A Game of Gods: A Multiversal Challenge

"Your guess is as good as mine."

The Doctor tries to move his mouth but stops when pain surges through his body. I can't wait to see your plan Dis, old pal.

Mason leans against a wall lasily.

"In actuality you did, although you don't remember it," Dis Baba explained. "But that is inconsequential; I am not here to rile up old wounds or pick at freshly-healed and covered scabs, no matter how...interesting...such an activity might prove."

The alien held out his hand, and a strange insect resembling a tea cup faded into existence with a puff of smoke; its concave thorax was filled with a rich, golden liquid resembling honey or nectar, and Dis Baba took a sip of this beverage before letting out a hum of satisfaction.

"As for the matter of Lambda's wife, his grief is somewhat premature; there is still time to act and prevent what will or has occurred."

Lambda's eyebrow only rose higher at this assertion. "Bold words, Baba of Dis; what gives you such certainty?"

An enigmatic smile was the Kin overlord's only response.

edited 30th Jun '11 3:16:15 PM by SullenFrog

"I knew this escape was too easy..."

Rey was keeping his gun aimed at Lambda, but he wasn't prepared to shoot...only staying ready just in case.

— The rictus widened in pleasure as the blazing eye of Digamma trained itself on his opponent's "face. —

Feeling Blue, junior? I Can See Something Downright Pathetic In There. How 'Bout I...

—He sliced through the stump, then began twirling the scythe at the speed of a jet turbine, the blade glowing a harsh gold light.—

Drown Yer Sorrows?

—With the unholy noise of a million death screams, Digamma drove the now molten looking top of the weapon deep into the abomination's side with the intent to cosmically eviscerate. —

Down in the chamber where Challengers and Nomads at last met, the distant, shadowed ceiling writhed...

You will not escape me so easily.

— The All-Devourer rumbled upward remorselessly. —

"Ceiling's moving."

"Oh come on!" said Sub-Zero. "We've already fought the big bad conqueror! Why should we have to fight another one?"

Spriggan aimed his G36C at the ceiling.

"So how do we face it? I don't have heavy artillery with me..."

"I've noticed," Dis Baba replied, glancing up at the ceiling with a total lack of any real concern. Raising his free hand up above his head, Dis Baba snapped his fingers but once, the sound of this action echoing far longer than should have been possible.

The effect was instantaneous; the ceiling froze in place, utterly immobilized and trapped mid-writhe, as a strange azure light spread across the roof of the chamber; to those present, it would appear that that part of the chamber had been blue-shifted, and those Champions or Nomads sensitive to magic or similar effects would feel as though time—for the rest of the world, but not themselves—had slowed to a crawl.

Lambda stared up at the ceiling, and then looked at Dis Baba, clearly stunned. "This is not possible," he breathed.

"And yet the results speak for themselves," Dis Baba replied glibly, taking another sip of that nectar from his cup. The alien overlord then glanced over at a seemingly-empty portion of the ballroom, and his smile widened. "You may come out now, Saren; your cloaking technologies, while quite sophisticated and potent, cannot hide you from my gaze."

For a moment the creature made no reaction, allowing Digamma to slice into it without offering any resistance whatsoever; where the golden Reaper to attempt to peruse its alien mind, he would find nothing at all but a yawning void, an emptiness brought on by this sudden torrent of emotional information and the realization of loss.

It would not remain so for long, alas, for soon a spark of something began to flicker and blossom into life within that emotional void, something that Digamma would recognize rather easily as it swelled into a raging inferno.

The creature's four remaining tentacles suddenly whipped around faster than the eye could track, each one seizing Digamma by a wrist or ankle and forcibly pulling him away from its wounded flank and holding him out at a short distance from its body; their serrated edges rapidly began to tighten, cutting into the Nomad's divine flesh and robbing his hands of their circulation, and its six compound eyes began to glow, not with a green light, but with with a baleful black radiance that was tinged with bloody crimson.

   "You cannot take me,"    the creature rasped, its two severed tendrils slowly beginning to regenerate once more as the awful radiance of its eyes began to swell and build; the deafening groan of tortured metal began to ring out from all around as that cold expanse of dead stars spread across the illusory sky once more, blotting out all else until the battlefield was practically invisible.    "You do not know me; you do not comprehend my nature, do not know my name... I, I am Zyxaxyz, foremost of His children and primary instrument of His grand design."   

The screams and moans of tortured metal grew louder and louder, threatening to drown out the creature's words altogether; in spite of this, the abomination made no effort to raise its voice. This rising tumult was quickly joined by the sound of iron plates and siding rattling within their sockets, of aluminum shutters trembling under the onlslaught of a great wind and held in place only by a handful of cheap, frail rivets. Pieces of the floor, fragmented slivers of golden bone and dull metal tile alike, were beginning to break off and rise into the air in marked defiance of gravity, quickly becoming trapped in orbit around Zyxaxyz like comets and asteroids forming a belt around a sufficiently large star, and the entire room began to tremble and quake with the force of the creature's unfathomable rage.

   "If Lord Lambda's grand design has met its end in this fashion,"    it snarled,    "if everything he has worked for all these eons has been for naught, then my true purpose becomes clear at last. You will squirm, you will whimper, and you will beg me to end your pitiable existence before the end, inbred bastard of a bastard race, but I will not oblige you. You will scream, you will cry, and the flesh shall be flensed from your bones every second of every minute of every night for a million years before I will even consider granting you that release!"   

With that, the baleful radiance of the monstrosity's six eyes reached its zenith—and then all six of them fired at once, striking Digamma full in the chest with a half-dozen rays of redish-black death. While the blast almost certainly did not kill him, it did knock him out of the creature's grasp and send him flying across the chamber to slam into the nearest wall with so much force that the golden Nomad punched clean through to the other side and just kept on flying.

The beast roared after Digamma in pursuit, tearing this hole even wider with its passing. The monstrosity was howling and bellowing with rage now, hungry for blood and retribution. Cosmic matter and unwrought substances bled forth from the gaping wound in its side, which curiously had not healed and showed no signs of doing so; the creature did not seem aware of this, however, and if it was conscious of this unhealed and grievous injury it paid it no heed; all of its attention was focused solely on the act of destroying its target, to break and humiliate Digamma in the most painful and bloody way its mind could devise.

edited 30th Jun '11 12:49:56 PM by SullenFrog

The two shinobi had mourned Galen's passing, Kimimaro muttering an ancient prayer for the fallen and wishing his new friend peace in The Beyond, when Dis Baba made his reappearance and statements.

"There's... still chance to save her?" Kimimaro said.

"There's still a chance Digamma could come here and attack us?" Kisame stared up at the now-frozen ceiling.

edited 30th Jun '11 1:38:51 PM by DKN117

"I hope it's the first one; I really don't want to face his rage again."

I'll help Echindia Lambda. I may disagree with you. But I can't leave a person to die.

Kimimaro sensed the faint pulses of energy that he recognized as The Doctor's telepathy. His Killing Intent rose again.

"What?" he growled as he glared at The Doctor. "Telling Lambda that it's "the greater good" to ignore this chance to save his wife, or something like that?"

edited 30th Jun '11 2:05:13 PM by DKN117

Kimimaro. If we have a chance... I'll take it. He may have tortured us all for her. But she's not to blame for his crimes. We should save her.

Kimimaro's eyes widened.

"...You just may have a Heart under all that callous cruelty, after all. I might actually spare you when this is all done. ...Don't screw this up."

edited 30th Jun '11 2:08:38 PM by DKN117

Link stared for a while at his friend's empty clothes, ignoring the blood on his tunic.

"Galen..." he whispered.

"I...I could have saved you.... You didn't have to die.....Didn't have to leave me...."

With a strangled, muffled cry he fell on the Jedi Knight's clothes.

"Galen...I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

He began to sob quietly.

"So sorry..."

"I will help as well," said Sub-Zero. "I'd rather not see a Nomad turn into a being bent on revenge. Trust me, I've dealt with those enough."

"Naturally," Dis Baba replied, taking another sip from his living cup before setting it down on the floor. He then strode over to the center of the ballroom and glanced at the floor, scratching his chin as though deep in thought.

After a moment's contemplation the alien knelt down and began to trace an index finger across the floor in a slow, measured pattern, etching a shape of some sort into the immaculate tile. "As for the matter of Digamma," he continued, his casual tone making it seem as though they were discussing something banal and trivial like the weather, "it is almost certain that you will have to deal with him before the end; that one's greed and ambition know no limit, and until he is dealt with in a decisive and terminal fashion he will continue to plague not merely you, not merely the worlds you call home, but all worlds with his lust for battle, bloodshed and death. While it is conceivable that I could face him in battle and possibly emerge triumphant, there is little reason for me to do so; this is your tale, and I cannot fight your battles for you."

Lambda, who had fixed the Doctor with an inscrutable gaze at the latest words from the Time Lord, turned to stare at Dis Baba with suspicion. "Really, now? And where, pray tell, did you gain access to such power? I do not recall planning for such an eventuality when I sponsored you."

"There are a great many things for which you did not plan, Lambda," the Kin overlord replied, not even looking up from his work as he spoke. "Least of all the fact that an element you introduced simply to fulfill one purpose and then be discarded might then be found and employed by another."

Lambda's eyes narrowed dangerously. "What are you?"

"A wildcard," was Dis Baba's curt response. "Now if you'll excuse me, the work I am undertaking is somewhat delicate and requires a degree of concentration; as such, if you wish to rescue your wife before my temporal shenanigans elapse and her planetary prison resumes its admittedly-decelerated plunge into the yawning maw of its own self-destruction, I would advise you to remain silent for the time-being."

edited 30th Jun '11 3:15:17 PM by SullenFrog

"Then show us the way to the prison, and we'll kill whatever we need to kill."

I knew Dis wouldn't have spoken to you about this if he had no clue. Dis is a smart insectoid. If he didn't have a plan... he wouldn't bring it up.

"Let the man concentrate, Mason" Kisame admonished the SOG agent.

Kimimaro walked up to Lambda. "I feel it would be wise to prepare ourselves in case Digamma finds his way here, Lambda-san."

edited 30th Jun '11 3:37:22 PM by DKN117

" ... I know why you didn't show up, Lambda... You were busy... Right? As was Digamma..." Phi said.

edited 30th Jun '11 3:19:25 PM by Psyga315

Lux was delighted at Dis Baba's return, but something seemed... off. Like he wasn't the same being. She quietly waited for him to finish whatever he was doing.

Ever since arriving in this strange place she had taken one of the seats and not moved from it, not through Lambda's appearance, or all of his speaking. Lost in thought.