More Meteor Showers Bring Even Stranger Powers. (O/A)

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Ikari nodded and took a sip of his wine. "I am dark chaos Incarnate, the son of shadows, and a whole myriad of other titles my mother bestowed upon me. You may call me Dusk."

"And I was not implying that you had failed due to incompetence. I opted to keep you in the dark, so to speak, in the event that you found the notion of being host to an ancient...unsettling."

He took another sip of his wine before studying Liv for a moment longer. "My my. you calmed down rather quickly. Most still have their shoulder's tensed at this point of the conversation. You would not happen to think that because you bested my weakened twin that you would have no problem in defeating me, would you?"

Dusk covered his mouth and chuckled to himself. "Ah, the hubris of youth. Miss Crystalion, there are things in this world that exist beyond your limited human comprehension."

"For example, the case of how it is my dearest sister still resides within Trinity. It would seem that your power to tap into the source of metahuman abilities, cut them off from the metahuman in question, and make it available to you has it's limits. You think you are taking their powers from them directly. What you are actually doing is nothing more than metaphysical theft. You, Miss Crystalion, are taking the powers from the very source of metahuman abilities."  

[Nova Blancke]

"Dusk.....fitting. Herald of Darkness sounds somewhat nice as well. After all, that is what comes after the Dusk isn't it?" Liv mused.

"Oh no, I never defeated her. I stopped her. But let's not find out shall we? These are some of my best clothes." Liv gave another small smile.

"Yes like that thing born from Legion." She replied

She did however raise her brow at his explanation.

"So what? You are saying that instead of taking it from the person I take it from whatever is providing that ability through that person?" Liv asked. She had never given it much thought. To her it was as simple as just draining the person of their abilities. Maybe destroy whatever mutation caused it afterwards.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

"Precisely. People think that he meteor shards are what grant the power. What they fail to realize, is that the fragments are but keys."

Dusk waved his hand dismissively. "But I digress. Many centuries ago, I thrust a meteor fragment into my sister's chest, creating the first meta-ancient. There were...circumstances that led to the two of us being robbed of our physical bodies and having to either sleep within the shadow realm, or we would inhabit the body of those we found suitable to host us."

"It embarrasses me to say this now, but the plan was for you to absorb my sister into yourself, lure you here, and then I would kill you and absorb all of your combined abilities into myself along with her power."

"But you see, Miss Crystalion, if my sister's essence still remains within Trinity, then you more than likely took her meta-ancient abilities as well as Trinity's metahuman abilities. Yet, if Trinity was able to channel my sister's power, then the meta-ancient powers cannot so easily be sealed as metahuman powers. And, without Silhouette's essence, I cannot absorb your powers. So killing you would be of no use to me."

He stood up, walked around the tables, and over to her calmly. He stopped a few feet short of her. His visage rippled like a mirage, and the shadows seemed to actually shrink away from him as if they were afraid.

"The magnitude of Silhouette's meta-ancient powers will destroy you in time, Miss Crystalion. The power you stole from your sister has staved off the inevitable, but it is just that: inevitable. Do you remember what you saw in the light prison? That floating mass of nothingness that you so ably 'stopped.'" That is your fate."

"But I can help you, for a price." he offered with the same smile.  

[Nova Blancke]

"So, let me get this right. You initially wanted me to absorb your Trinity's power, hoping that your sister would be absorbed as well as she doesn't have a physical form and is essentially fused with her power. Which didn't work. But you are claiming that I stole your sisters power as well? So I basically took a double dose of shadow manipulation. Correct?" Liv summed up what he told her.

"How the hell would you even be able to absorb what I have? And I think that your sister is already has her power back. She devoured that shadow being that was feeding of the shadow realm." She took a sip from her wine as he tried to intimidate her. Offering salvation after a threat.

"Why should I even believe you? That shadow in the light prison was your sister from what I understand. I don't have her."  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Dusk glanced over to the pile of dust against the wall by the fallen wheelchair. "That...is how I absorb essence. It is how I feed. Yet I cannot take abilities from humans, only ancients. My sister has eluded me only because of what our mother has done to protect her. But through someone like you, I had a loophole. Only I overestimated your power."

"And yes, that shadow was my sister...in a manner of speaking. Each of her hosts have succumbed to her power and given way to the void beast. The same power that destroyed her own body and mind. The same power that you have within you now."

He took another step toward her. "And to answer your question, why you should believe me...you do not have to. In time, you too will succumb to the void. When that happens, you only thought will be to fill the void. Yet it will never happen, for the void is without end. A tortured existence, to be certain. One that will be heralded by the whispers of the shadow fiends speaking to you in your nightmares. Followed by the rotting of your blood. Blood that will smoke and decay all that it touches outside of your body. That same blood will then melt away your flesh and give way to the shadows to become your body."

"Or, I grant you what you need to tame that power in exchange for something quite trivial in comparison to the torment you are sure to endure in the weeks to come. I give it about a month before you beg for my help."

He then stepped away from her and pressed the same button that sealed the door. There was a decompression, and then the door opened.

"I have said my piece. You are free to leave now. Oh, and I would greatly appreciate if you kept this meeting to yourself. I suggest that you do your best to cooperate with Miss Morris' assured investigation. I can assure you that they will not find any evidence of your involvement."

He stepped aside and smiled at her. This smile was rotten, sadistic, and lustful. "Do take good care of yourself, Liv. Know that from now on...you are never truly alone."  

[Nova Blancke]

She couldn't help but lean back a bit. Okay now he was intimidating. But still, didn't he knew she could heal? Sure the promise of rotting blood and stuff isn't nice.

"I'm curious though. What do you need from me? Surely someone like yourself can get whatever he wants on his own? I'm not buying any of this so far but we'll see." Liv said as she stood up.

"And could you be any more of a creep by saying that?"  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Dusk ignored her comment about him being a creep. He grinned and taunted, "Oh, you are 'buying it' more than you are willing to admit, or else you would not be so curious. Surely you need not concern yourself with my motives were I lying...would you?"  

[Nova Blancke]

"I just prefer knowing before hand instead of come back and begging for help as you described it."Liv said folding her arms beneath her chest and planting her feet firmly onto the ground." And I doubt you'll even tell me your true motive."  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Dusk studied Liv again for a moment. He thought intently for a moment before stating, "Progeny. In order to save you from the ancient's curse, the power must be placed into a vessel of innocence. You get to stay you, and I get an heir."  

[Nova Blancke]

"What?! That's your..?" Liv muttered. This was not what she was expecting at all! No way she would ever do that!

"Nope! Not from me you won't!" Liv stated with a firm denial." Hell no." With that she walked away from that creep.  

[PixelMuse]

Nova Blancke

"No, it wasn't his time! I could have saved him!" He said as he looked up. Tears rolling through the dried up blood, leaving a more fresh trail. "She was the one who begged me to stop."

"Don't you think if there was a glimmer of a chance he'd still be alive she wouldn't have asked you to stop? Chuck was the one who cut his time short, not you, which in turn made it his time... Don't blame this on yourself." She said what she needed to but odds are her man needed to grieve. It didn't matter what she said right now but hopefully he would come around and not let this swallow him.

Nova Blancke

He took a small pause."Something happened to her and she became a dragon. I pretty much gave her the okay to fry Chuck, which she did. So at least you don't have to worry about him anymore."

"Yeah … right…" she frowned a little. Theonis might have expected that this would be something she'd smile about but no. She noticed his expression questioning how she felt. Knowing full well he wouldn't understand, she got up out of his arms leaving the blanket and only wore her towel facing away from him. "Who are you to judge who should live and who should die? That's not our call. His recent actions may have not reflect it but Chuck was a good man. He followed orders when I was away and that happened often. Who do you think was in charge when we were going after Shane? Who was the head of sending backup in to save the metas at Matron's facility? That was all Chuck. He will be missed by quite a few of my troops. Heck they were probably looking forward to having a man in charge once more. I'm sure there will be quite a few that would be distraught to find out that he was with Daedalous all of this time and ai would have preferred holding him for questioning. To find out what Daedalous was intending to do with us." She turned toward Theonis, "He no longer had his legs Theo… coping with that for the rest of his life would have been punishment enough."

She sighed to herself she rubbed her arms a bit then rubbed her neck. It felt so strange being without her chocker she wasn't sure what happened to it she had to accept that she would probably never see that token that was passed down through generations.  

[Rikki Tikki Travi]

Nova Blancke

"What?! That's your..?" Liv muttered. This was not what she was expecting at all! No way she would ever do that!

"Nope! Not from me you won't!" Liv stated with a firm denial." Hell no." With that she walked away from that creep.

Dusk said nothing as Liv walked away. He only continued to smile while the door slid closed again. "She'll come back." he assured himself. "They always come back."  

[Nova Blancke]

"Do you really want to do this now Trin?" Theo looked up at her as he spoke in a soft tone with the sadness in his eyes.

"He killed Larry. Heather and I both lost him. Even if I didn't give the okay, you think I could have stopped Heather without killing her instead? Should I have stood in front of him? In front of a raging dragon to defend the man who killed the person I couldn't save? We'd both would have been fried...." He slowly got up and wrapped the blanket around her. Only then you could clearly see the amount of blood on him.

He held the edges tight and he sighed. Their foreheads connected as his eyes looked down at the ground.

"It's been a long day for both of us. Can we....not fight now? Please.."  

[PixelMuse]

Trinity felt the warm blanket on her shoulders as he questioned what he should have done. She may have done the same if she were in his shoes. "No, I don't want to fight right now... not really. It just bothered me how you brought up Chuck." her forehead still connected with his looking to the side.

"Blood...there's so much of it... none of it is yours is it?" she normally was not phased by blood. She'd see it all over, on her men after battle. But this was different this is Theonis, he's not a soldier.  

[Nova Blancke]

"Sorry." He just replied to her comment about Chuck. He was glad she didn't pursue the issue further. Theo stood up straight. At least tried to as he took a deep breath. " No, it's.....it's Larry's." He tried to look her in the eye but it was just too hard. Despite having killed Daedelus soldier before and having literally seen the insides of his friends this was different.

"Can we go home now?"