughtering itself with fanatical devotion even by Shi'Ar and Kree standards. We would save you from your own worst impulses but that would be mercy that you do not deserve. Yet we will give it to you anyways because everyone will be better off.."
    Facing off with Ariah and Illyana, seemingly at a standoff. "So, are you the expert then on worthiness and righteousness, demon-spun?" HE would muse over. "Does not your brethren weep most of all that the cycle must continue and suffering must be ever-lasting and infinite to ensure the perepetual stasis of misery?"

Illyana Rasputina has posed:
"You offer annihilation and call it peace. No living species welcomes utter destruction." Illyana's smile is a bleak thing wrought out of the tormented upbringing that forged her, the light of another soul's fire, and something deeper and less tractable than being forced to stand up despite fear. She tips her head to Ariah, the energy charged through her swept back and twisted around into a linear oculus with the two of them at the eye. "No one here claimed perfection. You do not get to decide for us." Doubtful the Maw will explain why, anyway. "You are not our judge. Even the one with three faces is not permitted to do that. Go take up your complaint somewhere else before humanity makes you eat your words."

She draws the point of the blade mildly higher, the Soulsword harmonizing in a higher key that rings right back with the opalescent blue scars superimposed over her actual form, a ghost of the astral right there. A hint of the Vishanti's champion; a much bigger presence coming out of eclipse. "Go home and tell your boss, go somewhere else. Or maybe you'll end up having Reed Richards hounding you, da?"

Ariah Olivie has posed:
    For all of her pulsing brightness, for all of the wingspan that her valkyrie-like form gives her, Ariah is still so small. So very small. Her wellspring of willpower and magical energy comes from her experiences and her suffering, but for her stature she still stands so very, very tall. She just shakes her head at the Maw's words, calming herself down, slowly reining in her ignited rage. She's burning bright and freshly recharged, but she doesn't need to set herself aflame. Not until there's a real battle to fight.

    "You do not understand, then, do you. That the coming of dawn is nothing without the night. That success is worthless unless it is earned. That the taste of victory is but ashes in your mouth if there was no risk of defeat," she says, her energy pulsing as if she's taking slow, measured breaths, still keeping her energies entangled with Yana. "It is because of misery that we strive for the better. Because of the rain that a sunny day is so warm and bright. Because without sadness, a perpetual state of happiness would be nothing but hollow and dull. That praying for annihilation would be a mercy because it would offer something /different/."

    She seems as if to draw in one more long, deep breath, exhaling it with the same deep slowness, "There can be no beauty without ugliness. And it is our place to decide where our fate lies. Not you, not your masters."

Emma Frost has posed:
Ebony Maw goes to laugh, "I offer peace. Peace and quiet. Where all are equal." Because what is the ultimate peace but the death of everything? He would continue to laugh morbidly as the Soulsword would glow and flash in the astral realm. "And you speak very highly of topics that you have no comprehension of.." To Ariah.
    Then he would go to fold his hands together. "But, we will have ot continue this conversation another day. Or never." The astral realm recedes as Ebony Maw withdraws his consciousness away from the planet and existence reasserts itself.
    For now. Until next time.
    Next time.