Chapter 21: A Roman Holiday

[Master Scrag]

"I think I heard somoeone say...burn them alive." Scrag says, ignoring the commotion below. He calls forth some priests from behind him who have oil and a torch. The women are doused with the oil and set to flames, becoming screaming torches. There is screaming and the horrific disintigration of their hair, clothes,and flesh into flame.

A cloaked figure steps from behind Scrag and asks to take care of the distraction so they can continue the holy week. After all, there are still gladiator fights and a parade. The cloaked figure will be the head of the temple of terror, but his identity was to be a surprise for the end fo the week.

"No, this is fine. It might even be entertaining. We have hear some of the strongest priests from all over the world. All of our best are here today. If things get out of hand, we will deal with it. Go inside..." He orders the priests around him.

They do as he says. He walks past the burnt bodies of the women and creates a large aura of death around himself and a large portion of the high temple. It is essentially a cloud that causes decay. The plants around him wilt and even the burnt bodies become fetid meat. Small birds, trees, and all other life near the temple and Scrag die. People back off in the crowd. The aura was created to protect the temple from this intruder.

"Do your worst. If the priests die against you, they were simply too weak. This will be an excellent test for them." Scrag says from behind his cloud of decay and death. The cloud smells like him...but much stronger. It smells like a rotten swamp or perhaps even a sewer.

[Tristan Tuzanic]

Tristan takes up a position somewhat near the temple, with the death cloud to his back. He creates his own dark vortex, which starts swirling blue and black. The vortex starts sucking in things around it, including chunks of debris and crumbled parts of the temple's front side from the earlier attack. The vortex swells, sucking in more and more....this is dangerous though, since there are so many people around and they can easily get sucked in."Everyone...step back or hang out to something." Tristan says as he enlarges the vortex. It does suck up a few spectators nearest to the temple. He'll have to fish them out later. The purpose of the void is mostly to suck up any debris or attacks that would come against the temple.

[Kaschei Bessmertny]

Kaschei Bessmertny was the man behind Scrag. The man he ordered not to intervene. However, no one would know this since he was wearing a thick, black and crimson cloak and had a hood over his head. You see, when the Temple of Terror openned, he decided that it was time for a career change ...and perhaps ....a change of faith. He would never accept this religion, but, he would accept it as a ladder to climb to meet his ultimate goals. The only delimma now was he had to find a new person to organize the Russian mafia on his behalf.

Kaschei went inside as ordered, but decided to travel out of a back door so he could re enter the fighting if it was needed. He passed through the backside entrace and was careful to avoid the cloud of death, since he was not certain how it would impact him.

When he arrived out front, he saw Tristan's void and studied the elf's features very carefully.

[haakon]

So far, Haakon's attacks had been countered each time, but this did not perturb Haakon. He knew from the beginning that this day would put all of his abilities to the test; Haakon was still confident that he would be the victor this day... he still cared nothing about the women that had been sacrificed to their false god. "Then how fitting that you die under the same notion..." Haakon said as the blue flames battered against the aura of death and decay to no avail; withdrawing slightly while changing it's shape once more.

Holding his arms out, the eldritch energy engulfed his arms once more and stretched out like two giant pillars; the ends of these giant pillars of eldritch energy taking the form of a pair of giant hands. Guiding the hands with his own, Haakon raised his hands up over his head making the giant arms of blue energy follow suit as he clenched his fists. Bringing his arms back down as if he was driving a wedge into a stump, the fists of the eldritch energy came hurling down toward Scrag and his aura; intent on smashing them both with a single powerful blow.

Haakon took notice of the vortex, but only slightly as he kept himself in place with his mind. "So many fools..." Haakon thought as the vortex made the wind whipped at his cloak, making the fabric flutter wildly.

[kalma]

"No, I'll come with you." Kalma replied to Genki. Knowing that Genetech had a great many biological creatures that could get loose and though she wasn't sure of Genki's capabilities, she was sure she should be with him to ensure that nothing happend to him; she owed Momo that much. Hopping out of the helecopter, she waited for Genki to lead the way.

[Will Bonacelli]

Will manage to escape from Scrag's aura of death and some of Haakon's blue flames covered concretes. He have no choice but transform back to his troll form. He kick some of the flames concretes to other buildings. He doesn't care about other buildings get destroy, but hope that Scrag doesn't mind. When Will notice Haakon made large hands out his energy aiming at Scrag, he quickly ran towards Haakon and jump toward him Soon enough, he kick him at his chest.

"I understand that Scrag is a grown man.....but if almost felt that I own him something...." Will says to Haakon as he land on the ground.

Will quickly notice vortex and try his place to stay at one place.

[Genki Kurokawa]

Genki smile before he and Kalma enter into Genetch. He wonder what type of person the President or anyone of the company is like. He hopes that they are pretty nice people.

"I hope anyone won't get mad at me for my mom's actions aganist SOTA...." Genki whisper to Kalma as they walk through the hallways.

[Max Alexander]

((Anyone can join in, im just throwin out a post))

Following the attack on Helsinki, Max Alexander returned to England to finish finalizing his plans on the Satelites.

He sent Momo and Dinari emails with the finalized blueprints and anxiously awaited their replies.

After sending the emails, Max got up and went to his kitchen. He made a cup of coffee and read the paper.

"Hmm, beginning of Holy week." He mumbled before grabbing banana and heading back to his office where he flipped the television on and watched a bit of MTV News. He still needed to organize some focus groups for his new reality TV show idea, and perhaps Momo's some what insane ideas.

[Jack Kruschev]

“Ciao ciao for now, hon,” Anthony replied as he begins to put some books back onto his shelf and Li leaves. He took a glance at his watch to see the time, and it was nearly 10 O’clock at night! He still had a lot of work to do, but, normally, he’d be heading home and going to bed in a couple hours.

Deciding to screw work, Anthony would go home and eat dinner only to go to bed. He had a plane flying out the next morning, and he had to present something to Li. It would definitely play with everyone’s perception of reality.

Before leaving, Anthony went into his lab and checked his lab. Coming in, he picked up a vial and looked into it to make sure that it was still there. Taking a look in, he saw a few of Jumala’s hairs taken off a Mecha after the attack of Helsinki.

[Kaschei Bessmertny]

When it seems that Haakon has at least been distracted by Will, Kaschei moves closer to them both. He comes up behind them both and he raises his time staff. He starts chanting something....

At first, he considered pausing time, and then, he considered reversing time to before the incident, but instead, he decides to send Haakon to the future.

He completes the chant and sends Haakon to the moment when the world ends. The year is 79 M. In a flash of light, he is wisked away to the future.

"That ought to take care of that meddlesome elf." Kaschei says with a frown. He looks around to see if he can see the elf, but there is no sign of him.

[Heikki Toivonen]

The Year is 79 M, to Haakon

Heikki watches as Attis and some others fight Kaschei. The sorcerer is finally almost dead. Maybe now there will be peace. There will be no gods, no Manalists, and with Kaschei gone, the revolution may actually succeed. Heikki watches it all go down, but feels there is something very wrong.

The fight is taking place in a desolate, mountainous area. The fight has been long and intense,but will finally end the years of war against the gods and between the corporations.

Suddenly, there is a flash of light behind him. Heikki looks behind him and sees an elf.

"Who are you?! You have to get away from here. It's dangerous!" He shouts.

[Kaschei Bessmertny]

Year 79 M

"Fools, you can't defeat me! You can never defeat me. The bird of prophesy said that when I die, the world will die with me!" Kaschei threatens. He is bloody and bruised. The collective effort of various rebels, corporations, dragons, Manalists, and others took its toll on him.

Kaschei looks out and spots an elf. He is distracted for a moment, but remembers something.

"This is the end." He tells everyone. With that, he plunges his time staff into his own chest. He falls down....and a bright gray light explodes from him....

[Heikki Toivonen]

79 m

"We have to run. We have to get out of here." Heikki shouts at the elf. There is a teleportation booth not too far from there. The gray light spreads, destroying the rebels closest to Kaschei at the time of his death. Everything in the path of the quick moving light cloud is obliterated. Heikki runs as fast as he can. He grabs the shirt of the elf and together they run to the booth.

"There is a time booth in Dublin. We have to get there." Heikki explains as they run to the teleportation booth. Heikki quickly puts in the code for Dublin, for the HQ of GOD. They are teleported in an instant, and seconds later, the gray zone sweeps over the teleportation booth they had just entered.

"We have to find it..." Heikki says once they are in the now ruined corporate HQ of the company GOD.

[Kaschei Bessmertny]

55 M

"What a mess. Let's do this again." Kaschei states as he looks at part of the damage done to the Highest Temple. Some people were actually injurred and others were sucked into Tristan's void.

Kaschei pauses time for a moment. He stands there, the only one moving now. People are frozen like statues, still terrified on behalf of the Master and all that just transpired.

Kaschei rewinds time to before when the Master is about to give the speech, and when the elf made its appearance. After rewinding time, he pauses it again. He searches the crowd for the elf.

"This time he isn't here. Hmm....that's very strange."

Kaschei keeps everyone paused and threads his way through the crowd. He remembers the approximate area where the elf appeared, but he does not see him. Oh well, if he appears again, he will just have to try it again. Though, it does puzzle him why he can't find the elf. Maybe he just isn't looking in the right place.

He resumes time.

It is time for Scrag's speech to begin. Kaschei keeps an eye out for the elf.

[Master Scrag]

The first day or so of the holy week is filled with speeches from various priests representing all of the major temples of the world. The priests vary in race, power, and style of leadership and it is one of the few times that so many High Priests are together. For most of the year, they are busy running their local temples and district of temples.

Finally, on day two, there is a ceremony, as Scrag promised. The Master appears again before a large crowd of people.

"Today, you will have something that is normally restricted to the everyday people of the world. But, this is a holy week and there is cause for celebration. In this time of celebration, we will extend to you one of the great gifts of Father Manala. A gift that came from God to enhance our senses and spirits."

As the Master speaks, priests and other religious workers pass out a single red leaf to every single member of the crowd. This is something rate indeed, since only priests are allowed to use Red Leaf.

"Take this, the gift of Father Manala. Chew the leaf so that it will release its powers into your body and that you might have higher understanding of your great purpose in the pursuit of perfection."

When everyone has taken their leaves and put them in their mouth, The Master reveals the next stage of the ceremony: human sacrifice.

Near him, on the balcony, three women are brought out. They have brown bags on their heads made of sackcloth, and their hands and feet are tied.

"Father Manala is a violent god. To appease him, he wants sacrifice. When he sees suffering, he smiles. He smiles at the suffering of women. This is because women are naturally weaker than men. We must rid this world of weakness..."

A priest pulls the sacks from the heads of the women, who look somewhat terrified.

"How shall we kill them?! How shall we please our Father?" The Master calls out to the crowd.

He is not aware of the fight that just took place, or that will take place, or could have taken place.