[NoR] - [30] - Hat Trick

Dust billowed through the empty halls, displaced by the arrival of one Razel Korr. The half-finished building was grimier than he had remembered, and the whistling of the breeze through unknown gaps only stressed the complete lack of audible life. No hustle, no bustle; only the melancholy wailing of the wind.

He strode out into the alleyway, cocking his head to look up for the absent dome. Murky clouds were fragmented by veins of orange light, the dust whipping over the city as it did all things on this plane. The entirety of the settlement was unoccupied, showing no damage except for the minor wearing away of the sandy grit against the buildings. Razel made his way to the machine church, descending to the offices and finding more vacancy. The Exarch's chamber had been completed not hours before, the relief showing what looked like a willing subjugation of the city above. Carvings, still fresh with powder, portrayed Rokh striding into town with several legionnaires marching behind him. The entirety of the masses bowed before him, powerless to resist. They were taken to the Foundry for...appalling reasons. He saw the same vats from before, except there was no mistaking their contents now.

Razel’s face curled in disgust. Foundry was beyond saving. The Phyrexians had spread too far, and with Rokh’s help, there was no one that could stop them. From the look of the mural, it appeared this settlement had been one of the last remaining. The planeswalker tipped his hat in memoriam to the image of the civilians, disappearing from the office and resuming his existence just outside the outer gate to the Foundry cloister, atop the hollow mountain.

A pouch slung at his hip rustled loudly as he rummaged, drawing a fist-sized filigree sphere from within. His fingers flared with arcane power, frozen mana igniting the azure vapors and causing them to churn with luminous intensity. He placed it gently at the small of his back, securing it to the very space itself. The band of his hat clung magically to his head, pre-emptively stopping it from being knocked loose. Deciding against his hat trick until he could get an answer or two, he closed his eyes and began to pool his energies. Fairly certain they knew he was there, he shouted to the space behind the door anyway.

“ROKHI! GET OUT HERE!”

The thrashing of the wind was the only noise he heard for a long moment, until a deep rumble broadcast the grinding of the gate as it slid open. Rokh marched decisively out of the doors, stopping halfway between them and the visitor before they had finished opening. He started a generic evil spiel, obviously prepared for this.

“I didn’t expect you to return, Roz. Y-”

He stopped, blinking a few times. He gaped for a moment, raised a finger, and then lowered it. Razel looked around awkwardly, unsure of what was going on. His response was laced with doubt.

“Why are you gawking at me...?”

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

Rokh’s expression shifted to skepticism.

“You really...Roz, sometimes you are the densest planeswalker I know.”

Two stony fingers tapped his temples, extracting an oily strand of magma that began to dissolve on contact with the air. As if on cue, Rokh explained.

“That was my knowledge of what you’ve become. I left exactly one image in my mind. If you want to know, you’ll have to drill it out of my head.”

Razel’s brow was precariously furrowed. As that was more or less his plan anyway, he didn’t work himself up over it. He simply inquired.

“What do you mean, what I’ve become?”

“Beat me. Find out.”

“You’re playing with me.”

“Said the man in the top hat.”

“You’re in no position to talk, mister ‘I-Just-Killed-An-Entire-Town’.”

“They are not dead, they are repurposed!”

Razel reached out with his mind, closing and sealing the gate behind his old mentor. He vanished from the gate, moving to a dune enclosed salt flat nearby. As expected, Rokh was not far behind. The Phyrexian laughed as he approached.

“Why did you come back? You broke your trail. You could’ve run again.”

“Don’t like you. Don’t like Phyrexia. Seemed rather obvious.”

Rokh shifted, landing a solid blow square in Razel’s ribs. The punch sent him tumbling, his motion halted by a force of will. Razel returned the favor, resolving mid-kick beside Rokh’s head. The impact spun the vulshok, who also held his motion mid-flight. He smiled through the oil seeping out of his wounded gums.

“Is this to be a cheap jump fight? Any ‘walker can do this.”

For emphasis, the Phyrexian rematerialized behind the rime mage, placing a foot forcibly into his neck and launching him face first into a nearby dune. He continued to gloat.

“Where’s the vigor? The skill?”

He shifted to immediately beside Razel, pulling him out of the sand by the collar of his robe. He held his victim in front of his face, smiling disconcertingly.

“Where’s the fun?”

In the blink of an eye, Razel flicked his wrist, extending needle-eqsue claws from his two middle fingers. He thrust them deep into the softer flesh under Rokh’s jaw, sapping the life directly from his foe. The vulshok’s grip weakened, dropping Razel, who hurriedly picked himself up and kicked Rokh away. The embezzled vitality invigorated him, while Rokh rubbed the underside of his jaw as he brought himself back to his feet, grimacing. The claws receded back into his fingers, and Razel spoke up.

“Did you find that fun at all?”

Rokh’s grimace changed to a smirk.

“That’s the spirit, frost mage.” He spit oily phlegm. “Bring the pain.”

The Phyrexian’s hands exploded into flames, unaffected by the severe gale blowing past them. The two planeswalkers loomed across from each other, ignoring the otherwise fierce storm. Rokh shot first, a dart of liquefied stone hurling from his fingers and towards Razel. The lava bent neatly around him, instead drawing into the orb at his back. He smirked in return. Undaunted, Rokh tossed more spells at him, each fireball distorting meaninglessly around him, each bolt arcing deftly past. He narrowed his eyes as he recognized what was going on, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Cheap trick, Roz.”

“Cheap tricks are the best tricks.”

“Easiest to foil, too.”

Rokh disappeared in an instant. Razel tried to turn in time to save his tool, succeeding only in catching Rokh with the orb in his hand. He dove at the relic, his arms coming up short. Rokh drew the item back, crushing it in his grasp and shattering the steel utterly. A purple cloud wept from the mangled artifact, fading in the dusty wind. The rime mage rolled to his feet, glaring at the Phyrexian. The vulshok simply grinned and opened his arms cordially, preaching to Razel.

“I’m curious! Even if you defeat me, how will you stop an entire plane of us?”

“You’ve got that handy mountain. You all love to be there. At the same time, even.”

“An outpost and you know it.”

“It’ll certainly put a dent in your plans.”

Great minds thinking alike, the two Planeswalkers threw their fists towards each other. They met midway between, colliding and pushing them both back several feet. A kick concluded the same way, their abilities too close to decide physically. They both began to back away at a deliberate pace. Rokh raised a hand, motioning to the sky before gesturing to Razel. The rime mage looked up, perceiving precisely too late the meteor that caught him straight in the jaw.

A resounding roar rolled through the substrate, the gigantic rock burying itself within the sandbanks. A cloud of salted earth thrust up around it, crashing into heaps beyond the stone itself. Razel materialized just above the bolide, falling inelegantly onto the rock and rolling into the sand. The rime mage hit the ground hard, tumbling onto his back. He forced himself to his knees, shaking his head. Before he had a chance to get to his feet, Rokh was there, another fist lodged in his sternum, forcing him up and back. Razel gritted his teeth as he flopped into the sand.

“Even if you beat us, we’ll return. You have to know this.”

A frozen skeleton erupted from the dust, screeching into the squall and reaching for Rokh. He paid it little mind, stretching his hand out and immersing it in dragon’s flame. The bones themselves melted, the resultant ash wafting away with the silt.

“PATHETIC!”

The sudden presence of Rokh alongside him barely broadcast the igneous knee that caught Razel on the reverse side of his jaw from the meteor, conveying him to the ground yet again. Rokh landed atop his back, digging his leg into the rime mage’s spine.

“PREDICTABLE!”

Razel disappeared, Rokh’s knee thumping into the sand. While the winds decelerated, clouds ceased billowing and drew to a halt. Grains hung motionless midair as time stopped flowing. Razel rematerialized behind his former teacher, smearing a rimy stream from his mouth. His eyes widened as Rokh started to stand sluggishly, shuddering as he did so. The rime mage paced back, uncertain of how this was possible. The vulshok’s skin splintered as he twisted joltingly, his wounds seeping a viscous black discharge which offended the nostrils.

“Surprise.”

The winds instantaneously restarted. Razel shifted to the top of a neighboring dune, while Rokh coolly sauntered over. He continued on his diatribe as he did so.

“You can’t be rid of us. We have sleepers in every sentient population known. They don’t even know what they truly are. Just a hint of the glorious word and they will awaken to their true purpose. But now...now, they are as any one of the crowds. Living. Loving. All that worldly nonsense. This fight is meaningless, and you know it.”

“Let’s agree to disagree.”

Blazing spheres of plasma shot from Rokh to Razel. They diffused against the rime mage’s mental shield with a wave of his hand. One slithered past the cracks, threatening to strike him but impacting the dune behind instead. A fresh planar scar sat where he had been previously. Rokh dove into it, warping back to the Foundry itself. Razel stood atop the peak of the summit, haughtily glowering down at the platform beneath as his enemy appeared.

The Phyrexian looked up to him in amused incredulity. Razel debated his choice for a final time, accepting accountability for what he was about to do. His tolerance at an end, the rime mage decided it was time to bring this to a close. He managed to keep his voice from cracking as he called down to his adversary.

“HEY ROHKI!”

The vulshok raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat.”

“Really? All the clichés available and you go with that? That trick never works. What, is there nothing up your sleeve?”

Exasperating the derisive tone, Razel shoved his sleeves up, revealing his bare arms. He pulled the hat from his head, wiggling his free fingers.

“Presto.”

The wiggling stopped as his fingers shot past the brim. He plunged his arm into the accessory up to his elbow, and with a furrowing of his eyebrows, wrenched forth a fist full of tentacles. The ancient horror birthed its way into the realm through the tightly stretched brim. Slimy protrusions of flesh sprouted from the hat, writhing loose as the immense torso sprung free. Sinuous arms caught the colossal body as it lurched forward. The skin glistened with a glaze of ectoplasmic slime, reflecting a spectrum of colors alien to most eyes, while the segmented growth over its head was a pearlescent bone, abnormal even by Phyrexian standards. Partial transparency revealed eyes boiling behind it like bubbles within a pot. A guttural moan bled through the membrane, thundering down the mountain. The tentacles that composed its lower half wrapped forcefully around the peak, their interminable length grasping the gate compound and enveloping it in a binding of thrashing eldritch meat. An aura of transcendent power caused the air around it to warp gradually, distorting the image of whatever lie behind. Haunting moans rolled onto the stone as it clawed into the foundations, bracing against the crag and sinking to Rokh’s level.

Lightning pierced the clouds, perforating them with electric fire. Rokh looked at the being in revulsion, confronted with a creature whose very nature disregards reality. Its head, wide as he was tall, glowered down at him in accusation. The vulshok began to quiver.

“E...El...Eldr-Eldra...”

Rokh stepped back unsteadily, his hands slowly rising in a subconscious act of protection. Instincts he had long forgotten began to take hold as his aeons of sanity peeled away. His eyes widened, twitching with disquiet. Involuntarily, he shot a lightning bolt at it. Energy splashed innocuously over the unnatural hide, droplets of power sizzling as they dissipated in the savage wind. The monster howled into the night in defiance, the sound cracking Rokh’s flesh even more. Oil now flowed freely over his robes, running down to puddle between his legs. He froze, unable to move. The blood of Phyrexia coursed through him, trying in vain to reinforce his mind against the sanity-cracking visage of the beast. While delaying the inevitable, in the end it failed in the face of a primal fear. Razel transported himself to Rokh’s side, looking fondly at the abomination. Rokh sweat pronounced beads of tar as he stared the horror down.

“Yep. An Eldrazi Spawnsire.”

“Sp-Spawnsire?”

Rokh’s eyes broadened even more as he put the meaning of the words together in his unhinging mind. Instinctually, he backhanded Razel, the blow knocking the rime mage off of the platform entirely. The Spawnsire roared once more into the evening, while Razel reappeared on its shoulder. He wiped more oil from the fresh wound across his face, now insusceptible to a sense déjà-vu.

“So, I see you like this one. How’d you like to meet the rest?”

Rokh’s face grew pale.

“You wouldn’t. You can’t.”

“Only way to be rid of you all is to be rid of the plane you’re on. Thankfully, I know a way to do just that. You’re lucky I waited as long as I did, but it’s hardly something to do lightly.”

A new scar broke through the air directly above the Eldrazi, flickering with energy. Lightning ripped into the mountain as the portal congealed, growing unhurriedly. Incapable of response and accepting his defeat, Rokh took two fingers to his temple. More gateways tore open, lightning connecting them into an ancient path. A radiant torrent of tears started to leak from Rokh’s eyes, his own recollections draining into the muck in the sand at his feet. Knowing he needed to acquire what knowledge he could while he could, Razel shifted himself behind Rokh, his signature augur condensing from a mist. The drill met no opposition, plunging into his former mentor’s skull. Razel tried to save what he could of the leaking persona, recovering some, but not all, of his objectives. A ration of the sleepers became known to him, as did a portion of the Phyrexian plan. The knowledge concerning the Academy, regrettably, had gone, lost in the puddle of memory. Confusingly to Razel, a single image endured in the otherwise empty head, suspended like a brilliant target in the emptying mind. As he received it, he heard Rokh’s voice within his head.

I am a man of my word.

The memory swallowed him, placing him in Rokh’s shoes as he strode out of the gate to face himself. The only problem was...there were two of him. Not physically, as his body was clearly singular. Instead, his astral signature trembled, at times seeming like two entities. At the end of the imagery, it cut out, shunting Razel back to reality. The empty shell of his former friend fell to its knees, remembrances wept from its eyes while the horrors from beyond began to manifest. Despite the victory, there was more to be done. Taking the briefest of moments to himself, Razel scrutinized the list of sleepers and realms they are on for any person he may be involved with. The understanding was, in his eyes, a burden; knowing who they are meant knowing who he had to dispatch. Hunting them down, discretely, would be appallingly inconvenient. As he reviewed the info, some familiar planes came to mind, but one in particular screamed to him.

Ravnica!

He processed the few names, his aura plummeting the temperature of the adjacent air to glacial levels as he did so. Only one of them did he recognize. He spent a minute standing there, running it through his head over and over to be sure. He broke the icicle off his fingers, his self-control stripped. Again and again he was certain of it. There was no mistake to be made. The unavoidable next course of action froze his soul. For entirely separate reasons, the two planeswalkers shed tears for the first time in a long time.

As the gods themselves descended to devour the Foundry, a victim of circumstance left to continue his dance as a puppet to his morality.