The Consumption of the Land of Dragons

Subject: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Fri Jun 18, 2010 2:15 pm

A silent and expansive bamboo grove. This was the very area Grazivus had haunted for so long. It seemed to finally be at peace. It really was. Noone had been here in months. Life had recovered from outside tampering, and everything was back in motion. Guards were replaced, doubled their strength and strengthened their patrol routes. The war they themselves were fighting had finally come to an end. And this spring had been prosperous and beautiful.

Finally, peace and prosperity.

Oh, but if only they knew.

A patrol of ten guards were stalking the very grounds Grazivus had last been seen. The guards had made quite a mockery of the haunting sounds Grazivus once made. They had started making jokes of it, scaring new recruits and the like. But when this patrol heard the noise of an eerie guitar echoing hollowly off the forest, and when they all shivered from the cruel sound, nobody laughed. Nobody had a doubt of what it was. They had heard the tales from the one man who survived the slaughter, only to die months later from a festering black wound. But they still had hope as they drew nearer to the source of the noise.

Blades drawn, they turned a corner where they saw the cause of the noise. Instead of deep-colored robes, they saw what could easily be described as the shadow of Grazivus. All black, with two golden eyes from under his wide-brimmed sunhat. And many small tendrils all over his figure.
Like a phantom of darkness.

The men were rooted. Mostly with fear. Maybe a little something more, beyond even their control.
"It is your destiny to die today." came a raspy but growling voice. Like a voice from the Grim Reaper itself.
"No! NO!" screamed one of the newer recruits, and dropped his sword with full intention of running.
He would have, too, if his innards hadn't spilled out of him suddenly. Grazivus had already ran his blade through the man, covering atleast three or four yards in the matter of a second, before the man's blade had hit the ground.
From there, of course, it was easily a slaughter.
The body of the guitar, composed of pure shadow, smashed the guard behind Grazivus in the face, fracturing the nose and bruising both eyes, along with many cracked and shattered teeth. Blood flowed freely from all orifices, and the attack sent shockwaves into the man's skull. As his moans and wails began, another guard lost his head. By the time the head and body hit the ground, the remaining seven men realized they had just lost two more in five more seconds.
The tallest of the patrol swung his sword at the back of the head of this terror, but Grazivus ducked and swung around behind, slicing the man's calves out as he fell backwards, no more than halfway through with his sword swing. The look of agonized surprise on the man's face as he hit the ground was blotted out by a boot of pure darkness smashing his head in, several repulsive cracks resounding and pieces of head oozing out.
Six.
One man had managed to cover about a yard, but a blade severed his spinal cord from behind, rending his legs useless as he crumpled pathetically to the ground, already bawling and screaming.
"Sad state for a man." came that horrid, beast-like voice. He grabbed him by the forehead, flinging him violently through the thick brush, likely flying some twenty yards into the brush, taking out stalks of bamboo as he flew.
Five.
And three of these men were able to sink their blades into Grazivus. One in the calf, one in the back, and one in his forehead. And then a weezing, hateful laugh started to roll over the lips of this shadow.
Then the three blades clanked to the floor as Grazivus simply disappeared.
Silence. Horrified surprise. The only noticeable things. One soldier still moaned, on the brink of death, with blood pouring from every hole in his head. When the soldiers had thought he was really gone, they went over to check on their comrade. Obviously, it wasn't good.
"Sir, I think we got him." piped up second in command, if a little unsure.
"Uhm.... yes.... I suppose we did." replied the captain of the halved patrol. He knew the man moaning on the ground would die very soon. "Give him what comforts you can." he said silently as they tended to the agonized man.
"Tsu Zhan, I want you to go back to base and report in. Everyone needs to be on full alert...... Soldier, are you listening?!" the commander shouted, turning to see Grazivus cut his second in commands throat open in a crimson spray while on his knees, hostage style. The captain jumped back and started to give orders to the three others, ready to fight. Only two were able to regroup as another was impaled on a bamboo spear sticking straight out of the ground, the weight of his body sliding him down the hole in his stomach slowly. The man had only shock as the agony of being impaled set in, letting out sudden yells of pain, deadened by his punctured diaphragm. He suffocated to death in the end.
And now left the three remaining soldiers.
Grazivus chuckled in a dark, beastial mockery. "Fun. Though... growing bored. Get this over with."
He appeared next to one of the two lower soldiers, grabbing the guards' head with both hands and freeing it from his shoulders with a sickening, cracking twist of the head, blood spraying on the other two.
The other man went to run, made it five feet, and lost his left foot as he rolled to the earth. He was giving frantic, quick screams as the pain and gushing blood drove him nearly insane. And a dark grin from Grazivus was the last sane sight he saw as he felt his manhood cleaved from his waist, his thighs both cut as well. His screams echoed loud and high until a boot to the face calmed him forever.
One.
The captain was literally shaking in his boots. He didn't want to die this way. He knew he would. "No, not without a fight. Not without a fight, I will not go down!" he screamed at the mocking shadow, laughing golden eyes and a wicked smirk meeting him back.
The captain raised his sword, gave a charge at Grazivus, and sunk his blade into thin air as Grazivus rolled behind the captain, lopped off a leg, and disarmed the captain with a blade to the right wrist. He gave several pained groans, surpressed, as he rolled onto his back to look at his murderer.
He saw nothing in those eyes. No emotions, nothing but an unfathomable darkness. And all the emotions they inspired in him.
And Grazivus grabbed the captain by the forehead with one hand. The grip was a frozen, burning grasp, and it drove him to the point of madness. Then black tendrils ensnared the man, wrapping his body in a cocoon of darkness.
Then it shifted form, and morphed into a neo shadow.
Converted to a heartless.

Everything suddenly jumped to action- or rather, oblivion- as springs of darkness popped up all over the planet, consuming everything. Heartless were stealing hearts left and right. At the Emperors' Palace, Grazivus suddenly appeared and turned the Emperor into a massive heartless. From there, everything was consumed until all that remained was a paradise for heartless. Much like what Earth now was. A hole of festering darkness.
The Land of Dragons was no more.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Sat Jun 26, 2010 1:09 pm

I arrived to see what was left of my brother standing next to what I could only assume was Grazivus.

"Be at peace my brother, your time here is finally over."

I raised my hand, and a beam of pure white light shot forth and pierced the center of the massive heartless's forehead. It fell back, dissipating into nothingness.

The bastard stood there. The one who killed my brother. The one who killed my future wife. Then one who I knew would try to kill me.

Grazivus.

"You have taken your last heart today Grazivus. You and I are forever. No matter what I do, I'll never be able to completely destroy you, I can see that. You know just as well as I do that with the power I have at my disposable, the same could be said for me. We are eternal. But that doesn't mean you get to keep taking the lives of millions. I have slain everything you have thrown at me. I'll continue to do so. Nothing will stop me from seeing that you are locked away for eternity. Your crime: Attempting to enslave all life. Your sentence: An eternity in solitude, where you can do no harm to anyone. It begins today."

I began to transformation of The Land of Dragons. I had always wondered why that was the name of this world. Now I will never know.

It only took a short moment. After I had finished, we stood in an arena. The entire world was gray. The absolute balance between Light and Dark.

"I've trapped us here. You and I are never leaving together. This world is life locked. The only way to escape is to be the last one standing. This battle determines the fate of existence. I'm the last opposition you'll have to worry about. Everything else is too weak. This ends here, and now."

I waited for a response, even though I was sure whatever was left of him wouldn't bother speaking to me. I gave him one last chance to give up.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Fri Jul 02, 2010 11:44 am

He gave an unnaturally large frown, baring his jagged teeth. With his robes and wide hate tattered, his color of being returned, his skin showed black veins running wildly across his flesh. His guitar, the neck of it now longer, was still the color of pure darkness. Four red strings ran down it instead of six. With a very careful ear, a low murmuring could be heard, almost undoubtedly coming from the guitar. It was like a chant.
"You dare to match ME?!" he whispered as a growl, his last word an echoing roar across the gray landscape. Whatever reasoning and intellect Grazivus once had, it was now lost among hate and twisted insanity. His shell was nothing but the embodiment- a puppet- of the darkness. And while to most, it would make them reckless, this was not so for the thing in front of Darrien. He was calm. But Grazivus's arrogance had carried over, and arrogance always led to mistakes.
"You interrupt my work. My beautiful work. And for what? The lives of so many worthless FOOLS?! I was doing this universe a favor. So now, I must correct you so I can carry on, you who acts in the name of light. I will trap and consume you, like a mighty black hole blots out all forms of light. I will destroy you in the crushing blackness of oblivion!" He drew his blade in the blink of an eye, and suddenly was in front of Darrien, blade swinging down towards the top of his skull, shield raised slightly. He didn't expect any counter-attack. It showed he didn't think much of his opponent, and all previous battles were forgotten with the death of the real Grazivus.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Fri Jul 02, 2010 12:55 pm

The blade swung down, and struck me square across the head. Darkness spilled into my mind, and the as the blade finished the path it was on, my skull was destroyed. I don't know what happened afterwards. Things went black. Ghostwheel recorded everything that ever happened that day, and the information he has is as follows:

"Grazivus's blade had killed him. I had been worried that my master had died. I knew, deep down in my coding, that he was alive, and I was right. After the blade finished it's path, what remained of my master's skull started to glow. Slowly, it started to reconstruct itself. In less then 10 seconds, his skull was fully recovered."

There was darkness all around me, but I fought harder then I ever had before. I didn't know what was going on, but I knew I had to fight and win to live. In the end, I gave myself to the darkness. But something strange happened. Instead of over taking me, it became a part of me, combined with what I already was. This new entity was powerful, but he drew upon something I thought I had caged away. The evil in me was released. It was a living thing, this evil. Then it spoke to me, told me it was willing to help defeat this evil so long as we would live as one. My evil overtook the darkness, drew it into himself, and then was calm. Then we were one.

"Grazivus." We spoke to him, in two different voices simultaneously. "You have let the beast in you reign free. We are here to fix that. We know you're still in there somewhere. We will save you."

Our hand was on his head before time had a chance to stop us. The purge must have hurt him, but not even the thing that had over taken Grazivus could survive the onslaught of power we forced through his mind. Whatever was controlling Grazivus had a choice. Stay and die the most painful death mentally and physically possible, or leave his body and be given a chance to live.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Fri Jul 02, 2010 1:52 pm

The look of triumph on his face was indescribable as his blade found it's mark. What an easy victory. He sheathed his blade and went to turn around when he noticed an odd glowing coming from his fallen opponents' body.
"Can't you just die?" his beastly growl sneered. He had a single thought, to grab his blade again and entirely sever the head, when pain coursed through his mind and every blackened vein, dropping to his knees. The heartless that had taken the place of Broken Harmony screamed, searing the thoughts of Grazivus. He could hardly even tell that a hand was locked on his forehead as his vision was entirely overtaken by a blinding light. His eyes poured light and his black veins were overtaken by a pure white. Then it moved to his guitar, at first one fine white crack down the center. Spider webbing, the crack appeared all over until it shattered, dissipating in a dark mist. All the hearts claimed from Broken Harmony and its true essence were released. His features became human again as he fell backwards, one last spasm of pain leaving his body from the purge.
Freed from the darkness he had long ago accepted so willingly, his last sight was a figure standing over him in a gray sky, before falling unconscious.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Fri Jul 02, 2010 2:06 pm

In our combined voices, we spoke "It is done"

I felt the evil's presence in my mind shrink, though I could still feel it there.

He survived the purge. I didn't think it possible.

"Come on buddy, we'll get you to safety" I said, and the evil's voice was gone.

I lifted the unconscious body off the ground, and I forced the land of dragons back into existence.

I brought him to a stump in the forest and sat him down. I would have woken him up with my power, but I was afraid I might kill him, so I let him wake up naturally.

This was going to be quite the story to tell to all the members of Darkrose.

Subject: Re: The Consumption of the Land of Dragons Sun Jul 04, 2010 12:43 am

I didn't know if he would be waking up anytime soon, so I figured I'd just leave him a note. I obtained a pen and paper, and began writing down everything I had known about what had happened, with the help of GW to fill in the parts I was missing. I ended the note with a message to Grazivus, telling him that I forgave him for everything that he had done, and that I expected to see him again soon, just to check up on him. I placed a tracer in his pocket, a very tiny little chip that would allow me to track his whereabouts. If he moved, I'd know.

I laid him down gently onto the ground next to the stump, and I started walking towards the city. There were still plenty of heartless to take down, as the world was still consumed.

I though, and sent Ghostwheel out to get something I required. He cam back with a keyblade. Perfect. I put the magnificent weapon away, and I began gather the power I required. It took about 15 minutes of concentration to get the job done.

Then I purified the Land of Dragons, Just as I had purified Halloween Town. The world was left as it was before the attack. Everything was as it should be.

But problems still remained.

Organization Darkrose, and returning them to their homes, along with helping them obtain their hearts.

Organization XIII, and the destruction they have caused.

But one thing still remained after all of that.

I traveled to Heroes HQ.