The Strongest One There Is
The coffin is sprawled carelessly behind the throne, the place where it formerly rested now occupied by the too-small form of a Solar Exalt. The door to the tiny chamber opens, revealing the bodies of Nysela and hundreds of the righteous dead lying scattered in the corridor beyond.
Mari strokes Kitty without looking at him, eyes fixed on the windows of distant viewing, telling her of the woes of Creation. And they are many indeed. Below her, by the command of a heartless Sun, Oramus clashes with Isidoros, while the Endless Desert struggles against the Sea That Marched Against The Flame at their feet. The stultifying, dominating power of Sacheverell's opened eye wars with the incomparable order imposed by She Who Lives In Her Name. The other Yozis do battle against the apocalypse gods Sol Invictus released in his final moments, but the victor is ultimately immaterial, for Creation is already ravaged by the scars of their strife.
And as she watches the carnage unfold beneath her, Mari considers how she ended up here in the first place...
Nee-san had fallen into darkness. It had broken her heart, and without Shadow to help her, she might well have had her mind broken as well. So they pursued her across Creation; Frost and Wrath and Adara and all the others. And they had found Shrike, in the end. And they had wept, because she had turned to the Neverborn of her own free will.
Then there was nothing left for it but battle, battle so bloody and violent that of all the Celestials who had come after Shrike, only Shadow and Mari remained. Of course, nearly half a dozen Deathlords had met their true, final deaths in the end... but she would not trade a thousand dead Solar ghosts for the lives of one of her friends. More importantly, over twenty deathknights had perished in that battle... including the Cerement-Shrouded Ibis.
But the true horror was what came after that. She returned from her expedition to find Kraik dead; unable to bear the shame that Mari was his superior in artifice, he had hanged himself in despair. The General Staff plotted on their own account and expected Mari to rubberstamp everything they said. So many people were relying on her... and the only person who would help was Kitty. The other Deathlords had joined into coalition, working alongside the Demon Empress to uproot Lookshy and conquer or kill Creation. It was too much for one girl to bear... and so she did the only thing she could think of.
It had made so much sense then. The Unconquered Sun was the (Once-)Guarding Star; certainly he could help protect Creation and get rid of all the baddies, right? But he wasn't doing his job, wouldn't answer the prayers she made to him from the shrine within the Temple of Light. In the end, harried by demands and regret and self-doubt, she decided that there was nothing else to do but speak to Sol Invictus himself. Blossom, eager to make up for her past sins, had brought Mari and Kitty to the gates of Heaven. But the golden lion on duty refused to let her in. She could see the fear in his eyes as he denied her entrance, but on this matter, her mind was made up. She was intent on seeing the Sun, and nothing would stay her course.
She tried to be merciful at first. She left the celestial lions and lion dogs throwing themselves in her way alive, albeit horribly mangled, as she continued her inexorable path toward the Jade Pleasure Dome. But every battle sapped her strength, and it didn't matter how kind she was - the guardians of Heaven came after her with murderous intent, and when Kitty died, sacrificing his life to protect hers, she decided that his would not be the only death that day. With the Ghost-Eating Blow, she devoured her assailants for their motes, becoming stronger and stronger with every kill she made, until at last even the Aerial Legion lay broken at her feet, before the now-ominous shadow of the Jade Pleasure Dome.
She stood before the great edifice, calling the Sun to task for the dereliction of his duty. Her mighty shouts echoed throughout the emptied heart of Yu-shan for an entire hour, through streets and alleys thronged with the god-corpses of countless unlucky divinities whose sole misfortune was standing against a Mari without a Kitty to hold her back any further.
When no answer was forthcoming, she strode boldly to the great jade doors, heedless to the disintegrating Essence bolts sparking harmlessly off her adamant skin. With strength sufficient to uproot the pillars of the sky, she tore the Jade Pleasure Dome itself from its invulnerable foundations and slammed it into Yu-Shan, crushing miles of Heaven under the shattered rubble of the Palace of the Primordials.
As she sifted through the wreckage, casually executing lesser divinities with broken necks, the first of the Incarnae to encounter her was Venus, who attempted to sway her with honeyed words and the promise of sensual delights. Halfway through her blandishments, Mari smashed the Whore of the Gods across the face with a glorious golden backhand, so hard that it actually severed her head from her body, the shocked expression on her face distorted by the decapitating impact. The Incarnae had ignored her words, and so she would ignore theirs.
Mars took the field against her, calling an army of red motes and killing intent from her Essence to strike down the upstart Lawgiver. But like all the Maidens, Mars was bound by samsara; and it had decreed that no army, not even one led by the Incarna of organized combat, would prevail against her. To her credit, the Maiden of Battles fought on even after her impromptu legion had been shattered by Mari's Heaven Thunder Hammers, trying and failing to stop her with blade, bow and fist. In the end, crimson martial Essence was rent asunder by the undeniable power of the Sun, and Mari drank deeply of her soul after gouging out Mars' eyes with her thumbs and crucifying her with her own weapons.
Mercury fled. This was the smartest thing any of them could have done. But even if samsara had not established the dictate that Mari's pursuit of justice would be inexorable, the Maiden of Journeys still could not have outrun the Solar's meteoric, pouncing leaps of pursuit, which shattered the imperishable adamant floor of Heaven for hundreds of yards around every place she touched down. Neither sail nor mount nor fleetness of foot availed her, and when she finally turned to face her hunter, her Essence and strength had been depleted by her flight. In that state, ripping Mercury's arm off and beating her to death with it was a trivial matter for Mari.
Returning to the ruins of the Dome, Mari encountered Jupiter. She fell to her knees before the Lawgiver, baring her neck to the Solar. Curious, Mari asked why she did not offer resistance. Jupiter's only answer was that it was clearly Fate's design that the Maidens fall by her hand, and thus there was no point in delaying the inevitable. Neck still bared, she offered a dagger to Mari, claiming that it would kill her quickly and cleanly, were she to put all her strength behind the blow. Mari weighed the weapon in her hand, pondering the decision to strike for long moments, before driving it hilt-deep into her own neck. As she expected, Jupiter had tangled their fates, and while every wound dealt to Jupiter would be visited on Mari in full, she had not considered that the reverse was also true. Mari left the corpse of Jupiter, hoist by her own petard, behind her, as she approached the remains of the Dome.
Saturn was there waiting for her, slim daiklave in hand, violet eyes glittering with tears. He had left - commanded her and her sisters to die, she whispered, and her only consolation was that she could take it out on Mari. The Lawgiver curtly replied that the Sun had much to answer for, and right now, Saturn was simply another obstacle keeping her from so. The Maiden of Endings fought with suicidal abandon, knowing that samsara had abandoned them all that day, and that even if she won, there would be nothing but shadows and dust for her to return to. Perhaps it was a mercy that Mari ended her pitiful existence with her own blade. She certainly smiled in that evanescent moment before she dispersed in a zephyr of violet Essence.
Having taken the mantles of all five of the Maidens into herself, Mari was suddenly aware of the true nature of what she had done. Were she still the kind, naive, innocent girl she had been before her Nee-san had turned to darkness, she might have dedicated the rest of her long life to repairing the damage she had done. But she had the blood of Shrike, countless gods and elementals, as well as that of five Incarnae on her hand now, and the only thing that meant anything to her any more was holding the Sun accountable for all the lives she had taken in His name. So she marched on; and in her wake, the natural order of things began to fray and shatter.
Mari did not find Luna; rather, while she sought Sol, the Argent Madonna appeared before her in the guise of Shrike, before changing to the shape of Shadow, and then into the face of every person who had meant anything to the Lawgiver. In these shapes, Luna sought to wear down and distract the Solar. Her heart was heavy from the loss of her loved ones and her mind shaken by the realization of the cosmic power she had inherited. With Shrike holding her from behind, and Coral and Blossom whispering sweet nothings into her ears, Mari decided to abandon her quest, to lay down and rest in the arms of the Chthonic Ba'ara.
Or at least, she would have, if her hands had not brushed the still, cold form of Kitty, reminding her of his death and filling her with a rage so black, so monstrous that not even the memory of her Nee-san could stand against it. The Silver Lady cursed as her carefully-woven spell was shattered, and thus did the lunargent superpredator did battle with the maddened Lawgiver. The battle which followed was unreal and dreamlike at best. The moon goddess turned the infinite variety of the Wyld upon her young opponent. But Mari was a finite point, and a finite point could only be attacked in a finite number of ways, and in all of them, the concentration of Mari's raw power proved superior to the Incarna's.
Realizing the trickery and outmaneuvering would not work on her, Luna reverted to that most basic of combat tactics; overcoming one's opponent with incomparable speed and strength. For a while, it seemed as though Luna would prevail after all, given that the goddess could augment her prowess to incomparable levels. However, Luna had to rely on sheer brute force to triumph. Mari's strength came from the absolute and total decrees they imposed on Creation - and while the summoning of utmost power came slowly to Luna, Mari commanded the potent Charms at her disposal with the reflexive efficiency of one who had slain Luna's better, and eventually, the tiny Solar stood triumphant over the bleeding body of the Incarna. Her last words were to tell Mari where Sol had gone before she expired.
After the struggles Mari had gone through to reach him, Sol Invictus seemed quite the anticlimax in the end. She was relentless in her condemnation, laying sin after sin at his feet, while he mutely listened to her complaints. At the end, after she had expended her vitriol, the Sun turned to her and asked her what she had done about them.
She looked him in the eye and described the events that had led to the present moment, from the unanswered prayers, to the loss of Shadow, and the slaying of the other Incarnae.
And Sol asked her if killing him would restore them; if there was any purpose left to her beyond this mad quest for what she mistook for justice, or if she was so blinded by bloodlust that she would raise her hand to her patron deity.
Mari's response was that if he could not see the injustice in all this, and that it had all ultimately originated from him, then he was the one who was truly blind. And, she added, killing him would not help her one iota. But it would certainly bring closure to this entire affair.
That did it. With a roar of divine fury, the Unconquered Sun joined battle with Mari. Perfection clashed against perfection in this epic duel - and not simply perfection, but power. The opening moves devastated the country around them, and every blow after that wrought havoc upon the land. He blocked her deadly fists with his gleaming golden shield, while she turned the thrusts of the Godspear of All-Searing Noon aside with deft flicks of the wrist, when she did not take the strikes full on and laugh as they failed to harm her. As the battle dragged on, the deciding factor changed from Charms and Essence to simpler qualities, like Virtues. Which the Sun had forsaken. By turning a deaf ear to her pleas, he had abandoned his Conviction. By fleeing instead of answering her challenge, he had sacrificed his Valor. In permitting her to provoke him to battle, she had broken his Temperance. And now, to validate his Conviction, he had no choice but to use the most dreadful of weapons at his disposal.
The Titan-Calling Clarion rang out, beckoning forth Yozis and sealed terrors from the prehistory of Creation. He bade them destroy Mari, but the apocalypse gods simply began the work of ending Creation, with her destruction as an incidental benefit, while the Yozis merely chuckled at the irony inherent in their former jailor now begging them for help against one of his proteges, who now sought to destroy him... much as he had done the same to them by creating the Exalted Host. They mocked him, saying that they would consider doing as he asked... after Mari laid him low. The Sun's Conviction wavered then, just for a moment... but it was enough of an opening for Mari to drive her hand into his golden chest, and rip out his heart, much as the Dragon Kings had done to honor him in the ancient past.
As the Sun fell to his knees, he looked up to her, eyes pleading. "Then... you must protect Creation," he implored her.
"Who the hell do you think I am?" came the cold, curt answer.
The last thing the Sun felt as his daughter turned her back on him was a deep, deep despair.
And now, within the heart of the Daystar, surrounded by the restive sleep of great Gardullis, Mari looks upon the woes of the world... and is unmoved. She's come so far, won so much, lost so much. It would be an insult to their memory to stop at half measures now. She touches the stud that unchains the soul and mind of the Greater Elemental Dragon of Fire... and sits back to watch the end of the world.
Unbinding Gardullis will place the Daystar into a positive feedback loop, increasing the Sun's output by uncountable orders of magnitude. The increased radiance will draw forth more power from the Wyld, which will only serve to fuel the dragon's fury even more. And since the Sun is the ultimate symbol of order and power, its rays will burn so brightly that they will sear the borders of Creation shut, eradicating shadowlands with radiant, cleansing power, calcifying wyld zones into seas of shattered marble, and forever separating the material from the immaterial world. Its punishing light will incinerate all below it, mortal, raksha, demon and Exalt alike, erasing even the Yozis themselves from existence with its infinite, purifying light, leaving its victims as nothing more than scorched outlines in a sun-blasted wasteland. Gods who are "lucky" enough to be immaterial will be trapped in that state for eternity, there to slowly disperse over countless aeons, bereft of both domains and worshippers to empower them. There will be no more Exalts, because there will be nobody and nothing left to Exalt. Perhaps the Neverborn will rejoice in their Oblivion-tombs... before they realize that the scorched Creation will forever be the Fetter that prevents their fall into the Final Death.
Then, without the Essence of the Wyld to fuel it, Gardullis and the Daystar will draw on that of Creation, leaching the life from the world itself to sustain its frenetic burn. But without a connection to the Wyld, the Essence of Creation is finite, and can be depleted. Eventually, even the Daystar itself will burn out, a giant, floating cinder hovering over a sterilized wasteland of eternal night.
The sole survivor of this apocalypse will be Mari, holding the corpse of Three Shadows Gliding, the first, and dearest victim of her mad quest, in her lap, brooding at the heart of the Dark Star.
The strongest one there is.
The only one there is.
