Exuviate

Prologue "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." - Holy Bible (1611 P.E.,King James Version) An unnatural heat suffused throughout the basement of the posh Twilight town flat that was currently under siege. No more apt term could describe the scenes on the street with forty soldiers resplendent in their full combat attire emblazoned with the emblem of the Purification division of the Crusade. It would be a breathtaking sight destined to remain unseen by the residents of the offending flat. Led by none other than the Judicator Atanis,a grizzled veteran of one hundred Purges, the white tabards draped over their kevlar vests screamed their purpose more effectively than any words could. The tabards depicted a single white ray entering through a prism and being refracted into the sum of its parts before entering a second prism to be restored to its monochromatic glory. The living incarnation of the second prism, the Judicator frowned as his heightened senses detected an ominous but impossible sign. "Blazes!" He swore, "Bring it down! I don't care if you need to bomb the whole building bring it down now!" Sweating as the insidious heat he should not be able to feel continued to rise. "B- b-but sir! The entire building seems to be protected by something resembling an ethereal shield" his chief attendant stammered carefully, not blaspheming by stating the obvious. An ethereal shield was the ultimate protection granted from the Bishops of either side nothing short of atomics would penetrate it. "Blazes boy! Don't you see the logo on your chest? How could some heretic use an ethereal shield?!" Atanis cursed sure as he was in his convictions while privately sweating "Just look for weaknesses, today we acquire this petty imagination for the Crusade!" As if in confirmation of the Judicator's errant words, a sharp c***k resounded through the street, one of the soldiers had breached a door with the carbon enhanced staff shaped like a shepherd's crook. "Breach! For the Light! All in!" the frustration of the extended siege causing the soldiers to neglect caution in their misplaced zeal. The first soldier to enter the building would never forget the sheer wrongness he felt when he entered the building, "something's wrong.." he murmured, afraid his colleagues would hear the fear in his voice. Atanis saw the breach in etiquette by his soldiers and vowed to have words with his squad when the matter was resolved. He listened to the sounds of the team's entrance, while recording the names of the soldiers to be retrained. So caught up was he in his own thoughts that he failed at first to hear or rather to notice the abrupt silence. “Team Report!” He shouted into the communication mic, only to be greeted by an ominous silence “Blazes! Report!" He unfolded himself from his makeshift command post, rage beginning to build throughout his densely packed six foot frame as he kicked open a door left half opened by his team. He stiffened at the threshold, a stark contrast to his unfortunate subordinate who could only guess in his ignorance as to the instinctive wrongness. No guesswork was needed for one so wizened and he immediately deduced the severity of the offense. A portal to one of the ethereal realms had been opened here and every treasonous fibre of his being screamed at him to leave. Instead his footsteps quickened and he drew his trusted firearm as he followed the pervading heat to its source. For a man who cursed as much as he did, his team would be shocked if they knew that he even held his breath as he stood outside of the basement door transfixed, trying to feel with his senses for what lay beyond. That timeless moment that all rational beings fear, when irrational fear grips the mind and paralyzes thought. Creak The door swung open of its volition, the sweltering heat slamming into his face with all the strength of a furnace. In a daze he forged forward, years of training prompting his body to the proper purge protocol until his mind could catch up.... Firearm First. Battle Crouch. Identify Living Targets. Eliminate. Except the first thing he noticed was his soldiers all lying so still that one would think them dead save for the presence of the rhythmic rise and the fall of their kevlar. "Welcome Judicator! We were one short after all!" a shrill voice with a zealot's conviction shattered the silence, a voice Atanis knew intimately. The voice of the traitor Mortanis, former bishop of the Light the very bishop who once trained Atanis as an acolyte of the Light. "Mortanis! What have you done?!" Atanis snapped, brandishing his pistol already breaking protocol by not simply firing first. "I needed one more you see, now witness the birth of an Ascendant unshackled!" cackled Mortanis. In that one sentence the full extent of his crime was revealed, and the setting slowly revealed itself to Atanis befuddled mind. He could see the source of the heat as burnished candelabras placed strategically throughout the room illuminated the silhouette of a child, Mortanis' own first born. Exhale...Aim...Squeeze The judicator braced himself for the resounding c***k as he gave himself over completely to protocol and opened fire on this heretic of heretics. "Once an acolyte always an acolyte," the disappointment was clear in Mortanis' sigh as he continued undaunted despite the bullet lodged between the eyes. The shock of Mortanis' words registered only after his mind attempted to rationalize that he missed despite the lead pointing to the contrary. Exhale...Aim...FREEZE His body was no longer his own as the heat and fire from the candelabras rose to a blinding crescendo. An unholy requiem began to play from just out of earshot. He stared transfixed as the flames began to dance jumping from candle to candle until a sphere of light and fire the size of a man's head hovered in the middle of the room. That sphere needed no introduction as his soul of servitude to the Light immediately recognized that unnatural sphere as the physical manifestation of a Seraph. Just as quickly as it had spawned, the sphere flew into the breast of the child more than two years old. "It is done, Light be praised" Mortanis intoned and in the absence of the candle's light darkness settled heavily on the room. "O illumination.." The Judicator's plea to the Light was weak as his mind raced to find a way to deal with this abomination. A child Ascendant with the soul of a major Seraph if the size of the manifestation was any metric. However fate had more in store for this young child as the candles revived. "Stop! Whatever you are doing, Atanis stop!" panic entering the traitor's voice the first time since the siege. So convinced was he that this occurrence was triggered by Atanis that he drew his own firearm before freezing too. Something had gone wrong, the candles were no longer filling the room with heat but instead consuming it. Cold shadows flickered on the walls as the temperature continued to plummet. They both stared in horror as the shadows began to dance like their predecessors. Until coalescing to a metre wide puddle so black that it made ink seem bright in comparison. They watched the puddle grow as it threatened to swallow the room before rushing over to the child's shadow. "No Son! Reject it!" Screamed Mortanis futilely as his wound began to bleed for the first time. His dream of his son being the ultimate ascendant of the light shattered before his fanatical eyes. But how could one two year old human child reject one ancient being let alone two? The child screamed for the first time since the ritual started, the soldiers waking with a scream on their lips. The judicator could only look on in horror as rays of light and darkness exploded out of the child sweeping everything in its path and just like that Jin, son of Mortanis was an orphan.