Scions, Floating Chapter

The burning, the burning.

They came in uncountable numbers; waves upon waves of them -- like a black tide. Flying things, men, undying warriors, guns, guns, blades. Oh so many guns. Oh so much blood. So many lost. The screaming...

THE SCREAMING!

He broke, and fled. He crawled away, wishing he was stronger, wishing he was more. If he were only stronger, braver...

He dragged himself low under the wreckage; the debris of peaceful, innocent rural life. He pulled himself, his blood spattered self, away from the yelling. It was all over back there except for the shouting. He should be able to help. It was up to him wasn't it? If God was to help anyone, then He required they help themselves -- to stand up to help others, and be helped in turn. That was it wasn't it? So why was he running, crawling away?

He was a priest for God's sake. How could he live with himself? He dragged himself through a ditch under a ruined wall, looked up. The cross, the motifs... He was in a church. He knelt before the cross, but it had no words for him. He prayed softly, but if God had any words for him, he could not hear them. There was only the yelling and shouting behind him, only the few people he should be saving, he should be helping God to save, if only he knew how.

What do you mean you don't know? You've always known how. It's all that's asked. His mind raced along, telling him. Something from the scriptures, what was it?

Something, something not of God, but man, was with him. Hovering beside him, invisible over him. He could feel it, could feel the wings, could feel the presence.

The people he'd left, left dammit, he was a priest dammit, how could he leave them? He heard the shooting slacken. He heard the crunch of footsteps. He was afraid, so afraid... did he? Did he really know what he had to do.

Do you want to help them? Of course he wanted to help... the women and children, who knew what would happen to them. Would the men die, or be taken for re-education? Did it matter anymore.

Will you do it? What kind of a question was that? Will he do it? He was so afraid, they had to be saved. There was a voice in his head, a voice laughing at him, calling him a coward. Asking, asking that dammed question.

Well, will you? The footsteps, there were two of them. He'd only made it so far crawling away, kneeling here in the obvious place, if it had been possible under the parched sky, the ubiquitous ruins, to pick out a church. The two men were there, in their reinforced Kevlar armor, their battle armor and their visored helmets, carrying their short bullpup guns. Their kind had made it impossible not to know such things, things about Kevlar, things about guns. He couldn't see their faces from their helmets, black visored helmets like someone that was supposed to be flying a jet, yet sadly pulled to Earth.

Damn them, he was a priest, damn them, he saved people. The two men leveled their guns at him, then slumped a little. No need for fast action maybe?

Maybe you don't want to save them? That was impossible, but what he asked... what was asked. He heard the women and children screaming. He heard the shooting. That strange form in his head... five wings... five wings? He heard the bolts pulled back on the guns.

Then will you do it?

Will you die for them?

Such a simple question. Would he do it, would he give everything he was, all his chances, all that he could be. Would he do that to save those people? He clutched to his collar, his small white priests collar. It seemed sacrilege in a way, to give his body of man to man, not God. It so seemed like it was about to return to the earth beneath anyway... but the chance. It was the chance. Could he give up the chance? Really, as one last high pitch scream sounded out, was there ever really a choice? Of his own free will.

The gunmen walked up. Their duty to the Immortal God Emperor was clear. Kill the useless, kill the clergy. This one seemed both. They still found it hard to fire on a kneeling man. It was a little wrong, and there was something... maybe a twinge of conscience? Maybe a twinge of something... else. The man was talking... what was he saying?

"Of my own free will." the priest said, slowly, purposefully, "I agree."

The gunmen, blessed of the Emperor, took a step back in confusion. They didn't quite understand, but it didn't seem to bad. Possibly this one could be useful if he had that much strength. What was he agreeing to?

The man, an old man, maybe fifty, stood. It was slow at first, and he was still slumped a little, until he looked up at the cross and smiled a wan, sad smile. Holding his hands as fists before him, he let out a deep breath.

"Hey!" one of the gunmen shouted, "Hey, priest!"

Smiling ever so slightly, ever so differently, the old man turned back towards them, his eyes twinkling oddly as he flexed his fingers ever so slightly manically before him. It was almost as if his hands were coated with blood, the way he held them. With a grin, a horrible grin, he reached up to his priest's collar and pulled it off.

The imperials stopped short, transfixed by that maniacal gleam, that so different feeling now radiating from what was once an old man.

"Sorry," he said, "The padre isn't in at the moment."

Then, as he flexed his fingers and grinned at them, he added, "Though if you want to leave a message, well... if you've got the intestines I've got the time."

As a pair of advanced scouts for the God-Emperor's grand army the two armored soldiers had seen a lot. From giant monsters to servants and robots, they'd been through it. Yet oddly the older man standing before them unnerved them more than most, save the Queen maybe...

The two soldiers brought their guns up after only a moment's hesitation. The strange dread of this fiendishly smiling man getting to them. Sadly even an instant's hesitation pulling the trigger proved to long. They felt the presence between them. They felt their belts lighten. They felt the pressure up under their helmets. The man was between them in an instant and their own service automatics were pressed up to their chins, right under the armored helmets.

In all honesty there were few places that a low penetration pistol would pierce the standard suit of full body imperial armor. However, the small zipper right under the suit's chin before it slipped under the chest plate was one of them.

There was no time to react. There was no time to move. The guns went off at the same time, the bullets piercing up into the soldier's skulls. Unable to penetrate the helmet each bullet ricochets around inside. In less time than it took for the priest to pull the triggers the soldier's heads were little more than pulp in a bucket.

Tossing the guns aside with nary a thought the priest strode out towards the sounds of screaming.

----

The women and children were getting annoying.

As the survivors of 2nd Platoon, A Company, in his exalted God Emperor's 1409th regiment would like it, the remaining squad of them would have preferred to immediately shoot the lot. It wasn't quite enough though. Out of forty five men, the squad was now down to twelve and their commander. That kind of beating wasn't something they just could take sitting down. Punishment had to be meted out in kind.

Though the children were screaming and the women in some cases cursing and pleading, they would have to watch all of this. The men, most beaten to a pulp, might just have to not make it to the reeducation chambers, accidentally of course. The hero... As for the sword wielding warrior who had given them so much grief in taking this god-forsaken town... a group oriented bashing was just what the platoon needed.

"Beat the bastard!" one of the men on watch called out to the four stomping and kicking the *FINALLY* down and groaning swordsman. It was completely unnecessary though. The sword wielding warrior, responsible for more than two dozen deaths in the platoon himself, was getting one hell of a beating. It had taken more than twenty hits and grazes by bullets, over the course of an hour, to pull the bastard down. In their anger the men were kicking every single bleeding, bruised one of them.

"Noooo!" the children who could call out past the crying shouted, "Get up Mr. VanBurace!"

"Yeah Vanbrace! Get up! Get up!" mocked the soldiers as they kicked him. The man was still managing to hold his arms up and block a little, but that made his assailants kick even harder.

"It's Jack VanBurace!" the man on the ground managed to growl past bleeding, swollen lips, "If you're going to kill someone, get their name right!"

"Who cares about the names of the dead?" the soldiers laughed amongst themselves.

Even to the fallen warrior's trained eye the situation looked grim. The other fighters on his side were down, shot at least twice each and beaten to boot. The women were no help, not that they couldn't fight, but the children stopped them from doing too much. Father Bren might have gotten away, the only bright spot in all this mess, but two of the soldiers had gone tracking in his direction, and that old man wouldn't stand much chance if they found him. As it was going, well the words to describe it weren't to be spoken in the presence of children.

"The names of the dead must be recorded for their deeds." an old but strong voice called out, "As the names of the living are so that they may be known and saved."

"BREN?!" one of the women shouted, looking up in shock. The preacher was standing, dressed in his normally immaculate black suit, above them on a path leading into the fray. Even at the ten meters or so distance he was at the foolish priest, not the bravest man at the best of times, was far too close to get away anymore.

Some of the soldiers laughed openly at the priest as he stood there. The guards on the side he'd approached stalked closer to the lone, unarmed man, closing a little more than half the distance. As they stood they were still slightly below him on the slope. They were cautious though, and out of arms reach. They alone seemed to realize the people after the priest were nowhere to be seen.

"You're a little late preacher." one of the two near him said, his gun still not raised, "Not much left to preach to here."

"Oh but there's always praying to do." said Father Bren with an odd wicked smile, his arms crossed almost as if he was annoyed, then motioned towards the fray with a hand, "Looking at the state of the group down there, I'd say they need a lot of it."

The soldiers almost chuckled. The nearest to the priest weren't wearing helmets and their expressions might have seemed a bit sad past their professional demeanor and hard features. Even the soldiers beating the hero had stopped and were looking over.

The priest took them all in with a single glance. Ten soldiers, half helmeted, all armed but most not particularly at attention or nearly battle ready except the guards. Two guards north, two guards south near him. The last man, not a soldier, some sort of commander stood separate from the others, nearly like a statue, with his arms crossed, watching dispassionately off to the west.

"You don't have much of a prayer preacher!" one of the soldiers called out. The preacher gave him a sad, sad smile. The soldiers laughed again.

"Run Father! Try to run!" one of the women called out, and got a hard tap from a rifle butt for it.

Of all the lookers on only one man, the hero, beaten and on the ground had a different cast to his expression. He looked at the priest with wide eyes, almost frightened.

"That's not Father Bren..." VanBurace said in a horrified gasp.

The two guard soldiers began to bring up their weapons, looking almost sad to do it. The priest turned his attention back to them.

"You really don't have a prayer priest." one of them said, "We don't have a use for old men like yourself."

The father smiled, almost evilly as he looked down at them. With a wicked smile he spread his arms slightly, leaving his elbows at his waist.

"No prayer?" he said, with a slight bit of confusion, then he figured something out to himself, "Oh, that's it."

"Huh..." the soldiers before him managed to say.

"But let me enlighten you." the preacher said with a wide grin, his voice louder, reaching across the scene. He was now holding a large, round object in each hand.

He turned looking to the objects and told them, "This is the way I pray."

And with that he tossed away the two soldier's decapitated heads, before their now far shorter bodies even had the chance to hit the ground.

The response was a roar. Gunfire, fast and overwhelming. All six free automatic rifles were brought to bear and firing. Under the fusillade the hillside exploded into a cacophony of small bursts. The bodies of the two dead soldiers jerked about, their compatriots giving no pause to the dead as they blared away on full auto.

The priest swayed, looking less than concerned as the bullets impacted around him. Step by step he walked forwards. He swayed back and forth almost as if dancing to some song only he could hear. His hands held non-threateningly behind his back the priest simply kept coming, slowly, right through it.

Eyes wide the soldiers concentrated their fire even more. The bullet counts on their bullpup rifles flying downwards. In response the priest started blurring a little with each sway until what he waited for in his slow approach finally happened. Something a trained unit of soldiers should never let happen. Something that was assured to happen if everyone started firing at once and didn't stop.

All the soldiers ran out of bullets at once. The click sounded like a thunderclap in panicked ears. Half a dozen hands reached down for new clips as half a dozen fingers jammed onto the clip releases. The two men who hadn't been firing, tasked to watch the women and children, wheeled and aimed for the priest, but he wasn't there.

On the far side of the vale one of the northern guards nearly dropped his clip as the preacher nigh appeared before him. Crouched low, his black jacket whipping behind him, the priest smiled at his victim as he landed, then reached out and slapped the soldier's helmet around backwards.

The two still armed soldiers wheeled quickly, finding their target and opened up. The priest slipped in behind the first blinded opponent, holding him up as the soldier was riddled with automatic weapons fire.

The officer's head fell into his hand as he murmured, "Check fire morons."

It took a second and a spread of about ten bullets hitting their comrade before the two soldiers took stock and stepped back, horrified. Enough of the bullets had gotten through his frontal armor to make the soldier a mangled mess, and he hit the ground a second later.

The priest was to the second guard just as his clip clicked into place. Grabbing the man's helmet the holy man disdainfully pushed back and down with massive force. The sickening sound of bones cracking filled the scene as the priest bent the soldier over backwards on himself.

"Servant class..." one of the soldiers that had been beating the downed hero gasped as he and his compatriots spread out, racking their rifles.

The preacher turned towards the group of four, slipping easily between the renewed bursts of fire. He came in below their line of sight, dashing so low to the ground his chin could have trailed in the dirt. Caught by surprise by the sudden change of distance the first soldier's rifle was slapped aside, and his friends found it difficult to fire.

The priest grinned and pressed his hand to the soldier's chest, whispering "Hakkei soukou sui," then allowed the momentum of his charge to pass into his foe. The soldier's form inside his armor crumpled, the chest flattening and loosing shape. The crushed body flew back into another solider and landed the both of them in a panicked pile.

Again the soldiers opened up on the cleared priest, and again their bullets found nothing.

Standing apart from the one sided melee the officer reached into the air and pulled a glaive out from nothingness. Tilting his head he sized up the fighter below him and shrugged slightly.

"At least he has a little speed." the man remarked sullenly.

Already the priest had gotten under the fire of another soldier. He caught the gunman with a quick elbow backfist then kick that came so fast on each other's tails they made a peculiar echoing noise and shattered his helmet. The man swayed back, droplets of blood coming from his nose and ears before the priest dropped down under a burst of bullets and swept his legs out from beneath him then grabbed his feet and used the man as a club to beat the next soldier along to death with.

There was a flurry of motion as the crushed body of a previous soldier was pushed aside and the gunman under him brought his gun to bear at nigh point blank range. With a battle cry almost like a childish scream he opened up with his gun. The rifle blasted on full auto, but except for a slight blur between them there was no sign the priest even noticed before the rifle clicked empty.

"Hmm..." the preacher grumbled, walking over to the downed soldier, one fist clenched, "You dropped these."

Opening his fist the priest dropped all bullets the soldier fired, but one, down in front of him. The last bullet he flicked through the soldier's unhelmeted head.

A gasp beside him brought the priest's attention to one of the other forms laying on the ground. Jack VanBurace was trying to get up. The two remaining soldiers had their guns pointed at him but one stern look from the priest sent them scurrying away towards their officer.

"Who are you?" VanBurace managed through the pain.

"Trouble." the priest returned simply with a wane smile.

"Sir! Sir!"

The two soldiers, though both visibly scared, acted as best the could under the stress. One raced back to their commander, calling out, while the other covered him from the foot of the vale. Neither fired, neither cared to. They were out of their league against a servant class foe and they knew it.

Their commander looked down disdainfully as his subordinate came up to him. The soldier was white as a sheet, sweating though he hadn't really done much more than pull a trigger and take a jog.

The running soldier halted before his officer and saluted "Sir, with respect we could use..." he started saying, before the blade of his commander's glaive ripped through his stomach. Lifted up one handed the dying soldier gurgled something that could have passed for questioning why if it hadn't come up with a welter of blood.

Looking back down the commander watched the priest dash in through the last soldier's gunfire. Zigzagging left and right under the bullets the preacher caught the soldier with another oddly resonating set of blows that sent the armored man flying.

"Hmm." the commander remarked, tossing one soldier off his glaive to cut the last out of the air, and in half, with a offhanded slash, "Decently quick, nothing special, maybe a saber or a berserker."

The priest looked up at the man above him with a slightly peeved look on his features, "I was trying to let that one live, you didn't have to do that."

"Worthless mortal trash, they were hardly good enough to be my retinue anyway." the commander grumbled haughtily. Pulling away his normal physical armor the commander formed an ornate set of old Chinese oriental mixed ring and plate.

"I would think a person like you would be better on his men." the priest said without concern, rubbing the back of his head with one hand while fixing his tie with the other.

"Speak not of those you don't know." the officer ordered in commanding tone, "I am a Servant of his Immortal Grandness, Emperor of the Imperium. You shall know me as Lancer."

The priest slumped slightly, looking almost annoyed at the enemy officer, now looking rather like a noble Chinese warrior. He scratched the back of his neck again, glancing up and around.

"Augh, so hung up on the old assigned titles," he grumbled, "All from a summoning system for a war that's not even happening right now."

"The God Emperor has summoned me in this manner." the officer replied, "And Lancer I am."

"Odd, I thought you were Guan Yu."

The officer on the rise almost coughed a fit, accidentally breathing in his spit in surprise. The priest just shrugged.

"I mean really," he pointed out, remarking on the officer's features, "That red completion, your glaive, and I've seen you in plenty of Chinese paintings. While you don't really seem to be acting properly, you're certainly Guan Yu."

Catching himself and throwing off his coughing fit the Chinese Servant slammed the butt of his glaive into the ground and stood to his full height as he spoke, "Your knowledge certainly shows you as one like us, not of this world which never had a dynastic China, and your intellect serves you well, but how may I ask am I acting unlike myself?"

"The original Guan Yu was all but the byword for honor." the priest pointed out, "He treated his men well and was loved by many, so much that he's still revered today. What I've seen of you not helping, and even killing your own men, it doesn't fit at all."

"I am a higher being. A servant of the God Emperor, authorized to act on his behalf in a manner fitting my Lord. As for those... men..." Guan Yu stated, coldly, "...do you pay heed to the ants you step on."

"From time to time." the priest replied in a growl, clenching his fists, "What has that bastard done to you? I may not have known every being worthy of a throne, but the way you're acting, all of you... what did that damn Gilgamesh do to you?"

Guan Yu bent his knees, slipping his feet further apart as he pointed his glaive at the priest, "You shall not speak of the God Emperor by name."

"Stop me." the priest started.

And his opponent blurred then vanished.

The priest grunted slightly as he bent backwards and let one knee collapse out from under him. His sudden fall away took him from the path of Guan Yu's charging blade.

"Respectable reflexes." the Chinese lancer remarked. In the space of time it took him to say it he'd already thrown five more stabs and a quick slash, all of which the priest narrowly twisted out of the way of.

In only a few seconds the pair had danced through almost a dozen attacks by Guan Yu and the same number of evasions by the priest. The Chinese warrior found he was fighting another who had learned at least the technique to evade spears in the Chinese way. His storm of stabs was slipped around with minimum movement. The bloodied tassel tied near the blade, an impediment to dodging, and in fact even seeing, to an opponent unused to it was proving equally ineffective.

"Good skills too." the Lancer accessed out loud, bringing his glaive around low then shifting his footing so it rose up to spear his opponent.

"You've no idea." the priest said with a wolfish grin, then reached out and slapped the flat of Guan Yu's glaive, pushing the blade away from him and twisting about inside the Chinese warrior's defense.

"What the?!" Guan Yu managed to step back and block as the priest slid in with an elbow smash to what would have been the Chinese warrior's head. Spinning the glaive around behind his neck Guan Yu tried to nail the priest with the butt end of his glaive only to watch the older man all but ride the edge of his attack as he dodged away. It was so close the preacher's cheek rippled slightly from the near impact.

"Reversed strike, predictable." the preacher pointed out, and got a storm of swings, slashes, and staff-like smashes in his direction for his troubles. Swaying along he rode each of the attacks, barely getting out of the way of them, but never threatened by any either.

"You're using a multiple layer technique in your strikes" Guan Yu growled, swinging and striking nothing as the preacher flowed out of his weapon's path, "And that flow, it's Tao damn it, where did you learn such a thing? Is that one of the newer forms? Tai Chi maybe?"

"No, much older," the priest responded.

The Chinese warrior stepped back but with that the preacher drove in, slipping under and past everything Guan Yu threw to crack him half a dozen times in the face and legs. Throwing Guan Yu off balance the preacher grabbed the Lancer's wrist and twisted. The two rolled as Guan Yu corrected and tried to throw his opponent instead, ending up in a confusing mix of flips and spins before the priest caught his feet under him and punched Guan Yu in the face so hard the ground shook. The servant was bowed only for a second. Uncaring of normal physical damage the spirit being wasn't even staggered by a punch that would have cracked a boulder.

"That style... it can't be!" Guan Yu roared, driving forward, realizing the force of his own movements had been turned on him in that punch. As he swung the priest simply touched the haft of his glaive and moved it slightly out of the way. It was something so small but what he'd been doing against all Guan Yu's better techniques.

"Tie jiang liu." the Chinese warrior added, "I've fallen into the current of the iron river, you must be one of the older masters, one of the ancient thrones."

"You are pretty good." the priest said with a wry smile, "Too good. I've run out of time for you."

"But that would mean..." the Chinese warrior gasped in sudden realization, "You've been..."

"Hadou" the priest started. Guan Yu's eyes widened as the priest flipped easily onto the grip of his glaive, running right up his own weapon.

"...holding back."

The priest's elbow drove into the Chinese warrior's face, followed in quick succession by a trailing fist, then a crushing side thrust kick. The combination struck with a strange echoing sound. This time the force was so much even a servant had to give way. Guan Yu sailed back through the air.

"Futae"

The Chinese servant caught himself, landing on both feet and only slightly rocked back. His glaive was held defensively before him. It didn't help at all. The priest was just there under his defense, in a low, wide stance, one fist held pressed up under Guan Yu's chin.

Time slowed. The Chinese servant had no time to act, no time to move. He was a lancer, the fastest of all servants. That shouldn't be possible, he shouldn't have been totally unaware of his foe's movement!

What Speed! the servant managed to think in the tiny slowed moment, before time continued.

"No Kiwami"

Guan Yu's head vanished in a blue burst of energy. His body slumped back, then broke apart into motes of light and dissipated into the ether. As fast as that it was over.

"He lost his head again." the preacher remarked with his lopsided grin, "Bad habit to have."

There was a rumbling sound. It had been in the background for a few moments already, but until now was hidden under the sound of the fighting. The preacher put his hand to the ground and looked to the west.

"Here they come." he said, nodding, "Not more than a few miles now."

The priest looked back into the vale. In the midst of the dead soldiers the women had awakened those of their men folk that could be brought back to consciousness and now were leading the children off. Two of the men had picked the hero VanBurace up and were helping him away while the others carried off their other injured. It was slow going at any rate.

"You'll never get away at this rate eh?" the preacher said to no one in particular, then with a sigh, "Time to go to work."

He slapped his cheeks with both hands, almost as if waking himself up, then took a deep breath. Letting it go with a sigh he reviewed the situation.

The battle prior had been timed, it had to be. The enemy had been a scout force. Deadly as they were the group was only meant to check the lay of the land, kill small enemy units, and handle the odd heroic individual in their paths. That they even had a servant, as much as he had done for them, was likely more to buy time against stronger opponents than anything else.

Buy time for the main army to arrive. He could feel them coming, a huge wave of living beings, still out of sight but massive. Looking back to the group of fighters and civilians, slowly dragging themselves off, he knew he'd have to do something or they'd never make it away and he'd never fulfill his pact. Not that it was any surprise what he'd have to do next. He'd known it all along.

As the civilians made their way slowly out of the vale, away from the oncoming army, the preacher smiled, waved and walked in the other direction.

VanBurace pulled himself free of those carrying him and called back, "I don't know who you are, even if you look like our priest, but this is our fight. You don't need to sacrifice your life for us."

Never stopping his ever present smile the priest looked back and answered, "This is my fight, as soon as I came here I took up that weight." then paused and continued, "I'll buy you your time, just get the hell out of here."

"I can't begin to thank you." VanBurace replied.

"Then don't." the priest spat back and continued to walk, "I don't need thanks, just doing my job."

"You'll always be welcome with us if you make it back."

"Make it back?" the priest laughed, turning for a second time, "Is that all you think I'm going to do?"

"What are you planning then?" VanBurace questioned.

"The only thing left to me, now as ever." the priest replied as he crested the rise and started down the other side, "I'm going to win."

With that the priest put the civilians behind him and out of sight. Feeling for the enemy, not much of a task admittedly, he picked out that they would be visible around the next couple of rises, maybe two or three miles away. He made those couple of rises in the space of two quick steps, disappearing and appearing atop one then the next.

Below him, crossing a vast plain between the foothill he stood upon and the next, was a mighty army if ever had been seen one. The priest took the scene in with a familiar practiced eye.

The group was spread at least a mile across and a half mile deep, broken up into cohort sized units of troops. Even with the logical separation between those units, there had to be at least forty to fifty thousand of them. The troops were almost all swordsmen, suggesting an affinity for swords and insane charges not held in the earlier scout force.

Between the troop units strode tall mecha. Mighty Gundams, tank type mechs, and smaller floating platforms filled to the brim with mages and other magickers. Fifty thousand, with all the extra advanced units they had to have at least fifty thousand warriors.

Spread in amongst them where the servants. Maybe a hundred or so. It looked like Ptolemy led this particular army. Not a bad choice to be sure, along with a number of strong looking adjunctants.

He noticed with a smirk that only European and Mesopotamian servants were in charge of everything. All the servants from more far flung venues, the Orient, the Americas, deep south Africa, were placed in subservient or menial comparative roles. The reason for Guan Yu's upset was obvious. Cast improperly as a Lancer instead of a Rider? Put in charge of a scout force of menials? Gilgamesh certainly had his prejudices about who got to lead what.

Fifty thousand troops, hundreds of mecha and a hundred servants? Basic forms and fast movement would mean a giant heaping pile of nothing against that. The priest shook his head and smiled. This was a fight he'd have to handle entirely himself.

Reaching out to the world he stood on the priest pulled the ley lines, reforming a node beneath his feet for quicker charging, then spread his stance a bit and reached to the sky.

"Well, it's time we were back together eh darkness?" he asked to no one in particular, then in a commanding voice he ordered, "RETURN!"

For the first time that day the wide open, cloudless sky split with a boom. A twin crack of something parting the firmament at a speed faster than sound. Eyes turned towards the hill before them. Thousands of pairs.

The priest fixed his hair with his right hand as he looked at the object now in his right. A sword, his sword, his dark sword. The blade, long with a wide foregrip. The crossguard a pair of intertwined dragons. The grip, longer than needed for two hands, ending with a faceted weight for a pommel. In the middle of the guard, a mighty blood red stone, almost an eye. The sheen on the blade was perfect, not a mark or a blemish, yet even in the new light of day the sword's reflection was muted, almost as if it reflected not light, but darkness.

As if responding to the priest's look the blood red jem in the guard turned a errie greenish black with motes of green light flickering through it. From within the blade came an ominous throaty growl. Listening to this the priest's smile faded and he held the sword high.

"KESCHLACT!" the priest shouted.

For the second time there was a boom, and this time lightning from a clear sky. All eyes turned towards the blackness radiating from the hill in their path.

Hair turned, from grey to a brown almost black. Body changed, bones cracked and creaked. Genetics altered as he rewrote it more to his liking. Flesh reformed to its new template. Muscles and sinew tore then reformed larger. Clothes calcified, shifting and contorting into a suit of slightly translucent black crystal armor. Eyes changed, no longer old and blue with grey, now even older with a strange greenish color that shifted with the light.

Where there had been an old man standing atop a hill with a sword, now there was someone completely different. He was almost half the body's original age, a head again as tall, and broader. From a priest who while wiry, wasn't particularly built he had become a man in the prime of fighting condition, a body built for strength and speed. Cased in a layered body suit of armor, similar to those of the warriors he was facing, but adding an extra layer of armor crystal he looked the world like a man who could stand down an army.

It was just up to action to see if he actually could.

Looking down on the milling army David took a deep, solemn breath. He reached down, took a hold of his sheath, resting on his right side, then flipped his sword through his fingers to resheath it with a simple flourish.

"A challenge." he spoke softly, then nodded, introducing himself.

"I am of the darkness
Yet I shine out against the night
I am the brightest of the dark
I am the darkest of the light
I am blasphemy
I am faith
I am death from life
And life that defies death
I am forever changing
Yet forever the same
I am Balance and the Balancer
I am..."

Again he was here. Again he stood ready for battle, on this ancient hallowed field. It was always the same, but how long had it been since he'd fought an army. It was the way of the world, cycles in cycles. It had and would always come back to this eventually. Battle, fighting, poignant or pointless, loss of life, warrior verses soldier, man verses masses. He'd seen so much of it...

Again he was here, and a wry smile split his features.

Was there any better place?

Down on the plain orders were being shouted, loud enough to hear across the field. Men were readying. A servant level opponent had turned up in their path, and it was time for overwhelming force.

The advanced elements of the force raised their swords, screamed a challenge then charged.

It was all David could do to stop laughing at them as they ran up his hill. He went over his options in a split second.

Oh this was far too good to waste on just normal techniques.

It was time to play with the sword.

With the most devilish grin imaginable... With left hand on his sword's grip and right holding the sheath... Seconds after taking a stance...

David broke into a run straight down the hill, straight into the enemy army, and straight into war.

The look on his face screamed he couldn't be loving it more.